Summertime Blues

Charlie Brown and Schroeder held a mound meeting that had nothing to do with what the next pitch should be. Instead, it ran like this:

CB: Why does it have to be so hot when we play?

S:    Don’t curse the weather, Charlie Brown…

He then launched into a recitation of God’s confrontation with Job in which God asked Job if he had been present for 

                        any of the miracles of creation, to which Job can only remain silent…so, Schroeder ends as he began…

        Don’t curse the weather, Charlie Brown.

CB: How would it be if I yelled at the umpire?

I always think of this exchange when summer truly arrives to our Augusta home. Summer offers many hints and glimpses around here, sometimes as early as Masters Week in early April, sometimes throwing in a brief sun-fired drought in May, but nothing lasting, even though the temperature may hover in the 80s for weeks on end. Then, summer comes. At some point in June, we fall beneath a blanket of humidity held in place by a dome of heat. Stephen King’s poor blighters existing the “The Dome” on TV could learn a few things from us during summer. Even before dawn, you step from the front door into a wall of heat. It is a heavy heat, laden with moisture. It embraces you, wraps you up, and dampens you even if the only exertion is reaching for the paper the carrier conveniently tossed into the magnolia tree. As the sun arcs through the day—a day which will last well into evening—darkness finally descending well after 900 PM—the heat goes through transformations and transcendence. The sun enlivens the humidity. It takes on life, waving through the air like real ocean breakers only without the beach. The itself decides to become piercing the higher it rises. You can actually feel it burrowing into you as you do yard work or watch the children play or, God help you, you choose to sit beside the pool and “sun”—umbrellas aren’t just for rain, folks! 

I whine. I complain. I grow irritable. I curse the weather, no matter what Schroeder and scripture say.

But does it get me anywhere? 

Not really.

Do I feel better?

Nope.

In another Peanuts dialog, Linus and Lucy sit in a window watching it rain. This exchange ensues—

Lucy:  Why does it always rain when I want to do something?

Linus: It doesn’t really. You just think it does when it rains when you’ve planned something.

Lucy: (glowering at Linus with murderous intent) Why does it ALWAYS rain when I want to do something?

Linus: You’re just a very unlucky person. 

Linus defaults when he could have offered some very sound theological counsel. I understand. Under the the presumed wrath of a sibling, silence or deferment may truly be the wisest choice. But the wise counsel remains, and it flows from Schroeder’s earlier recitation—the weather is a manifestation of the power of the Creator. God is God, and we are not. My whining will never bring a run of 60 degree days in July down here. My complaining is not going to lessen the humidity, releasing me from the blanket of moist air. There are some things over which I have no control whatsoever. There is grace in this recognition, even though to our ears, it may not seem such. Our lack of control over everything within our lives is grace because it awakens us to our need for God and for one another. God created us to be interconnected and interdependent. That is the essence of love, really—we open ourselves to someone else who fills in our blanks, while we correspondingly fill in theirs. But to fully engage in love, we have to become aware of those blanks that need filling. That comes as we realize how those around us flesh us out, make us more whole, and decreases the empty spaces in our being. Miraculously, most of us find there is someone who truly makes us whole—our beloved—and we find human communion. Also, to fully engage in love, we become aware of how we might connect to someone else, realizing we have gifts and offerings that make someone else more complete. We give to our friends; we give to our partners; and we give to our children and relatives. We make them more than they were, just as they do for us. And all of this points to an ultimate connection—there is One who makes whole to the point of holiness. God fills in all that is less than able to empower our love and ability to love. God provides the context, the nourishment (mind, body, spirit), and the reclamation (i.e., grace) to overcome our incompleteness and, yes, incompetence, so we can be fully the gifts of grace God intends for us to be. 

That is where Linus could have led Lucy. 

It is where summer leads me.

May it be so for you, as well.