Sitting in the quiet stillness of the morning beside a lake, my family still sleeps in the tent behind me. A small smokey fire burns befoe me to heat the first pot of water we will need today. We have taken a weekend to go camping for the first time in many years.

I recall the many nights of camping in amusty canvas tent with my parents and siblings when I was a child. Tghe day light hours of those camping trips are long gone from my memories, but the nights? Those I remember. We would have a campfire and roast marshmallows and sing. Then Mom would send us in to get in our sleeping bags for the night. She would remind us to be hush so we'd hear her play us to sleep and if we were quiet whe would go out and play her guitar by the fire. Sometimes it was just a variety of chords that would sound like a bablling series of notes as her fingers plucked the strings but oft times it was more an accompaniement to her soft soprano voice.

Tonight our campfire will bursh and my children will roast marshmallows. We will sit beside the fire and talk of our day in husched voices but there will be little to no singing this night. My teenagers don't know the old songs like I learned. When I should have been teaching them around the campfire like I was taught, I fell down on the job. Sadly my voice doesn't hold the notes properlyh now and it would be the noise part of the command to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Despite the lack of Christian choruses, I believe my children will remember this time together with fond memories.