Summertime and the prayin' is easy

Image: EntreatMeNot

The weekly paper here in town, The Concord Journal, hosts a column, Voices of Faith, authored on a rotating basis by leaders in local faith communities.  This week was my turn and I gathered up, edited and combined three posts from my blog (one a recent MMO, each one relating to our spiritual lives in the summer.  Some of this may be familiar to regular readers and some of it new.

Summer’s a season when many of us find there’s more time to do some of the many things we just don’t get around to the rest of the year. School’s out, there are fewer community meetings and for many there’s a week or two of vacation. And all of us seem to find at least a little extra time here and there for catching up on things too often left behind. Seems to me that summer might be a special time for prayer, for quietly reflecting on the change of seasons, pace and clime. Perhaps you’ll clip this column and keep it handy for those days when you have a little more time than usual. In this good old summertime, let us pray…

Summertime and the prayin' is easy

As summer begins… School's been out for over two weeks now and kids are off on summer vacation. I remember such a time, now gone, when summer had no horizon: a time and place as close to heaven as any young heart might imagine.

Something in a child’s summer joy comes, I'm sure, a gift from God: a taste of timelessness, a promise of perpetual play, a season of sun and unreasoned joy. Vacation: heaven every summer! Could the source of such a gift be anything but divine?

But where did they go? Where did those childhood summers fly, Lord? Do I still believe in summer's promise of pleasure unending, unbending to calendars clocking each day, tick-tocking away the weeks of welcome warmth?

If I don't believe in summer, how will I believe in God or in heaven where summer's joy surely never ends, where summer's timeless stillness calms with peace all other seasons' grief?

Come summer with me, Lord; summer deep down in my soul; restore my faith in summer’s time, in rest, in joy, in play, in you. Summer in my heart, Lord, and dwell there as though time would never end, as if all time were child’s time, eternal time, when school is always out and joy is ever in.

Come summer with me, Lord; come summer deep down in my soul…

Going on vacation… I'm getting ready to go on vacation and there's a lot of things I need to get done, things I'd like to get done, that I should get done before I leave.

You know what I mean, Lord: loose ends needing to be neatly tied; calls and emails waiting for my response; and all manner of unfinished tasks begging for completion.

But more than all that, Lord, there's my unfinished business with you: prayers half-prayed and in need of an Amen; prayers not even half-begun, so much in need of time with you am I; prayers sent up from half a heart when the whole of my heart is your heart’s desire.

In these finally-summer days, Lord, slow me down and give me time, at least now and again, for nothing to do but be with you and to know again that you're with me.

Help me put the brakes on my merry-go-round-go-nowhere pace... Slow me down… Let a summer doldrum lull, calm and call me to a place of peace, of prayer, of meeting you again -- as if bumping into an old friend, on the streets of my vacation.

As I get ready for vacation, Lord, help me pack only what I need to take with me; help me leave behind what needs to be left behind; help me leave my work at work; keep me from packing all the clutter that complicates my life; help me to keep things simple, simple enough to make room for you, time with you, on my vacation.

Come summer with me, Lord; come summer deep down in my soul...

On vacation… I'm on vacation, Lord: grateful for the time off, the time away and grateful, too, that I have work from which to rest… I pray for those who’ve lost a job and seek one and for those who are overworked and need rest... Let me not take for granted this time that’s mine for rest, for refreshing my body and spirits.

Help me relax, Lord, to make time to slow and silence all my inner rushing ‘round, to find a peaceful pace and place where I can meet you face to face.

Remind me of all the times you took your own rest, Lord: leaving the city and crowds behind, going out into the desert, up the mountain,
across the lake and off by yourself or with just a few friends, to pray.

Slow me down, Lord, and let the busyness that runs me and runs me down settle to a pace and peace that lets me be, just be with you, in a quiet shade where your heart speaks to me and I can hear your word.

In my time off, in some place away, let me find again the peace of being at your side, remembering how you are always right by mine.

Come summer with me, Lord; come summer deep down in my soul…

Amen.



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