On my car radio the weather service had just pronounced the official end of the growing season in the Adirondacks and warned that here, further south in New York’s Catskill Mountains, the temperature would drop below freezing in Frost Valley, where the MROP-NE was being held.
At check-in, I was offered the choice to either camp in solitude in a far off field at the edge of the YMCA property or to join in community and conversation in a cabin assigned to other initiated men. I chose the field.
I’m busy enough, for a retired guy. Mondays and Tuesdays I baby-sit for twin grand-daughters. Wednesdays I run a men’s spirituality group. And every Thursday I meet my spiritual director and participate in our Woodstock Bible study group. So, given the opportunity, I went into the field, pulled out my sleeping bag, set up my tarp, and gathered wood for a fire.
About half an hour after darkness fell, ten or so guys came up the trail. They’d seen the fire, and were gathered to it, the way that seekers have always gathered for the warmth of brotherhood and for the fire light that has always set the stage for the telling of stories.
Eventually, someone was asked to lead a meditation. We fell into silence and stillness. On our faces we could feel the heat from the fire, even as we could feel the darkness and chill at our backs.
Perhaps we thought we were done, but just then the half-moon broke through the trees.
All I can say is that the moon invited us to pray.
To pray the way nature prays.
And for a few moments, it felt like each of us found that way to pray—in nature, on nature, and as nature.
When we had finished looking up, we said our good-nights. The half-light, half-dark of the half moon gave most of the men what they needed to find their way down the path to their cabin. Two of the younger men set out their sleeping bags on opposite sides of the fire circle and huddled close to its still warm rocks.
Ducking down under my tarp, I pulled my sleeping bag around me and sat up a while longer. I recalled that our campfire stories had been mostly about mistakes we had made. And yet there was no one that the half-moon had revealed as a mistake.
We are darkness and light, but we are not mistakes. We are nature’s prayer—the way nature celebrates everything that the light and dark reveal.
Photo credit: Lignori, Jim.
Bury Me On Wildcat Mountain
In The Place Where I Came Closest To God
Lay My Body To Rest On The Hillside
Where I Was Naked And Unafraid
When The Time Comes
When I Will Be Asked To Leave This Earth
May The Lord Know Who I Am
And Please Be Sure He Will Not
Need To Travel Very Far
To Pick Me Up And Carry Me Home
For, If You Would Ask Me Now
I Have For Too Long Desired To Be With Him
And I Have Already Been To Heaven
In A Place Nearby, You Know Where
I Have Seen The Lord’s Face In Those Of My Family
And Those Of My Friends
And In Yours
Even In Those Of People I Do Not Know
I Cannot Wait To Re-Join
My Mother And Father
And All Those I Have Lost
……..And My Dogs……..
(I’m Coming, Rusty!)
So, I Pray That I Will Be Judged Worthy
And Rejoice In That Place
Where I Will Serve Them All
For An Eternity Of God’s Making
Do you have a poem, essay or photo that captures a particular men's issue or aspect of men's spirituality that is important to you? Submit it for consideration in an upcoming issue of The Drumbeat. Submission guidelines are as follows: Poems may have up to 50 lines. Essays should be between 400 and 700 words in length. Digital photos should be taken in high resolution (high dpi) and measure at least 500 pixels wide by 300 pixels high. Please email your submission to menswork@cacradicalgrace.org with subject: "For Drumbeat: Passage and Verse."
We reclaim the spiritual initiation of men through experiential
journeying into the True Self, creating a tradition for future generations.
A program of the Center for Action and Contemplation
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