A Massanetta Story (Laura Holbrook)
A little 9 year-old girl lies in an old bunkbed on a warm summer evening. The cabin she enjoys with her family is rustic with no heat or air conditioning, a modest kitchen, and an old pot belly stove for warmth in the winter. It is time to be sleeping, but each day is filled with somuch adventure that sleep won’t come. Running the hills with friends and cousins, swimming inthe lake (where her father lands with a bar of soap after a day of labor), timed runs to The Nookand back for soft serve ice cream, and loud giggle fests on Vesper Hill fill her thoughts. Somewhat aware that a month long stay every summer at this place is special, what she is not aware of is the unseen and powerful framing of belonging and believing that are settling deep in her heart.
Back to the bunkbed and bedtime. The little girl talks to herself, muses over squabbles with brothers and remembers the peck of peaches ready to eat tomorrow. And then it begins. The carillon tolls and hymns of the faith float across the lawn, up to her hillside cabin, and intoher room, and she is stilled. Calmed. Lulled to sleep. She is also forever bonded to it all. What is “it”? What IS this thing that settles deep in her soul and gives her a foundation for life? The stubborn, unmoving, ever-present story about one man of long ago who centurieslater is still being talked about? The it that demands we love each other and serve the world. The it that she leaves and returns to over and over? The it that calls artists to paint, and activists to speak, authors to write and musicians to create? The it that is both simple and impossible at the same time? The it that every hymn falling upon her ears’ claims? The little girl in the rustic cabin is changed by a carillon and some hymns?
She is. Changed that is. Because the hymns that settled into her head and her heart all those many summers ago taught her the story of God’s grace and God’s love for all. The words of the hymns became known and the story became tangible, real, embodied, shared, and sunginto her heart.
The carillon belongs to Massanetta Springs, my parents Bob and Anne Wells owned the cabin with bunks, and the story is mine. It was at Massanetta that the people who built Hudson Auditorium, cabins on the hill, and a camp for children, formed me. The people were real and they were really in love with Jesus, making sure to show this love through play, worship, abundant welcome to all, and singing. Always the singing, helping the words to be hidden deep in my heart. The faith held by the cloud of witnesses gathering every summer at Massanetta Springs enveloped me. I was swept into the story and given the offer to claim it for myself.
I continue to claim the story of God’s grace and justice as seen in Jesus Christ for myself and I continue to love the place where the story became my own. Not only was Massanetta a part of my childhood, but my adult life as well. It is always fun to hear my wonderful husband, former Executive Director Fred Holbrook say, “I married into a Massanetta family”, for it is true. Fred had gathered by the spring as a teen and an adult, but I knew every stone, tree, smell andsound of this thin place. I worked on staff as a young adult and we became parents, we took our children to visit my parents at Massanetta, as they actually retired to the same cabin where the bunkbed resided. Of course, the cabin was updated to a beautiful home.
I am blessed to have served again at Massanetta Springs as the Program Director from2002-2014 and hopefully helped sustain the vital call to share the story of God to all whogathered by the springs in those years. For though the community surrounding this place ofgrace has creatively evolved and change, the hills are still alive with the hymns of the faith and there are still countless opportunities for children, youth and adults to hear the song that bears witness to Jesus and hopefully, to claim it for themselves.
Together, we sustain this hope.