TENT

The circus has come to town. Several times a week, in the course of doing my job I drive by three huge tents, white with deep royal blue swirls cascading to the ground declare Cirque Du Soleil is in town here in Sacramento for the month of February. I'd like to go see this spectacle. A few years ago my mother gave us two tickets to see the circus when it was in San Francisco. It was a memorable experience, but the tent used back then was not as beautiful as the tents the troupe has erected here in Sacramento. Seeing those tents has caused me to revisit my love of tents.

Growing up we had a little 9' X 9' dark green heavy canvas tent. Every summer we would haul it up to our family's favorite campground along the Middle Fork of the Yuba here in northern California. It was where we spent our summer vacation weeks when my folks had time off from their jobs. It wasn't far from home, probably just less than 30 miles, but it always felt worlds away for me.

Dad always folded it up precisely into thirds, one side in a third, the other side on top then the oblong folded again into thirds leaving a folded square of canvas about 3' square. It seemed magical to me whenever we would site that square where it would finally reside for the couple of weeks we would camp. Dad would carefully unfold it, stake it down, then crawl inside with the umbrella-like frame that supported the tent when fully erected and work it into place popping the whole canvas creation into the little room that became home for us.

My older sister, Carla, and I rarely slept in the tent. We were allowed to take our camp cots and find our own spots we would sleep in, places that became our bedrooms under the stars, but the tent was always our "home base" where Mom and Dad, along with our baby sister when she came along, would sleep.

Tents today are much lighter and easier to put up today, but I remember fondly that dark green canvas tent we used for years.

Something about these memories stirs in me thoughts about how we inhabit our places now. We strive for permanence that tents do not offer. As I write this, I am sitting out front of my home. I really love our home. It is modest by western measurements, just under 2000 square feet, but it has been our home for over 22 years now. I don't think there is anything wrong with our pursuit of what we call the American dream, home ownership, but I don't want to forget, this world really is not my home.

John tells us in I John the second chapter that we should not love the world. I think I understand this to mean our deeper love needs to be for God's kingdom, a kingdom yet to come and our heavenly home we will enter when we pass from this life into the next. I don't want my love for my home here on earth to supplant the home my heart was truly made for.

I am also reminded that many of our spiritual fore-bearers lived out lives of pilgrimage following God in shelters of tents. I think of Abram, leaving all he knew into the uncertainty of following  God's leading. It was a "tent" existence that meant he was always ready to move when God spoke.

My cherished memories of that green tent calls me to wonder if I am following well the examples of so many who were willing to live out "tent" lives to follow closely the God of heaven and earth.