I Will Come Back for You

I am currently teaching an introductory Ethics class at Frostburg State. My class of 29 students is mostly freshmen. While part of the time in class is about contemporary ethical issues such as abortion, gun control , euthanasia, climate change and more, I also spend a good deal of the class having students look within and think about their own values. I have spent the weekend reading their essays answering the question of what might be their chosen vocation in the world using the Frederick Buechner quote: “where their deepest gladness meets the world’s greatest need”. As I read the essays, I was taken back to when I was around the same age and remembered a recent dream.

A few years ago, I had a dream in which I returned to my summer camp. I attended Camp Nakanawa for Girls Near Crossville, Tennessee for six summers as a camper from age 12 to 17. Over my lifetime, I have returned to camp as a counselor—not only during my college years but at times of transition in my life. I returned for six weeks in the summer when I married, when I was wrestling with a new call in my life, and when I became a grandparent and my granddaughter Emma began going to camp. This place on the Cumberland Plateau is a place where I go when I feel I have lost my way and forgotten who I am.

In this dream, I am walking across the tennis courts (my favorite activity as a camper and where I spent time as a counselor teaching tennis most summers). I was headed to one of my former cabins—Cabin 31— where I lived for the summer when I became an “elder” counselor (one that didn’t have a cabin full of campers). This area of cabins consisted of small one room buildings and the area was called Queens’ Row. In my dream, I walked right up to the screened window and looked in Cabin 31. There in the cabin was a 17-year-old version of myself. I was wearing my “Sunday Whites”—white shirt and shorts. I was young, tan, with long brown hair. I seemed happy, confident and hopeful. As I used to do a good bit in my teenage years, I was looking in a mirror on the wall. My adult self said one sentence to my 17-year-old self that I just can’t get out of my mind. I said: “Don’t worry. I will come back for you.” Then the dream ended.

I can’t seem to get those words out of my heart and soul. I will come back for you…..What did I mean about “coming back” for her? What have parts of me have I left behind or locked away with that 17-year old girl that it is now time to reclaim?

John O’Donohue writes that as we move into adulthood, we sometimes “fix” on an image of ourselves where we feel we will be safe and secure as we move into the world. But that fixed image can, over the years, keep us from a full life because that image becomes the focus of all our longings. We forget about some essential parts of us that are our gifts to the world and self. Our soul does not forget though—and will call to us. Dreams are often the soul’s language.

O’Donohue writes: "In the inner landscapes of the soul is a nourishing and melodious voice of freedom always calling you. It encourages you to enlarge your frames of belonging—not to settle for a false shelter that does not serve your potential….One of the most crippling prisons is the prisons of reduced identity. Who are you behind your mask, behind your role? Who are you behind your words? Friendship and love should be safe regions where your unknown selves can come out and play. Love should liberate you both…We remain so hesitant and frightened to enjoy the beauty of our own divinity.” (Eternal Echoes)

Not long after my final summer as a camper at camp—when I was 17—I fixated on becoming an attorney like my father. Somewhere in those years to follow, I left the hope and joy of the young girl behind. We all grow up but we sometimes close off important pieces of who we are. I believe that part of my longing for home is a longing for my whole self. An integrated self. I am now looking to reclaim that full self—even though I can’t run across the tennis court like before. I want to live with hope, confidence and joy.

In order to do this, I believe that I will need to three practices: (1) Protected Spaciousness; (2) Radical Simplicity and (3) Invitational Leadership. I began to learn about all of these three practices going to Camp Nakanawa for Girls. In the next weeks, I will explore how I integrate these practices to recover my whole self NOW—especially integrating that young girl looking into the mirror.

Ponderings for the Week: Is there a place where you found you full self as a child? Did you begin to leave that child behind at some point in your life? How can you recover parts of that self?