By: Steve Matthews, Consultant, Genesis II: Re-Vision and Renew

It’s summer.  

It’s summer after more than two years of pandemic. 

It’s summer and the work of justice seems more urgent than ever.  

It’s summer and it’s hotter, and dryer… and maybe wetter than it’s ever been.

It’s summer and it’s also time for ice cream, and watermelon, and picnics and days off at the lake or the beach or the mountains.  

It’s summer and it’s time for family and friends and vacation and leisure.  

E.E Cummings is reported to have said to his wife at breakfast one morning, “Everyday I feel the need to decide whether to improve the world or enjoy the world.”  Perhaps “enjoying the world” and “improving the world” are not mutually exclusive, but with all the urgency in the world right now, “enjoying” the world may be an important spiritual practice.

The philosopher, Josef Pieper, wrote in Leisure: The Basis of Culture, “Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves.”  How might your summer experiences/ practices help you find a oneness with yourself and with God so that you might more fully experience the presence and invitation of God’s love?