Summertime Spirituality

“Don’t dream your life away.” That’s a bit of sage wisdom often shared with my two sisters and I by our mother. More often than not one of us had foolishly wished that September would come and that we could go back to school. Usually it was because we had a brief moment when we “had nothing to do”. On a hot afternoon prior to universal air conditioning, we wrestled to sit still on the back porch until the sun went down a bit. Those terrible words escaped from our lips: “I’m bored.” If we were spared the “Find something to do, or I’ll give you something to do,” we got the “don’t dream your life away.”

The sound advice of our mother was that each moment was a gift and that one would be best served to grasp the moment and don’t wish it were some other way. As adults we all come to know how much faster time moves with age. We can all remember the seemingly “eternal” days of summer, when half of June, all of July and August were as slow as the temperature was hot and humid.

The invitation of this column is to grasp the summer moment. Don’t go dreaming it away. Especially those of us moving quickly through our middle and older plus years might find summer to be a good time to be present to the moment. Summertime, like its companion liturgical season, Ordinary Time or the Sundays in Green, is an invitation to a natural -- perhaps supernatural -- kind of retreat or prayer time.

Activist Spirituality

A frequent conversation with people in Northern Virginia is how quickly life moves in our area. We move from day to day, week to week, month to month. Soon one year’s season has moved through its cycle. Time is on one hand the greatest gift which God gives us, but we just don’t grasp the moments fast enough. Then people suddenly speak about not being prayerful “like I used to be”. “I just don’t have the time anymore.” “I’m lucky I get to Mass on Sunday.”

Life in our cultural context and our values of efficiency subtly, or not so subtly, shape our prayer time and our integration of our life’s most important relationships and moments. All because “we don’t have time.” Like our traffic, we try to move faster and faster, but end up in a gridlock of non-motion. Ah, the blessing of slow and stand-still traffic: sit-back, relax, think a thought, say a prayer.

Stalled traffic may provide a good mix of metaphors. Some are old enough to remember the Christopher Movement’s slogan that it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Let’s paraphrase the metaphor: better to say a prayer than say ugly things while driving! In each case we have the moment. We are given the opportunity of grace, the discovery of God’s presence with us. What’s the best option?

Summertime Presence

Summer offers a slowdown, a chance to stop –- an invitation to notice. Summer invites a different spirituality, i.e., a different perception and entry in the divine-human reality around us. Last Sunday’s gospel from Luke told the disciples to simply announce that the Kingdom of heaven is near. The message is not all that complex, although it is profound. God is acting among us. That’s a great summer message for us. In the season when we pack up and move cross country in our cars by the thousands, we hear Jesus in Luke’s gospel tell us not to take anything for the journey. Any thought that the seventy-two disciples had about their inability to live without one thing or another is quickly refuted with “take nothing for the

journey, no money, no walking stick, no knapsack”. The Lord was sufficient for the journey.

If we move beyond our travel and vacation frenzy, we might have time to be embraced by a summertime Spirit. Don’t be distracted by motion and moving about. Focus on the message. Let peace be shared in our world. Don’t even worry about how it’s received. Discover the Kingdom which has been entrusted to us. Don’t even worry about what you should eat or drink. Receive all things in hospitality: eat and drink that which is set before you. Empty dreams? Or that woman on the back porch: “Don’t dream your life away.” Grasp the moment and be grasped by the moment, for Christ is a now experience.

Time to Revisit

Summertime spirituality calls us to revisit some basics of our prayer and faith life. Let’s go a bit slower. The heat and humidity sure could use a slower response. Slow it all down, breathe a bit deeper, relax with yourself, your family, and your friends. The meandering readings about discipleship, our response, and God’s Kingdom everywhere about us invite a walk through.

In season or out of season, on vacation or not, we are always invited to prayer. God seeks us out, if we let him catch up with us. He brings his own sufficiency and the efficiency of the Kingdom. It’s his Kingdom. In his good time. Some summertime possibilities:

Check out the sunrise and the sunset. These are the times when the Church has gathered to praise God. In those praises, the whole day became filled with the fullness of God-with-us. Praise God for the goodness of the morning. Thank him in the night. Pray for his protection in the dark until the rejoicing daylight.

Pick up the scriptures. Read slowly, wait for God to speak in the silence. He happens when we are still. He’s between the word and our concerns. Read and be still.

With the internet and with the ubiquitous presence of bookstores find a good spiritual source. Pick up the book, read, and wait. There are no stars for the number of books completed.

The lost art of the early morning walk to daily Mass can find a re-creation with a leisurely drive. We have efficiently deposited God to Sunday morning.

Notice the people you live with. Marriage is a gift, filled with people, a blessed presence of God with us. Take sometime for long overlooked family meals. Invite your friends to a quiet conversation, a cool drink, or just a good time to be together.

Be good to yourself. Savor God’s presence within you. The e-mails and the voice mail will wait. God might have something more important for you to hear. Savor your gift. Taste your memories. Sing a hymn or a psalm as you sit at the traffic light.

Discover that televisions, radios, cell phones, VCRs/DVDs have off-buttons.

Savor the moment, the quiet, the place of God’s Presence. You might remember the place. It’s worth the re-visit. Hosea, the prophet this week in the readings at Mass, had God invite Israel back to the desert, where the Lord God had loved her for the first time. That’s summertime re-creation. Seems as refreshing as a cool walk on the beach, or in the mountains, or in the garden where each night Adam and Eve walked with God in the good and gracious life in his Presence.

CDH