I gave one of several brief reflections on being grounded in gratitude in a time of wilderness as part of this year’s Port Washington and Saukville community ecumenical Thanksgiving service organized by A Place to Be Spirituality Center. Here’s my portion of the message:
Good evening. I’m Pastor Daniel Flucke, and I serve the congregations of Living Hope Lutheran Church here in Saukville just down highway 33, and Christ the King Lutheran over in Port Washington.
Did any of you grow up going to summer camp? Every year from elementary through high school, I spent a week at one of our church’s camps, and I loved it. Camp is an amazing place! After 10 years as a camper, I got to spend two summers in college working as a counselor at Waypost on Mission Lake, one of the Lutheran camps I’d grown up going to, and I loved working there. I loved being part of a community centered on faith, spending time playing games, leading worship, and hanging out with kids.
After my second summer there, I was starting to think more seriously about going to seminary and a career as a pastor, so I brought up to Sara, my camp director, that I was interested in moving up from a counselor role to more of a leadership position for my third summer, maybe as program assistant.
I remember so clearly the phone call from my parents’ basement when she told me no. Not only did she turn me down for the program assistant position I wanted; she said she thought it would be best if I didn’t come back the next summer, even as a counselor.
Very suddenly, I felt cast out into the wilderness. I loved being part of that camp community, my girlfriend worked there and I planned to spend a lot of time with her that next summer, and I had no other summer plans lined up. Suddenly all my plans were up in the air and I didn’t see the path ahead—the path I thought God was leading me on.
Sara assured me in that phone call that it wasn’t that I’d done anything wrong—in fact, she said she’d be happy to give me a recommendation letter to another camp—but she knew I’d been considering seminary, and she believed I needed a different experience to help with my discernment. I needed to step out of the comfort zone of the camp I’d spent so many summers at.
That summer of 2011, I interned as a computer programmer at Thrivent Financial, a Fortune 500 financial benefits corporation. Sitting in a cubicle with my laptop was about as far away from summer camp as I could get, and you know what?
Sara was right. That experience of working in a cubicle was the best thing I could have done for my discernment. I learned I could make a living as a software developer, but the whole experience of cubicle life was a powerful affirmation of my call to public ministry.
My particular wilderness time working as a programmer paid a lot better than summer camp, but it wasn’t an easy summer. I spent a few weekends at camp, but it was hard feeling disconnected from the community.
And yet, looking back, I am grateful for that experience. God was at work for good, even through what felt like a time of wilderness wandering.
May wilderness time be a time of discernment and seeing God at work for you as well. Amen