...it's summer time, and the living's crazy!

Once upon a time summer was the season everyone would kick back and relax. (And skip church a lot! ...finger wag, finger wag, finger wag!!... but that's a story for another day.) But summer has become "the driven season". No family, it seems, ever slows down.

There's Bible camp and soccer camp and T-ball camp and baseball camp and football camp and day camp and band camp and camping with your family. There's V.B.S. on every corner and county fairs in every county. There's Wild Wednesdays here and Thursday Kid's Theater in the Park there, not to mention vacation travel and visiting family travel and outlet mall travel and... I think you get the point.

Just yesterday I was cutting my lawn when I saw a kid on my street, sitting on the curb, playing with ants. He'd put a piece of grass in their way to see what they would do or drip some of his popsicle on a spot just in front of them to see if they had an appetite for orange-flavored ice. So I sat down beside him, picked up a piece of grass, unwrapped a popsicle and we had some summer together.

So maybe that's why the Bible says "What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? ...even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless." (Ecclesiastes 2:22-23) Maybe summer might be more meaningful, might hold more quiet, God-like peaceful moments, if we all slowed down a bit. Maybe then we could all have some summer. Want a popsicle?