Cedar Campus is a thin place. A “thin place” is what George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community, called the Isle of Iona, a place, he said, where the separation between earth and heaven, between things material and things spiritual, is tissue paper thin.
Iona is what it is because of its long spiritual history, fifteen hundred years of intentional Christian presence on the island marked by the now restored abbey dating from the 15th century and a carved stone cross that has stood in place since 700 CE. But Iona is what is it as much because of the island itself, the landscape, the white sand beaches and steep-sided coves, the boggy moors and heather-covered rocks, and the sea. And the sea, the ever-moving, ever-changing, ever-present sea: blowing winds, crashing waves, dazzling sunlight piercing deep green waters. God speaks through the wind and waves and the light.
Cedar Campus is a such a place. Cedar Campus has its own “long” spiritual history. For seven decades, people have come — university students and lecturers and InterVarsity staff members, site managers and summer work crew members and families, all of them drawn by the promise of a transformative experience of God’s presence, in song and Bible study and meditation and prayer, but equally in simply being in this “thin” place. Like Iona, Cedar Campus is what it is, not as much by what people have made of it, but by what God has made of it, a kingdom of cedar and rock, awesome sunsets and amazing night lights, stars and galaxies and the shimmering aurora borealis. And the water, the waters of Lake Huron, deep and wide and wild, only slightly tamed by the encircling shores of Prentiss Bay. God speaks at Cedar Campus too through wind and wave and light.
The agenda for a time spent at Cedar Campus, whether a week or a month or all summer long, is communion, communion with God and with brothers and sisters, and the spiritual growth that communion may yield. That is the agenda, but woods and bays and shoreline are the arena where that growth is nurtured. So it is that hours spent in the water or on the water or by the water are not incidental, but vital, to the mission of Cedar Campus. Time on the waterfront is time for communion, too.
The ultimate purpose of the waterfront program — getting campers in and on the water — is that communion with God that comes by immersion in a space of God’s own making, a space that exhibits God’s extraordinary artistry, a space that is filled with God’s own presence. To make that experience profitable, the work of waterfront staff focuses on safety and proficiency and joy. If you can be safe on the water and make your way with some knowledge and skill, you will find joy!
A swimming test is the entry point for all waterfront activity. To get on the water, you first must get in the water. The test itself is not demanding: a twenty-five yard swim, treading water for one minute, then swimming the twenty-five yards back to the starting point. Easy, right? Except that you must factor in the nature of the water in which you are swimming. You are swimming in Lake Huron, a Great Lake, with waters deep and cold. Water temperatures in the mile-long, half-mile wide inner Prentiss Bay around which the camp is situated vary widely, as cold as 48º F and as warm as 72º F depending on weather and wind direction, but most commonly between 56º and 62º F. That’s cold! 58º is bracing, 54º takes your breath away and 50º hurts! But that is the point of the swim test. Waterfront staff want to make sure that if you do end up in the water while rowing or canoeing or sailing, you know what to expect and can take care of yourself without panicking.
Tests are offered at the start of each camp and are good for two years. A member of the waterfront staff rows alongside each swimmer to be close by if needed. Not a few swimmers have had to grab onto the gunwales of the rowboat, either too tired or too cold or too scared to continue. As an extra incentive and reward, each camper who passes the swim test is entitled to an extra dessert at that evening’s supper.
But the true reward of passing the swim test is access to Cedar Campus’ fleet of boats. Cedar Campus maintains a large assembly of boats. Several power boats are kept primarily for the use of staff: for monitoring and rescue during open waterfront times when many campers may be out on the bay; for transporting campers for overnights on Whitefish Point or Rover Island which sits between outer Prentiss Bay, two miles long and a mile wide, and Lake Huron itself; and for shuttling food and cooks to Sandy Cove for cookouts.
The boats available for campers include several rowboats, used for rowing or fishing, a half dozen or so canoes, used for exploring inner Prentiss Bay and Prentiss Creek at the end of the bay, and sailboats, fifteen foot, sloop-rigged, open cockpit sailboats. Later, Cedar Campus added kayaks and Sunfish, small flat-hulled, single sail craft, and several larger daysailer sloops in the twenty-six foot range used by waterfront staff to give sailboat rides to campers and families.
Campers who have passed the swim test may take out any rowboat on their own or with other passengers who have also passed the test, all wearing PFD’s, of course. These campers may also be passengers in a canoe or sailboat. But to sign out a canoe, to paddle solo or to take out a companion, a camper must first pass a canoeing test, and to sign out a sailboat, a skipper’s test.
