I love Summer Reading. I love taking my two kids to the public library to sign up for the Summer Reading Program, and get them their little check-box charts and free bookmarks. And I really love borrowing books—lots of books—and crafting my own pile of summer reads.
So far, I’ve got a solid stack. I have How to Hide an Empire as my history book; and The Emotional Lives of Teenagers as my parenting book. I’ve got Tales of Falling and Flying as my short story collection, and The Rent Collector as my “outside my field of view” book. I have a Brother Caedfel for my gentle mystery. I’m still in need of something great from the fantasy genre (taking recommendations!). And for ministry, I have The Art of Gathering (thinking Midweek 23-24’) and Professional Christian.
I am ready: ready to get only part way through this stack, and end the summer wondering why long lazy days sitting on a swing with a book aren’t quite as numerous as Summer Reading blogs or displays at libraries and bookstores would make us think.
Knowing I won't finish my stack somehow doesn't lessen my pleasure in the planning and borrowing. Same goes for my other Summer Bucket List items: listen to ocean; grow garden; attend outdoor concert; pick berries; learn to serve fresh greens so kiddo will eat them.
I was meditating on the whole idea of summer goals this week while reading poet Mary Oliver's lovely “The Summer Day.” She ends with these inspiring words:
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
I hope in the next weeks, you are idle and blessed; that you stroll in fields, touch grass, and listen to water move. That your summer reading pile gives you pleasure and never pressure. That your New England soul soaks in long hours of light. And I hope that you can feel all of these things—these summer moments, whether grabbed here and there, or luxuriated in—as prayers.
Blessings,
Bryn
