Slowing Summer Down & Speeding Up What Matters

Photo: Ron Doke, Creative Commons, cc license

Photo: Dennis Larsen, Creative Commons, cc license

Throaty Bryan Adams'-style singing drifts over from the church nearby. Flashy classic, sport, and muscle cars line up in rows, hoods propped open, motors gleaming at an annual summer car show. Live music streams past the aroma of grilled hot dogs, steaming metal in the sun, and aerosol spray cans.

"Soo, I sorta did my hair," my nineteen year old son texts me in droll nonchalance. I grin and ask for photos, already picturing red, green and blue dye on a temporary spiked hairdo from last year's car show.

My husband straps on sandals and holds the door open for our six year old. The door blows shut behind them as they walk to church too.

I'm grabbing my green water bottle and jumping into time with you, friends. The counter behind me is lined with half-done dishes, crimson watermelon slices in a bag, and last night's coffee press.

Can you smell the campfire? Wood smoke still emanates from my skin, hair, and clothing. Pony tails hang down my shoulders to rest on my chest, and can you feel it here with me? This slipping away of summer?

Thirty of us teens and adults piled up bikes in a friend's driveway and dropped sleeping bags in the yard for yesterday's Bike and Camp youth event. Bike riding, backyard volleyball, and cooking over a fire brings people together. Tin foil-wrapped packets of potatoes, carrots, and onions smoldered beside ground hamburger, and night fell before we pulled out the marshmallows and chocolate.

"Lord, give me a great love for these teens and for these people in my life," I asked him at one point, slipping quiet under a variegated green maple.

He does, and we all show love in different ways. Whether extrovert or introvert, no matter our personality styles, we slide into familiar ways of relating to the people around us. Some friends love the people around them by scraping eggs on a heavy skillet over smoking fires. Others shake dice in a cup game for hours, bluffing with a smirk; or start up dozens of conversations.

On top of blue trampolines while bouncing and ducking, or on wooden picnic benches beside the blueberry crumble bars, these one on one times with others are what God uses most often to grow deeper love within me for people. I love those chances to see into people's eyes, to hear their stories, and to get beyond the noise and busyness into greater depth.

Sunshine filters through fern-like branches outside now, and my husband and youngest son have returned. Noise commences. Highway hums whine into the distance, dissipating quickly, and a cardinal trills nearby.

Summer slips by, and our moments with the people in our lives flit by too. Grab today with me?

Why I'm Praying For Your Church

Photo: OZinOH, Creative Commons, cc license

I keep thinking about him this week. He who had been so hurt and broken, and who had set the town on fire.

A day later and the city is still buzzing. This man whom they had grown so accustomed to seeing bent up and begging under the Gate Beautiful was now walking whole-limbed and limber throughout Jerusalem--leaping even--and saying God had done this.

Low-lying cirro-nimbus clouds fly past above the fence line and treetops, white wisps in a blue sky that bely a summer evening of 7:45 already. Verdant green canopies sway in an evening breeze. Silver dogwood underbelly leaves flash golden twilight, while my son mows trenches through knee-high grass and puffed dandelion heads. Wind chimes act as windsocks, blowing melody to the west. Deck shadows grow long and a blazing orange sun sits twenty degrees above the horizon.

Yesterday afternoon, sneakers thudding and walkman blasting, I ran past a church. The red blinking sign told me the days and times for youth programs and Sunday worship. And I smiled and prayed for that church, for the teens and families who streamed through their doors each week, and for their pastors. I prayed blessings on them: that God would use their ministries wildly. I prayed protection for them: for their pastors, ministries, leaders, volunteers, and attendees. I ran past sweating and smiling, praying for their church to grow in numbers and depth.

Photo: Neil Howard, Creative Commons, cc license

Because the business advertisers have it wrong. Churches aren't in competition with each other. Churches are not vying for most popular. 

Our jobs as people in the pews is to love God, to love and serve others, and to "never stop speaking about what we have seen and heard [God do]." Like Peter and John in the stirred-up city of Jerusalem with The Man Formerly Known as the Cripple following them around, jumping and jiving in his newly-healed legs.

We're not in competition as churches, we are in community and in common. And we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard God do.

So, I'm praying for your churches, as I pass them, think of them, or think of you. Will you pray for mine too? "Salvation is found in no one else" and we can't help speaking about our God!


(Linking too with gentle Ann in thanks.) 

Rigor Mortis and Finding Your Place

The wind blows hard, swaying the towering greens, and awkwardly dancing the brown pine that’s in rigor mortis. Summer falls hot and heavy. From behind air-conditioned windows, I contemplate projects, dropping landscaping down to the bottom of the list. Paint trays stack in the laundry room, awaiting creamy Canyon Cloud.

 

My daughter sits slack-jawed and glassy-eyed on the couch near me, waiting for health to come. A summer cold and bouts with mono have left several of us weak and slow-moving. Quiet seeps deep into our home, our bones, and health returns with naps and time.

I have been quiet in groups the last few days -- months, really. Rediscovering my place and role in a shifting time, learning to trust and invest anew. Thoughtful quiet and listening is good for me. I talk to my Abba, and gently step. 

In the distance, traffic whirs subtly; cars pass in near silence; and gauzy cotton fluffs sail past the window. The wind blows hard, silent movement out the window. 

“He who forms the mountains,

Creates the wind,

And reveals his thoughts to man…”

The wind blows hard. My Abba whispers and I listen quiet, feeling like the pine in rigor mortis, awkward and stiff.

Joining with Ann, I thank the Mountain-Former, Wind-Creator, High-Place-Treader-of-the-Earth for: wind, sun, summer’s heavy heat, growing health, and quiet wind-blown revealed thoughts.

The random winners of last post’s books are: Allison and Denise. Please email me with your mailing addresses so I can send out these books! Enjoy. 

What do you see out your window? What is God speaking quiet to you this week?

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