The Summer Day 

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly

washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
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?

~  Mary Oliver

ummer is for day-dreaming.  Life slows down.  Yippee!

The school year can be pretty grueling for children, parents, teachers, school administrators and school bus drivers alike.  Get up early, shovel down some breakfast and quick out the door.  Work all day, homework at night, lights out and get up and do it again.  Day in, day out.  I, for one, am ready to get off this merry-go-round.  On the last day of school I feel a big Hurrah for summer! rise up from somewhere really deep within.  I am ready.

In our Protestant-work-ethic culture we are steeped in the idea that we should always be productive.  What we do has more meaning than who or how we are.  We value doing over being, hands down every time.  Why is that?  You think when your time is up you'll wish that you had washed the floor more often? Or stayed at the office a little later each day?

Summer down-time gives us a chance to experience the joy of being still, observing the world, soaking it in.  It takes being idle to do that.  When was the last time you sat in a lawn chair, in the grass or on the beach with nothing to do but watch the birds feed their brood, or the neighborhood cat stalk a spider, or ants haul a large piece of crust back to the colony?  When was the last time you read a book in the shade with a plate of cookies and a tall lemonade?  Or went for a walk in the woods with a friend?  Or fell asleep to the sound of waves on shore?

I hope my words are making you hungry for all this.  I want you to crave it and have some for yourself.  This time is passing.  How will you savor and enjoy it?  Who will you be in it?  What kind of person do you still want to become?