To pass the canoeing test a camper, university student or family camper, must show a basic knowledge of canoe strokes — forward stroke, reverse stroke, “J” stroke or “C” stroke, be able to paddle the canoe in a straight line, and reenter a swamped canoe and paddle it to shore. Again, the emphasis is on safety, proficiency, and joy.
The joy comes from paddling along the cedar-lined shores of Prentiss Bay on a sparkling summer day or a serene summer evening, perhaps exploring the creek at the head of the bay, drifting among yellow water lilies and navigating tight corners, or bringing along a pole to fish for perch and smallmouth along the shoreline or above underwater rock piles. Some paddlers have even first met their future spouses in a Cedar Campus canoe!
Canoes, rowboats, kayaks, powerboats: all provide means to explore the magnificent coves and creeks, broad bays and rocky points of Prentiss Bay. But the best way to enjoy the water and taste its wonders of wind and wave and light is by sailboat. The power to move a sailboat does not come from any human effort, rowing or paddling, or from any human invention, outboard or inboard motor, but from God, from the wind itself. The skipper of a sailboat must understand the wind, its direction and force; read the wind, see gusts, cat’s paws, roiling the surface of the water in their approach; anticipate the effects of land features on the wind; and always work with the wind, use the power of wind to propel the boat in the direction the skipper chooses. Sailing is a science, but it is also very much an art, an art that requires not subduing the forces of nature, of God’s creation, but working in harmony with them.
To access the delights of sailing a boat at Cedar Campus, a prospective sailor must show the knowledge and skill to safely pilot a sailboat and demonstrate that by passing a skipper’s test. The skipper’s test is more comprehensive than any other waterfront test at Cedar Campus, because the demands of sailing a boat on the open bays are greater and the stakes higher. Weather may change quickly, winds shift suddenly, and, given the right conditions, the lake can generate large waves. Waterfront staff carefully keep track of all boats when out on the bay, and have had to rescue many a sailing crew from a capsized sailboat.
The skipper’s test requires a sailor to know the names of the parts of the boat — bow and stern, starboard and port, stays and shrouds, rudder and tiller and centerboard; the names of the parts of the sails — leech and luff and foot, head and tack and clew; and the names of the lines on the sailboat — halyards and sheets and painters. Knowing these names matters. Shouting, “Grab that rope!” may be met be a look of bewilderment as your boat mate looks over all the lines draped around the boat.
A potential skipper must also demonstrate a knowledge of the points of sail — reach and run, broad reach and close reach and sailing close hauled — and explain how the sails would be deployed on each point of sail.
This first part of the skipper’s test may be done on dry land or before casting off from the mooring, but the meat of the test comes, of course, in the sailing itself. The prospective sailor must rig the boat, securing the mainsail to boom and mast, installing the battens and attaching the main halyard, clipping the jib onto the forestay and attaching the jib halyard, and raising the sails, then successfully casting off and moving away from the mooring. Out on the water, the sailor must show competence in reading the wind and setting the tiller and trimming the sails accordingly, be able to execute both coming about and jibing, and be able to guide the boat to a standstill at its mooring. The procedures for piloting a boat into the wind (in irons) at the mooring are the same for rescuing an overboard crew member.
Some campers, not many, but some, come to Cedar Campus with considerable sailing experience. But most who wish to know the joy of sailing must be taught. Sailing classes are one of the highlights of the waterfront program during month-long discipleship training camps. Eager university students spend time with a waterfront staff member, first in the recreation building learning sailing terminology and tactics, and then in the boats, carefully shepherded by staff either in the boat with them or following beside them in a powerboat. Most advance quickly; learning to sail well is a lifetime enterprise, but it does not take long to develop good basic control of the boat, enough to be able to have a great time out on the water.
Sailing classes last one or two weeks. Often, as a reward, sailing class graduates are permitted to sail a fleet of several boats out of Prentiss Bay and down the lake seven miles to Government Island, a state-owned reserve where the boats are landed and secured to pilings and a picnic lunch is enjoyed. Sometimes, on the return trip, the boats might choose to circle a lighthouse situated in Lake Huron five miles beyond the mouth of Prentiss Bay.
Cedar Campus is a thin place. Few leave Cedar Campus unchanged. The spirit of God speaks here, through faithful teachers and dear companions, through quiet moments spent sitting or watching or praying, and through the powerful witness of its landscape and its waters. Moments spent silently drifting through reeds in a canoe or slicing through waves on Prentiss Bay accompanied only by the whistling wind leave an indelible mark on the soul. This thin place, its memories and its marks, remain a part of every person who comes here and a part of every place to which they go.