Sam and Siloam

I hope I'll be forgiven for using former postings (and I think this will be the last about camp) but hearing about kids going to church camp brings up a lot of memories.

The young kids and youth from the big, red brick church down the street from the post office made a lot of memories at church camp.

There was this young kid and I'll call him Sam. When I was about 12 or 13, he and his sister were at camp. They lived in a big city in Arkansas and their dad was a pastor. Sam was just a big old kid who seemed pretty dumb as far as I could tell. Sam's sister was a couple of years older than Sam. One day she came to me and said , "Sam would like to sit with you at church tonight."

Sam was in one or two of my morning classes and I knew he kept looking at me , smiling, and then dropping his head. Well, Sam wasn't exactly the cutest bug in the rug so I wasn't too impressed with him. I don't remember what I told Sam's sister, but I do remember what I told my best friend , who was also at camp.

"Tonight at church , you stick as close to me as you can. I'm going to see if I can get a seat next to the pole and you sit beside me and DO NOT MOVE FOR ANYTHING!!!"

So, that's what we did. Sure enough, the rest of the bench filled up and I was squeezed in next to the pole. Sam came in and I hunkered down in my seat. He wandered all around and finally spotted me. Not having room to sit beside me, he chose to set right behind me. I was MORTIFIED !! The rest of the week it was "Avoid Sam At All Costs". During the morning classes, I just tried my best to avoid him, which wasn't easy. Sam seemed to be everywhere I turned, even the Snack Shack. Finally, on the last night, he managed to sit two people down from me.

That was sixty+ years ago and I hadn't thought of Sam since then. So, when I began thinking about camp, I thought about this incident and I wondered what ever happened to Sam. So, I googled his name and lo and behold, not only did I find Sam, but I found what he had been doing since I last saw him sitting on that wooden bench in the tabernacle grinning and dropping his head.

Sam did alright for himself. He graduated at the top of his high school class of over 700 students; went on to Baylor, where he graduated again at the top of a class of 725. He went on to Yale, then to Penn State , where he got his Doctorate in Philosophy. He taught in colleges for 31 years; was affiliated with other numerous prestigious colleges and wrote numerous articles and several books with titles that I can hardly pronounce. He passed away a few years ago but he left quite a legacy.

The moral of this story is not that Sam was better than anyone else; I'm sure he put his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else. We shouldn't look at another person who is shy or not the cutest bug in the rug and just ignore them. We don't know what a child is capable of when they reach maturity. We don't know how our actions will affect a child. Apparently, my actions toward Sam didn't affect his ability to go on to do great things in life, but, we never know when our actions will affect someone so we need to appreciate people for who they are; no matter the age they are; no matter the color of their skin or nationality or background.

The bible tells us "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31 NIV.