Swamp tromp

My dad and I attended a seminar on healthy marriages last week. I needed to go for school, and he was my date. The person presenting gave this metaphor: Dating and the actual act of getting married (the wedding) is like swimming in this beautiful, crystal-clear, cool pool. And then as soon as the wedding is done, someone comes and scoops you up out of that and places you in a scummy, warm, germ-, bug-, crud-infested pond where lots of things are lurking. The word “fester” comes to mind. And I hate that word.

Wow. So then if someone could tell me why I subject myself to horribly awkward dates? Do I really want to live in a festering pond the rest of my life?

But the festering is not reserved to marriages. For my class this week, I had to write an essay about a relationship—one that was broken or threatened and then through some form of reconciliation was brought back together. Or at the very least, the people involved came to terms with the situation and were able to move on. Immediately one particular relationship of mine came to mind. And I assure you, there was some nasty, mucky water there! And it still isn’t very clean. The things lurking include betrayal, lies, resentment, anger, hurt.

I spent about six years growing up in a town just outside of Memphis—5th through 10th grade. During a couple of those summers, I spent a week at church camp. The big activity of the week was the “Swamp Tromp,” which consisted of tromping through a muddy swamp in the backwoods of Tennessee. The idea—the madness to the method—was that we build trust amongst each other. The mud was thick and, at times, deep. You’d have to carefully watch the person in front of you to know where to go or not go. One step and the mud would be at your ankles. The next step, it’d be up to your belly button. Sometimes there’d be roots or branches to watch out for. You were in charge of letting the person behind you know what was going on before they took their next step. And there was a lot of hand-holding.

One year, however, there was no Swamp Tromp. The camp administrators realized that there were water moccasins (as in SNAKES, not shoes) in the mud or sometimes sitting off on the bank watching these skinny, twerpy teens meander through THEIR territory. And maybe they had always been there, but this particular year the snakes were exceptionally bad because the weather had been cooler, thus rendering the swamp cooler and snakes digging the coolness... The thought of it makes me shudder, but I was much luckier than the other kids because my dad was my youth pastor. So he was there. No one else had their dads! Not like he could have saved me, but still. (Somehow I don’t think anything about snakes was on the release form that parents signed. But my dad was participating in the madness so I guess it didn’t matter for me.)

Everyone was always so excited about that damn Swamp Tromp, and I secretly dreaded it. It was like the dark spot (literally) in the week of fun that was church camp. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to, and to save face, I acted just as excited as everyone else. You even had to bring special Swamp Tromp clothes because after you swamped they would never be worn again. And I’m kind of a clean person, so this was not fun to me. Purell was not going to help the situation. But I can clearly remember the feeling of relief when we got to the end of that swamp. I really wish I could have seen my face. We’d all go to the volleyball pits where there was a hose, and we’d play in the water and get all the nasty swamp guts off of us, or as much as we could anyways. It never truly went away. And I swear to you, we still smelled like swamp the next day. But it was a celebratory time. We had done it together. We had survived the Swamp Tromp. It was worth it! We didn’t get eaten alive by water moccasins. And now, on to the campfire with smores and funness!

Anyways, I think relationships sometimes are like swamp tromps. We want them and, to some extent, we’re excited about them, but then we are secretly afraid of them. Things lurking include insecurities, jealousy, fear. What if someone gets to know me, the real me, and doesn’t like me? What if I get hurt? What if I fail or they fail? What if I hurt them?

But there’s comfort in knowing that we’re all in this together. Paul says to the Ephesians, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” (4:2). It cracks me up that he uses the word bearing—or something like it. Not “relishing,” but bearing. Not jump up and down and be excitedly happy all the time with each other, but endure. It’s not easy, and no one ever said it was, to be with one another. To walk through the swamp together. But there’s also great comfort in knowing that God is the hose continually washing us clean of the muck—the insecurities. The jealousies. The anger.

So, I know relationships are hard, but I do crave them. I do believe we were meant to be in them, to constantly be working on them, through them. Sometimes I don’t want to give in and open up. And yet, I desperately want others to give in and open up. We are meant to help lead each other through the swamp, murky as it may be. And I do pray that one day I’ll find someone to be my swamp partner (We can be Shrek ogres together).

Donkey: Pick me, pick me!