We are about to go on a camping trip among our congregation in a couple weeks. We will have shared meals, cabin and tent camping, maybe holding our hands and singing over a fire. About a month ago, I left town for about eight days, and went on a camping trip, though a very different one than the one we will be on. I want to take you on a journey with me. I ask that if you hit a place of doubt in the story, to hold some faith. I'll drive. All a hundred or so of you can ride with me in my Honda. Along with all of your camping equipment and packed items. We're on the road driving, getting closer to the campgrounds. We can see them approaching on the right. Some people have already showed up and are setting up the picnic area. It's a right turn ahead and.. we're going to turn left instead. I guess for technical accuracy, this left turn was onto route 40 towards Tennessee, but let's roll with it. We're on a forest road moving away from the campground. It's long, windy, and full of gravel. It's going further into the National Forest Service. The GPS is no good here. The directions and map are handwritten on a piece of paper. One of you is going to need to navigate us. I know what you are thinking. I can't get phone service either. There's no sign of human traffic through here, if the Accord gets stuck in a ditch on the side of the road here, we're S. O. L. Just hold some faith. In the opposite direction, a pick up truck is coming around the corner. We're at a standstill, as the road is not wide enough for both of us. So we got to do a little dance to make room for one of us to pass. We stop next to each other, roll our windows down. We talk for ten minutes about where we're coming from. The pick up truck man says there are a bunch of people a mile down the road. Just so you know, a mile down the road is code. It means two to three miles. On that road, at that speed, it's another ten to fifteen minutes. Finally we reach a line of parked cars, meticulously positioned off of the service road, not quite falling off the cliff. Again have faith. We find a parking spot, park, and turn off the vehicle. All a hundred of us get out of the car, do a little bit of stretching, a little bit of unpacking. We're not quite there yet. We're organizing our gear for the next step. We've arrived at a local rainbow gathering. Further down the path, hauling all of the gear, we reach the kitchen. It's something you've never seen before. Two very large tarp roofs, one over the kitchen, one over a common area where people can hang out any time of day. Bring your own camping chair. The kitchen is a marvel. Fold up tables and countertops made of tree limbs roped together. A dish washing pit, propane burners, and a metal barrel surrounded by mud with a fire pit underneath as an oven. There's a table for snacks, but they are cranking out 3 hot meals every day. For sanitation purposes, no meat is prepared. Everything is vegetarian. There are hand washing stations throughout the site. Some people showed up weeks ahead of time and set up filtered water irrigation. So you can fill up whenever. When else do you have an opportunity to carry water? There is also a compost pit and grey water pit by the kitchen. An eight person tent filled with pantry and dry goods, and three rope hammocks with all sorts of fruit and vegetables. Beans, Potatoes, and Rice are big staples out here. But we also have space for treats too. One night a person brought in several dozen packs of oreos and deep fried them in pancake batter. At this point, you can go and find a place to set up your camp. Since we came as a community, maybe we can find a large area a little out of the way and set up our own shared space, with a little kitchen and common water storage. It might require a little bushcrafting. We try to do things ecologically here, but at the end of the day, we're an occupying force in this ecosystem, and we have to sit with that tension. At the very least, leave no trace. Bag all your trash. We ask that there is no public alcohol consumption, or use of hard drugs. Your money is no good here, unless you want to donate to the kitchen for their bulk food runs. But we have families with children here, and also people who are coming from situations of being unhoused, in substance use/addiction/recovery, and current or former foster care, sometimes prison. We're able to foster a space where we can live together for a week safely and look out for each other. The one place you can consume alcohol is at the parking area, and if you need to, in the privacy of your own tent. There still might be a lot of pot smoking around and desexualized nudity. If it's too much for your family, There are two community camps set up for families with kids and their trusted friends. There are lots of swimming holes around in these mountains, and it'll be cold. But let me tell you, doing that dip each day, maybe even twice or three times in a day, will cure ailments in your body you never knew needed curing. There is wildlife out here, and there may be some venomous snakes. Keep your movements slow and they will naturally figure you are there and avoid a confrontation. Please don't remove or stack rocks. I know it seems fun and cool to do, but it messes with the habitats for endangered hellbender salamanders. You wouldn't like it if a giant came along and picked up your house. The boars and the bears have naturally been spooked away by all the people camping. If you run into a problem safety wise where you or somebody needs help. If you get hurt. If you don't feel safe around somebody. The magic word to remember is Shanta Sena. This