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 I would be attending a men's retreat.
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 men. I chose the field.
I'm busy enough, for a retired guy. Mondays and Tuesdays I baby-sit for twin grand-daughters. On Wednesdays, I run a men's spirituality group. And every Thursday I 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 fellowship 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 all fell into silence and stillness. On our faces we could feel the heat from the fire, even as we sensed the darkness and chill at our backs.
Perhaps we thought we were done for the evening, 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 for a while longer. I recalled that our campfire stories had been mostly about mistakes we had made. And yet, in nature there are no mistakes.
"Nothing is thrown away, no one is left behind." Everyone and everything belongs to nature’s prayer– the way nature embraces all that its light and dark reveal.
