Nothing to Fear

Renée Antrosio – April 23, 2024 4 Comments

As a kid in Montana, camping was fun. With my sister and best friend in the forest behind our house, Peanuts the faithful collie kept us “safe” from yipping coyotes. The best was when the worship leaders took our youth group to their hunting and fishing camps before high-end clients arrived, leading us up on horseback into the mountains, the 1980s version of glamping. 

But as an adult, I felt strongly that camping was not for me. A 2 out of 10 on the scale of fun. Or worse. Rain. Mosquitoes. Hard ground. Lots of work. Needy children, complicated teenagers, and so much effort just to eat and sleep. Miserable is the word that comes to mind. 

So when my sister suggested that on my sabbatical I might want to do some solo camping, I was incredulous. As if she didn’t know how I felt! 

Breathe in possibility. Breathe out gratitude. Really, Lord? Is this a good idea? 

Big Bend National Park is breathtaking (or should I say breath-giving?) and time alone in God’s grandeur beckoned me. For “safety,” I would sleep in my car, doors locked. No need for a tent, no worry about weather. 

Everything went smoothly- until my car alarm went off at 7am when I got up to use the bathroom. Then my battery died while packing up and I had to ask the friendly campground host to jumpstart my car. No worries- drive around, recharge the battery, and then pop across the Rio Grande for a second breakfast in Mexico (that’s another story :).

Night 2 at the Chisos Basin campground, I was more careful- and woke up in my car to a dead battery again. Equipped with jumper cables, I approached the young woman at the neighboring campsite; she and her big truck were happy to help. I exercised the atrophied muscle of relying on the kindness of strangers. 

As I breath-prayed through this experience, I became aware of fears that were limiting me, fears that were largely unfounded, yet subtly exerting persistent influence. Not just in camping, but in life. Camping was the metaphor, the experiential practice of working through things I needed to face in myself and in my world. So I prepared to go again.

My sister showed me how to set up her tent, to attach the rainfly and fortify the stakes with heavy rocks. I won’t lie or pretend; I was afraid alone at night in my little tent. Of the wind. Javelinas. Bears. My fellow humans nearby. In the night, I sang the refrain of my sabbatical theme song by Paul Zach:

And there is nothing to fear, nothing to fear
There is nothing to fear, nothing to fear
For I am with you always

So commenced Act 3 of solo camping- without a rainfly, separated from the sky only by the finest mesh, open to the elements. I was learning that the (100+) strangers camping around me were there to help, much safer than suburbia, and a buffer from wild animals. I was not alone, though I was mostly in silence (except for occasional car alarms, the clang of metal bear boxes, murmurs and tent zippers nearby), rarely speaking my own voice. 

I didn’t sleep much or deeply, but gazing at the moon and the mountain as I snuggled in my sleeping bag rested me differently. A storm blew in the second night. Too late to attach the rainfly, I prayed and hoped and hustled to pack up in the morning before the rain came over the mountains and I headed back to my little “manse” of four solid walls and a roof over my head. 

During sabbatical I began to breathe deeply again, prompted by Mary Oliver’s poem:

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

Though I would not have considered myself fearful, I needed to hear- again and again- the voice of the Holy One through many messengers saying, “Do not fear” and absorb those words deeply. And so, after three months away, of silence and camping and much much more, I am glad to be home. Breathing, again with you.

I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

–Renée Antrosio, NCF Lead Pastor