Nighttime at GRP

Think about your everyday life. Coming home from work or school, do you make time to look up? The clouds are beautiful and ever-changing – wispy brushstrokes of cotton or racing, rolling gray piles of thunder. Are you able to see the stars from your home? People talk about how beautiful the night sky is where nature still rules the land, but before coming to GRP, I underestimated just how beautiful it can be.

GRP is the perfect place to make space for those moments of awe when you realize that reading text on a page isn’t able to prepare you for the reality of the untamed world. I recall with perfect clarity the first time I saw a clear night sky on the front field. The mountain air was cool and crisp, and it struck me that I wasn’t hearing the sounds of modern civilization. There were no sirens, car horns, or celebrating neighbors or neighborhood cats. And after feeling that stillness, I remembered that there were infinite worlds above me. So I looked up. When I did, what I saw was a beautiful tapestry of dancing lights. There were more stars than I had ever seen before, and it struck me in that moment that these were the same stars that the people of hundreds and thousands of years ago had seen, too. I felt quietly unified with those people. I felt the echoes of their wonder.

At that point, campers hadn’t arrived yet. But it wasn’t long before the hills were full of the sounds of joy and mischief. This was one of my first cabins as a counselor, and I had yet to figure out how exactly to connect with them and connect them to the beauty of nature that GRP offers. The chance arose in the same way I’ve learned it often does here – perfectly spontaneously. It started with an evening program on the front field. Once snack was doled out, I started to shepherd my campers off to the cabin so that we could do our nighttime routines; we were the last ones on the front field, and I was worried about getting them to bed on time. I was torn from that worry when I heard a shout of wonder, and when I turned, I saw that child pointing up. It didn’t take long for the rest of the campers to follow suit, looking into the sky and seeing an almost full moon surrounded by a sea of stars. It was clear from their expressions that a few of them had never seen anything like this before. Those who had were just as awed as the rest; repeated beauty isn’t dulled, after all.

So we stayed there, watching the world slowly turn from our tiny hill. After a few minutes, the kids grew bored with the silence, so they turned to more fun ventures—giggling and rolling down the hill over and over again, covering themselves in grass. After a few more minutes of that, we returned to our beds, the most content with our day than we had been all session, and we slept.

There have been dozens more beautiful nights since that time. Among them are some of my favorite moments at GRP. To me, the night doesn’t get old. It’s the perfect time to talk with your friends under the moon’s watchful eye or to sit down and listen to nothing at all. When you look up at the sky, it’s the same sky that the people you love, whether they’re standing beside you or living across the world, is looking at, too.

Take the time to look up.

Story by Li Shuford with photos by Brandon S. Marshall