By Dr. John E. Morgan

Pastor–Collinsville Baptist Church

“Let’s build a tent.”  My four boys loved to build tents.  They would drag every quilt and sheet and anything else into the biggest available room – the living room unless their mother created new Building Codes because of anticipated company.

They would pull furniture all around to hold up the covers they had confiscated.  Then they would bring in sticks and other pointy things to make the top stick up like a circus tent.

It was important that the tent have a door that was difficult for an adult to crawl through, but was just right for a young boy.  Usually there was also a secret entrance.

Then they would begin to move into the tent.  More covers and pillows for the floor.  Lots and lots of books.  Animals (usually stuffed though I think a couple of times the dog got sneaked into the house and into the tent.)  Toys to play with.  Maybe have me run an extension cord in for a light.

Then came the pleas.  Can we please, please, please sleep in here tonight?  Pretty please?  Usually the answer was yes.  Then pleas for food.  And then pleas for Gloria and I to crawl into the tent and see how amazing it was.  We oohed and ahhed at how great it was.

They would usually sleep in it that night. The next morning the edict came down.  Take it down and get everything back where it belongs.  “Oh, Mom, no.  Daddy please.”  Sorry, take it down.  It’s time.  Then they were ready to go back to building things in the sand pile or playing with Legos.

I noticed an interesting thing.  If there were other adults around, they wanted to help build the tent.  And when our four boys grew up, they loved to talk the next generation into building tents.  Gloria and I would smile as we watched our four grown men down in the floor “helping” our grandchildren build yet another tent.  Wanting to relive a little of their own childhood.

I don’t remember building many tents inside when I was a kid.  But I did have a great pup tent that did the same thing in the back yard.  Quilts and toys and comic books on the floor.  No electricity, but lots of flashlights.  My best friend from next door.  And very little sleep.

What is there about camping out that so many of us like so much?  Building a tent or pitching a tent.  Not a motor home.  A tent.

This week is the Jewish holiday of the Feast of Booths (or Tents).  Since it is a fall festival, it reminds Jews of the harvest, or what they sometimes call the Feast of the Ingathering.  It is a time of great joy also called the Season of Rejoicing.  They sleep and eat all their meals for a week outside under the stars in a booth not unlike my children’s tents.  That’s enough to make anybody but an old grouch at least a little joyful.

The holiday also reminds Jews that their ancestors lived in tents and booths for forty years in the wilderness.  Wandering because they had not trusted God.  Waiting for the day when God would take them into the Promised Land where they could build permanent houses and towns.  Trading in those temporary tents for something that would last.  After all, living in tents can grow old.

Paul knew all about tents.  He made a living making tents.  And he wrote about them.  He said that right now we are living in an earthly tent, out bodies.  They are temporary and cause us pain and discomfort.  But be of good cheer.  God has us a whole new body, an eternal one waiting on us.  We can swap in our temp – the one with arthritis and cancer and dementia and all those other problems.  One day God the Father will say, “It’s time.  Let’s clean up.  Just leave that body there.  You won’t need it here.”  And we will go into the Promised Land of Heaven, the only place of real joy.

I wonder if we will be able to build tents and play there.  I kinda hope so.

If you would like to read more, try II Corinthians 4 and 5.