03.01.07

This letter was written by Charles D. Osborne, a Jewish chaplain at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, NM, to Emily Bick, author of the Feb. 15 article “A scouting adventure, and an unexpected burden.”

Dear Emily,

I am writing to you on behalf of all my colleagues, the chaplains of Philmont Scout Ranch. I do not know if I was the chaplain at the Jewish chapel the night you were there, but I have served as one of the Jewish chaplains there since 1991. I also have a special place in my heart for your hometown, Short Hills, since I served as the cantor of Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn while I was a seminary student.

All of us are deeply saddened and disturbed by your article, because your experience represents precisely what a Philmont trek is not supposed to be. There are many goals that we work very hard toward attaining in a crew’s outdoor experience, one of the most important being that, in order to successfully complete the trek, crew members must learn to rely on each other. Just as your ranger had you go through your pack before you went into the back country to eliminate any unnecessary weight, we try to get crew members to unpack and discard their emotional baggage as well. The hope is that the Philmont experience will encourage personal growth to the point where one is more accepting of others from different races, religions, or cultures.

A Philmont crew should be a “safe haven” for all of its members. Sometimes personal slights can be purposeful and pointed, like your experience in the airport. Sometimes, perhaps like the Jewish jokes you experienced, they can be as unthinking as someone causing an auto accident while talking on a cell phone. But neither case is excusable.

One of my favorite things to talk about at our chapel services is the transformative power of an outdoor experience. As my example, I like to use the story of Jacob, who is described in the Torah as an ish haohel (a man of the tent, aka a couch potato). During his first outdoor experience, he sleeps under the stars with a rock for his pillow, and has a vision of a ladder extending from Earth to Heaven, “with angels traveling up and down it.” Upon awakening he exclaims: “Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it!” Our hope is that the Philmont trek will open the hearts of crew members to a greater vision of God, a better idea of who they are and their place in the world, and use this knowledge to bring a new and renewed energy to their lives back home.

But to do this, one has to be open to the possibility. It’s all too easy to experience the outdoors like Jacob’s brother Esau, a “man of the field” who spends practically his entire life outdoors but never senses God’s presence in it.

As Philmont chaplains, we practice what we preach. We minister not only to those of our own faiths and denominations, but we also each serve every scout and scouter who comes through the ranch. One of my best friends in the world is a Catholic chaplain who lives very near you in New Jersey. We each serve God within the beliefs and practices of our own religious traditions, but we both understand that we serve the same God, and are able to build a brotherly relationship with that understanding.

This is the way it is with all of us, and this is the way it is with Philmont. It is no accident that our ranch prayer book, Eagles Soaring High, has services specifically for Christian, interfaith, Jewish, and Muslim worship. It is no accident that the ranch is planning a meditational area to serve as a place of worship for those not served specifically by one of our four base-camp chapels.

Yes, as Jews we constitute but 2 percent of the U.S. population. But every community in our country has its share of 2-percenters — those who do not fit conveniently into someone else’s preconceived idea of what a person should be. Just as the ranch administration works hard to constantly tweak the operation to deliver the best possible experience to our crews, every Philmont chaplain works just as hard to make sure that every participant has the best possible time at the ranch, and most especially the 2-percenters. Our Jewish chapel may be the smallest in base camp, but it brings to that place tremendous symbolic value.

Perhaps with some of your crewmates it would have been helpful to teach a little sensitivity through example, and perhaps for some it is still possible.

Your Lebanese crew member is a different story. I know that you used the term “live in a bubble” to describe a day-to-day life untouched by anti-Semitism, but the same term can be applied to not having to confront, on a daily basis, the net result of global politics and agendas gone wrong. I need not recount here all of the bad things going on in the Middle East, or Africa, or South America — or here, for that matter. But many things need to be fixed; many hearts need to heal. Your article reveals you as a person of sensitivity, and an ability to structure your thoughts well. Perhaps your experience, negative as it was, will someday help you to build a lasting bridge between peoples where none currently exists, and thus do a great service for all of us.

In the meantime, Philmont is still here; the possibility of turning a negative into a positive still exists. I am sure I speak not only for our chaplains but also for our administration when I say please come back. Please call or write or e-mail. Please give us the chance to get to know you better and try to provide you with the kind of Philmont experience we hope everyone has who hikes this magnificent wilderness.

Yours in scouting,
Charles D. Osborne
Newton, Mass.