Summer! (June/July 2013 Newsletter)

          Summer!  Schools close, and swimming pools open.  Crickets and cicadas awaken each evening to sing the sun down.  At the foot of children’s beds, dark smudges bear witness to barefooted romps in search of magical beasts, like chameleons and fireflies.  And like a magnificent gray wolf, a thunderstorm prowls in from the horizon – snarling, growling, and flashing its jagged, lightning teeth.

          Summer.  Strawberry jam and blackberry cobbler.  Homemade peach ice cream.  Tomato sandwiches and squash casserole.  Sweet tea.

          And shade.

          Summer…  The time when interstates clog up and church pews thin out.

          “Vacation,” we call it.  We vacate.  We leave, get away.  And we often return from these excursions more exhausted than we were when we left, because, in order to “get our money’s worth,” we try to cram two hours of recreation into every waking hour.  Some I’ve talked to seem to want to scapegoat their vacation days, to make them “pay” for all the time they spent at work.  I call it “retributive recreation.”

          The word, though, is re-creation.  It refers to rest, to Sabbath time.  On the whole, westerners don’t rest too well.  And perhaps we Americans rest worst.  Often wearing extra weight and baggy circles under our eyes as if they were medals of honor, we seem to have perfected rest-less-ness.

          Produce.  Compete.  Subdue.  Consume.  Win at all costs.  Rest is for the fragile, the unambitious, the also-rans.

          My prayer for each of us is that we take time – intentionally – to rediscover the re-creating blessings of Sabbath.  If it helps, remember when the troubled prophet Elijah vacated to Mt. Horeb.  Up in a cave, hiding from the evil Jezebel, Elijah prayed.  He reminded God that he had worked hard and lived faithfully.  Why was his life, his calling, trying to kill him?

          Outside the cave there raged the busyness and heat of earthquake, wind and fire.  But only when the quiet and the stillness settled the dust did Elijah encounter the renewing presence of God.  Only then was he ready to return to work.  (1Kings 19.)

          So go ahead, have fun at the beach, or in the mountains, or in some exciting new city this summer.  Discover.  Learn.  Grow.  But please, make time to be still, to be receptive to and grateful for the re-creating Sabbath that God offers you.