End of Summer

The end of summer is a strong emotional time for me. Not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s because it feels like a time of change and transition, moving on to other things. Maybe it’s partly because of the trends of life, work and school.

Or it could just be the weather.

On one hand, I feel fresh and ready for what’s ahead, excited a little over the idea that there is new opportunity for change and growth. The fall and winter are work times, productive times, times to put wings on my hope for something better.

On the other hand, I feel a sense of loss. The past year seems to end for me here. Not on December 31st, like it should, but at the end of August when summer comes to a close. This time with my wife and kids and friends, it's behind us. It's gone now, and the only way to move is forward.

And yet, the fall is one of my favorite times of year.  I treasure this cool, sweatshirt wearing, leaves changing colors, time between summer and the winter that I could do without. The fall is the transition, the get ready for the ice age. And in Michigan, where I live, the fall is all too short sometimes. Winter seems to come at us like a starving carnivore, wanting to devour the warmth and sun.

The end of summer has been filled with some painful revelations and challenges. Several people I love have discovered that they aren’t as healthy as they thought they were. I'll be at the hospital all day Tuesday with my sister who is in for cancer surgery. It makes me sick to think of her going through this, but I can do nothing about it except pray and try to be there for her. The winter ahead could be very difficult.

Some of the people I love are enduring great loss. The past year has been a hard one for so many people. Life isn’t what they expected. It has hit them hard while they weren't looking and taken the wind out of them. Some of them are working hard to just breathe again. And on top of these kinds of things, my kids are getting older. They aren’t really “little” children anymore. So the house is changing. The dynamic is different, and we all have to find our place in the new environment.

For me personally, heading into this fall and winter, there are a lot of things that need to change, a lot that needs to be done. Personally, professionally, and in my home. But I think I’m ready.

Back to work. Hup, hup, hup.






Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

On The Road Without Jack Kerouac

 We made our way across the American landscape, headed toward Appalachia. I was prepared with the proper music, etc., for the journey. We've got "family" music: The Monkees, a little Motown, some Chris Tomlin, and so on...

While the kids were occupied, I listened to some Jakob Dylan. It's the new one, I can't remember the name. He's riding on a horse "with a good woman by his side." It's pretty good, I like it, but it's a little, I don't know, thick somehow. Too many syllables and, overall, mixed very full in the mid-range. So I pop in Dan Zanes' Parades and Panoramas, which is a set of songs taken from the Carl Sandburg American Songbag. This recording is one of my all time favorites. It has a lot more overall character than most things you listen to, and it's totally fitting for the journey.


So we moved along, and we don't drag on behind.

I read Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions on the way. Honestly not sure what to make of it. It seems to me to be primarily about the madness of dehumanization, which is an essential issue of our times.


I saw a truck up ahead, it looks like this:

I like coffee, but that's a little overboard, don't you think?

Anyway, we rolled the chariot along, moved on to sit at the foot of the great Smoky Mountains in a little cabin. When you open the door of that cabin and look out, here's what you see...

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Etc. And so on...

Peace to you.




© LW Publishing 2010