Summer Benedictions

I’ve always wanted to live a good, full and meaty life. That kind of existence that leaves me spent - where all the potential in a day has been wrung from it and I STILL keep tugging and twisting to get that last drop out.

I had it all - this whole rush of scary and sweet newness over the last few years and at some point, I’d had enough. My hands couldn’t wring any more. I wanted to curl up for a bit and rest. Slow things down. Get to know myself again.

And that was all well and good and timely and beautiful. Really, really, really beautiful.

Then sometime around April, that dum-de-dum pace started to get old. It was complacency, not restoration.

Perhaps this warm summer air or the *idea* that I might be canceling my cable has lit a fire under me again.

Kiddos, it’s time for something communal and exciting. No more of this solitary winter hibernating.

*******

Let us make fireworks and revel about to LOUD music.

May we feast and rejoice with each other. (Lots of feasting. And hours of egregious fellowship.)

May this life’s already begun blessings stretch down with deeper rooting.

May these minds step over the dead weight of our pasts. The chaff has been burned. It is time to pass the ashes and leave them behind.

May we be adventurers – to distant lands and unfamiliar pastimes.

May we fully embrace life. May we embrace each other without abandon.

*****

"After looking at the way things are on this earth, here's what I've decided is the best way to live: Take care of yourself, have a good time, and make the most of whatever job you have for as long as God gives you life. And that's about it. That's the human lot. Yes, we should make the most of what God gives, both the bounty and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what's given and delighting in the work. It's God's gift! God deals out joy in the present, the now. It's useless to brood over how long we might live."

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20 (The Message)