is a Sanscript word for 'Peace Army'. Yell it if you need to at the top of your lungs. Anyone within hearing distance, if they are able in the moment to at the least, be a deescalating and calm presence, will come and we will come. While we don't have a medic encampment at this size, we have people trained in CPR and have people here who are nurses, paramedics, medically competent people. Someone trusted and sober will drive you to a hospital if it comes down to it. We love you, and, we are not above forcing people to leave or taping them to a tree while supervised so they can calm down and sober up if they are acting amok and putting others in danger. As kids or those new to this type of life, sometimes we fear about the monster in the closet, or the cryptids like Bigfoot and Mothman who live in the woods. As we learn more, it ends up being that the scariest monsters end up being people. And as a radically welcoming space, we want to keep the most marginalized and vulnerable among us safe. Many of us have been going to these events for decades, and know each other over a very long time. One of the best safeties is building long term relationships of care and trust. Even over eight days of camping, you get to know your neighbors. For every person with questionable or unsavory motives, there are 3-5 more people who genuinely are looking out for you and your party's safety. The culture is very matriarchal, and revering of elders. We will tell you, if somebody is suspected to have a Cluster B Personality Disorder or has a history of anything. One man showed up the other day, a little rough around the edges. He was glad to be here and is an unhoused person with no camping gear or vehicle. We gave him some space and made sure he had everything he needed to be comfortable. He had the job given of maintaining our heart fire at the center of the site. If you show up with nothing but the clothes off your back, we will make sure that you are taken care of with the bits of extras each of us has that we don't need. At the larger styles of these gatherings, there are thousands of people who flood into the national forest, and honestly, it's really disruptive to the ecosystem and the wildlife there. It's way beyond the carrying capacity these woods are meant to support. This isn't quite that. This is closer to camping with 74 of your closest friends, because 75 or more and you need a permit from the forest service. There are generally more of these types of events that are held regionally and locally once a year, more than any of us would be aware of even for those looped in. We are here for eight days, leading up to the Summer Solstice. Or as I call it, the Summer Salsa. More people will show up leading up to the day, probably capping here between a hundred and a hundred and fifty people. It's not unusual to have a few people fasting for days prior, to break that fast at high noon. All morning till then is intentional silence. We ask you to refrain from speaking in public spaces in that time. If you need to communicate with somebody, you can write, whisper, do sign language, charades, whatever. But we're observing silence. It's very fun to be volunteering in the kitchen that morning, and communicate instructions over charades. Shortly before high noon, a horn will be blown. The kids there, with their grown ups and trusted helpers, will go to the costume tent, and pick out silly outfits for what comes next. The Kids Parade, where we break the silence. And we circle around our families. And we sing to them and send our love to them. We observe all the directions. And then we eat a huge feast. And there will be a few watermelons broken into and shared. And we will celebrate into the late of night and into the morning. Well some people will. I'm going to bed as soon as it gets dark. The next day we take it slow and easy, start on clean up and at night have our no-talent show. We pack everything out we packed in. Lots of things are shared and given for free, especially to lighten the kitchens load. If you return to this site in a year, you might find where our poop trench was, there may be a watermelon patch growing in that spot. If that happens, beautiful, but I'm still not eating any of those watermelons. Something I learned over camping in Nantahala is that if you explore by the forest road, you will find very old grave sites, often with withered stone markings. Many of these burial sites were for Black soldiers who were forced to fight for the confederate during the Civil War. The racism of the time found Black bodies, even those that were forced to fight for these racist systems, to not be holy enough to bury in the other cemeteries. And I think about that a lot. There's also a great flower farm five minutes down the main road if you want to pick some up for the grave sites. This whole story can be found as a post on my blog. I also did a podcast episode with Tiziana this past week and we’re looking at having it published in September. My birthday is in four days. I will be the same age my father was when I was conceived. By all metrics, my life is worse and more difficult than the previous generation, but I am choosing to find joy each day . I have a realy bold wishlist of items that would make either my life more wonderful, other peoples lives more wonderful, I will send you forth with a song we sing at Mercy in the evenings from Isiaiah 55:12. 'You shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace, the mountains and the hills will break forth before you. There will be shouts of joy, and all of the trees of the field, will clap their hands.'