For centuries the promises of summer have rolled off the lips
of poets and songwriters. Poet or otherwise, I agree with Shakespeare:
"Summer's lease hath all too short a date."
It is the time of year when I begin to savor the days of
summer, and recall what it felt like to run home from the last day of school
with three months in my back pocket. For me summer vacations call to mind the joy of raking hay
meadows at the ZN, outside of Saratoga, picnics at Robber’s Roost, Lake Marie, trip to
Yellowstone, fishing at Jack Creek, and swimming at the Hobo Pool; all mentally
scenic reminders of the origin of the word "vacation" itself; the
Latin word "vacatio" means freedom.
Even so, I have always been sadly aware it is a freedom that
does not last. Even as a child on summer break I knew that vacation would end
and summer would fade away. It is, in fact, this quality that makes my vacations
all the more sought-after; it is time set aside, time that shouts particularly
of meaning because of the time with which it so contrasts. Yet regardless of
its short lease, there seems a promise within the freeing days of summer that
captures my heart and remains with me through the longest of winters.
A poem by C.S. Lewis
suggests that the promise I’m looking for is that the seasons of life will one
day come to a grinding halt and death will be no more. It is the hopeful
possibility that everyone has been created to know a freedom that endures. Writes Lewis:
I heard in Addison's
Walk a bird sing clear
'This year the summer
will come true. This year. This year.
'Winds will not strip
the blossom from the apple trees
This year, nor want of
rain destroy the peas.
'This year time's
nature will no more defeat you,
Nor all the promised
moments in their passing cheat you.
'This time they will
not lead you round and back
To Autumn, one year
older, by the well-worn track.
'This year, this year,
as all these flowers foretell,
We shall escape the
circle and undo the spell.
'Often deceived, yet
open once again your heart,
Quick, quick, quick,
quick!—the gates are
drawn apart.'
As I ruminated on those words I asked myself: What if the
changing seasons, the fading of flowers, and the rebirth of summer are all
signposts of the eternal? In his wisdom, King
Solomon saw that written upon the seasons of time is the signature of
the one who made them in Ecclesiastes 3. "There
is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time
to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot... He has
made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts
of men". Rising sun and emerging summer declare that the
heavens will neither forget nor forsake. Upon each waking flower is written the
promise of resurrection.
It is this weighted promise that I find in my Christian
worldview carrying through the seasons: Christ has stopped the cycle
of death and is coming back to bring us, His
children, where He is. The
effect of such a promise on the life of a believer is well illustrated in
hymnist Fanny Crosby. She wrote:
I know in
whom my soul believes,
I know in whom I
trust;
The Holy One, the
merciful,
the only wise and
just.
I know in whom my soul
believes,
and all my fears
depart;
For though the winter
winds may blow,
'tis summer in my
heart.
Crosby wrote of the Christian hope she saw written across
her life. Though blinded as an infant by a doctor's error, she saw the light of
Christ, and subsequently
chose to carry the promise of summer with her.
Father, God, I would like to
think that every season presents a similar option of holding near the hope of Christ and the promise of
resurrection, until a day when summer comes true. Amen
