For years, I have disliked the HHH weather of summer in southeastern Pennsylvania. You know summer, particularly the dog days of summer - from the rising of the star Sirius in the night sky and the panting of the pups trying to keep themselves from overheating, the HHH - hazy, hot, and humid days and NIGHTS that never seem to end. It's as if nature itself is shunning work and doing its best to thwart everyone's attempt to do otherwise. Your skin 'sticks' to everything! Everything you touch feels like a towel AFTER you've used it! There are NO solid colored clothes - everything exists in multiple shades of color depending on the amount of sweat the garment absorbed from your skin. You are filling your glass and the pet's water bowl more often than the hour changes. It's the time when every effort of your body is rewarded by beads of sweat running off your head and into your eyes and/or ears. O.K. I trust you get the steamy picture and know the discomfort of which I speak.
But I have come to realize there is a hidden blessing in the HHH weather. It is counterintuitive for most of us - and our society doesn't value it either; but our faith tradition does! And even society passes along a common phrase that lifts it up, if only in passing. What? - Slowing down. To use society's phrase, "Slow down and smell the roses." Wait a minute, that's just doing less or, horror of horrors, doing nothing, Isn't it? Is it? How many of us have memories of 'HHH' evenings that turned into nights gathered on the porch, front step, bench, or picnic table waiting for it to be cool enough, or our bodies exhausted enough, to go beyond the sweat into sleep? What else do these remembrances share? I would venture they also include such things as conversations with the entire family, the next door neighbors, other neighbors of the community slow walking by and stopping -- to talk, to relate, to share the burden of the weather, to live together, and to search for joy. So did it slow us down, cause us to do less or nothing at all, or did it invite us to do something different? The different things that didn't, and still don't, earn us a dollar, but add wealth to our spirits and our lives each and every day?
Peace and joy to you and yours always,
Bruce E. Dalious, Interim Pastor
P.S. - You can also slow down on special evenings and catch one of nature's firework shows that sometimes accompany the HHH days. They too can fill your spirit with awe and wonder, but stay safe.
