Rock Concert: Teens, Relationship, and Newton

Any high school student who’s taken physics—when they’re not too groggy from being overworked—will remember that any two objects in the universe exert gravity upon each other.  That’s why planets stay in orbit, feet stay on the ground, and planes don’t stay up forever.  Put differently, it means the Space Needle is attracted to your toothbrush.

The Lord speaks to different people in different ways, I suppose, and often speaks to me through pointing out curiosities in the created order.  Yesterday I was out near our zip line on a prayer-walk and absently started tossing a stone into the air, when it occurred to me that the stone inevitably falls to the ground and tries to get back to the earth.  Toothbrush and Space Needle, stone and planet.

Yeah, Newton figured that out a long time ago, and I’m certainly not new to gravity.  But I’d never really thought about why God would have programmed that quirk into the universe.

Think about it: God could have created a universe in which gravity worked backward—where objects move away from other objects the way magnets are repelled by similar magnets, or the way junior high boys and girls separate at school dances.  (The universe would probably have needed a hard outer shell, but I digress.)  God could have—so why not?

I think it has something to do with God’s nature as being in relationship.  If we believe that God is somehow three Persons while remaining One undivided God, then we know that relationship itself is intrinsic to God’s very character: the Spirit relates with the Son and the Father, the Son relates with the Father and the Spirit, and so on.

And if the Scriptures are right that the created order screams about God’s character (see Ps. 19:1–4, for example), then the fact that all objects, so to speak, desire all other objects, is simply a corroboration of what we already knew about who God is.  And we can take it as a statement from God that relationship is so important, even the universe itself was shaped to reflect it.

Bummer that American teen culture is shaped in exactly the opposite way.  The life of that sleep-deprived high school student, through no fault of her own, has been shaped by society to be antithetical to the fostering of good relationship.  Out of our desire for teens’ security of finance and station later, we tell teens that they need to get into the best colleges—which requires as many extracurricular activities as possible (“It looks good on a college application”), while holding down a 4.0.

I’m not knocking higher education, and I’m certainly not knocking excellence: the Scriptures tell us those are virtues, too (like in Proverbs 8).  But who has time for real, meaningful relationships with family in the midst of that kind of chaos?  Who has time for friends, mentors, romances in a fear-driven, hurry-soaked culture like ours?

This is part of why we do what we do in retreat-and-camping ministry.  Lazy F, and its sister camps in the Northwest, seek to provide a space for teens and children to experience real community and unhurried togetherness in a peaceful environment.  The practice of retreating arises out of a conviction that learning how to be in real relationship together isn’t just Something Nice To Do: it’s at the very core of experiencing the Triune God of the Scriptures, and consequently to building toward renewed kids, renewed churches, and a renewed world.

Join us in standing in awe of the God who is, apparently, not only a physics nerd, but who uses stuff like rocks and dirt to invite us to experience God’s very person.  Can we do anything other than put on our goggles and lab coats and cry “hallelujah”?

            —John Harrell, Program Coordinator          |          program@lazyfcamp.org