Oh Great Spirit, under whose sky we meet, let us remember we are not alone here tonight and all your creatures are our brothers.  Let us be gentle to our earth mother and take care of our world.  Amen.

To Teach and Touch

Bobwhite Jonz

Years ago I attended a week-long Boy Scout Leader training at Snow Canyon State Park in the southwestern corner of Utah.  One evening at the conclusion of a rousing campfire program the training staff carried a large Park Service American flag out of the darkness.  The flag was carried into the campfire circle and held high above the fire.  After a flag retirement ceremony was read, the flag was slowly lowered until the cloth began to steam from the heat.  At the instant that the center of the large flag burst into flames, the staff folded it in on itself and it was immediately consumed without seeming to ever fall to the ground.

After the ceremony the staff disappeared again into the darkness of the night.  Those of us who had experienced this ceremony sat in stunned silence for forty-five minutes until we came to the realization that the ceremony was over.

Campfires are a time to teach and touch.  Don’t miss the opportunity to do both.

The little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields above the sea,
Among the minds at play;
Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming or the bees,
The foolish fears of what may happen,
I cast them all way,
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new mown hay.
Among the husking of he corn
Where drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born
Out in the field with God.

R. L. Stevenson.

Did you ever watch the campfire
When the moon had fallen low,
And the ashes start to whiten
Round the embers’ crimson glow,
When the night sounds all around you
Making silence doubly sweet,
That the spell may be complete?
Tell me, were you ever nearer
To the land of heart’s desire,
With your face turned toward the fire?

A Japanese fable tells of an ancient prophet who every morning left his village and went into the mountains where he would study nature and God and learn of the laws, and each evening he would come home and teach his fellow villagers the things he had learned that day. One time as he was about to leave, one of this listeners came rushing to him and said, “Good Master, won’t you bring me a branch of holly when you  return tonight that I may learn more about the secrets which you say it holds?” The prophet answered, “Yes, I will bring you a holly branch.” Another stopped him and said, “Won’t you bring me a rose like the one you told us of last evening, that I may learn more completely its lesson of beauty of which you spoke?” To him the prophet said, “Yes.” A third listener came and said, “Please bring me a lily from the mountains that I may know more the purity of which you spoke last evening.”

The good prophet did as he was requested. As he entered the little village that night, he gave his first disciple a branch of holly, to the second a rose, and to the third a while lily. “Oh,” cried the first, “my branch has a dead leaf on it.” And the second said, “My rose has thorns on it.” The third said with disdain, “And this lily has dirt about its roots.” The prophet answered, “Let me have your green holly and your red rose and your white lily.”

He plucked the dried leaf from the holly, the thorns from the rose, and the dirt from the lily and handed these back unto his would-be disciples saying, “The thing of these beauties of nature which attracted you first shall be yours. I shall keep the rest.”

The Land Of The Storybook

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Baltimore Area Council

At evening when the lamp is lit,
Around the fire my parents sit:
They sit at home and talk and sing,
And do not play at anything.

Now, with my little gun I crawl,
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow ‘round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.

There in the night, where none can spy,
All in my hunter’s camp I lie,
And play at books that I have read,
Till it is time to go to bed.