Our dog Finn loves to roll in the mud. And he seems to know where the best mud holes are on our walks along Amity Creek or on the Lester River trails. He’s happy being a dirty dog. I guess I can’t complain too much since back when I was a Girl Scout camp counselor my camp name was Muddy and my group, always the youngest girl’s in camp, were Muddy’s puddles. At the end of the week of camp I always let my group put on their worst clothes and we would romp in the mud before going swimming in the lake to clean off. There’s something truly healing about mud.
I was grateful for my early camp counselor experiences when I was co-leading my daughter Maddie’s scout troop. When the girls were 11 we took a trip to Camp Rondelay over in Gordon, Wisconsin. Things weren’t going so well on this weekend camping trip of 13 girls and two adults. The girls were cold and it began to drizzle as we struggled to make our morning breakfast of pancakes and bacon over a tiny little fire. They hadn’t slept well the night before. Homesickness began to creep into the group. One girl announced, “three of us want to go home!” What could I do to save this trip? I was worried about homesickness becoming rampant in our campers.
Desperate I yelled out “Put on your bog clothes!“ Please, I prayed to myself change your clothes, and change your mood. It worked as they screamed in excitement. They loved the bog, we had gone the year before so they knew what lie ahead. Together we hiked out of the woods and to the bog that exists between the two lakes of the camp. We had put on the camp bog shoes prior to leaving which was good thing too for the mud threatened to suck up our shoes with each step.
We walked on until we got to our destination, the hole. It’s a wonderful hole in the bog filled with mud and other bog stuff. The girls rolled in. They too loved being dirty. The tricky thing about the bog though is that you have to relax. If you struggle you go deeper and deeper into the mud. You never get out by standing up or struggling. You have to lay back and roll out. The girls cheered each other on “Get muddy!” The mood changed, dirty clothes but new attitudes. We walked back to camp singing, “ We’re bog bouncing, we’re bog bouncing, we’re rolling in the mud and we’re bog bouncing . . . “
Life at the bog is a lot like life. We can’t be afraid of getting dirty, of digging in, but we also must relax a little, let go of the struggle and roll on through and out. It’s like the words of Psalm 40: 1 – 3 “God drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. God put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.” May we all do a little bog bouncing with those we love, following the lead of our dog, I mean God.
Comments are closed.