In the summertime when the weather is fine...

you can stretch right up
and touch the sky...

That's how the song goes.

And the weather is fine and I have been seeing some mighty nice skies lately. But still.

This happens in the summertime. I get hungry and dry. Not like hungry for a nice sharp cheese and some good bread, and not dry like it's hot and I haven't been drinking enough water--though both are true I suppose.

Summers are a blur of trips and camping and backpacking and events for the kids--my own as well as the ones Jesus brings me--and coming home to water limp plants and clean out over stuffed email in-boxes and voice mail and wash the dirty clothes in the suitcase so I can stick them back in again... you know the routine... you're probably doing it too.

We don't get to church much in the summer. We're pretty much gone every Sunday. Not that church leaves me feeling particularly satisfied, to tell you the truth. Mostly when it comes to 'church' I feel like I am famished but the only place open is Hometown Buffet, and all the food is garishly colored and full of grease, but I'm starving, you know? So I pick around and finally find some fresh fruit and maybe a cheese enchilada or something, and I eat it, and I'm not starving anymore but I don't really feel all that content either. And often I feel even worse later. Like I would have been better off not eating at all.

And our Tuesday prayer nights are kaput until the summer is over and camps are done. So I miss that connection, the worship, our prayer family.

I had three days alone at the cabin, on the creek, mostly hiking and reading--which was great--but day three I found myself fidgeting with an old radio there, searching for something, and landed on a station that played sermons all day long. I lapped it up--all of it: the shaky old lady voice singing "Shall We Gather at the River"; the ladies choir singing some lame song about needing new shoes...the shoes of the gospel, don'tcha know; and even McGee, with his preposterous notions and nasally incessant yammering. I gobbled it all in like a steaming plate of polenta. Comfort food.

I need to get better at just sitting down and reading my Bible. I mean, good grief--it's there all the time. Every season. I talk talk talk to God--how patient He is... always happy to hear from me... perhaps the real reason I have loved Him so hard and so long... but how often do I just sit down and read His word? Um, I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you. So it's up to me, and I'm feeling the pull. It's time I answered it.

It's summertime and weather is fine, and I've got Jesus I've got Jesus on my mind.