Stop by Patheos for my latest reflection:
“The summer night is like a perfection of thought.” –Wallace Stevens
“What is summer’s sweetness / but an invitation to respond?” —Lynn Ungar
My husband and my work schedules run on the academic year which means that we work quite hard from fall through spring, but then summer opens up like a lavish gift before us. I am finding these summer days I have been resistant even to the writing that I love so much, craving more silence and rest and so as I sit down to write this reflection I am drawn toward simplicity, fewer words, more savoring of the spaces between them.
Being a monk in the world means for me to live slowly in a fast-paced culture, to treasure the gift of being in a world that says my value comes from doing, to linger over life’s moments and recognize that what I seek most deeply is already here waiting to be revealed.
Summer calls me to relish the gifts of slowness, attention, and wonder. The season immerses me in the sacramental imagination – the recognition that everything is holy, everything shimmers with the sacred presence if we only slow down enough to see.
Summer’s sweetness is “an invitation to respond” as poet Lynn Ungar writes. Let’s celebrate summer’s gifts with a list of some things that should be done s-l-o-w-l-y. . .
