Will You Choose Hope This Summer?

What a first half of 2020 it’s been!

Who could have predicted in January that we’d all be waylaid by a worldwide pandemic? And now here we are, as spring dissolves into summer. Many of us associate summer with vacations and sunshine and cookouts and trips to the water. What will this summer bring?

It seems that restrictions on social gatherings are starting to ease in many places. 

It’s a perfect time to appreciate our freedom and enjoy what the summer months bring.

There could be a second wave of restrictions and lockdown. We don’t know. But as Frederick Buechner said: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”

Buechner, of course, is just echoing the angels. Almost every time an angel appears in Scripture, it encourages us to not be afraid. 

“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). 

A time to stay at home and a time to go back out, to inch forward with caution, but forward nonetheless.

That, I believe, is the message of summer this year.

A deadly virus is a scary thing. There are good reasons to be afraid. But we don’t have to be. We must be wise and careful. Take precautions and consider the wellbeing of our fellow citizens. But we can also venture forth in courage and hope, even if we have to wear a mask and stay six feet apart. 

As C.S. Lewis wrote: “Life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice.”

During the second World War, when everything seemed uncertain and the world appeared to be on the verge of collapse, Lewis observed:

“If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun… Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never came… 

Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae.”

I think we will do the same. 

We’ll reemerge into the world because that’s our nature. Maybe we will even appreciate it more. 

The privilege of gathering in a church to worship together. The pleasure of a picnic with others in a park. The joy of watching a movie in a theater. All the things we took for granted present a new opportunity to live more fully, to live in awareness and gratitude for what we have.

My friend likes to collect snow from places she visits. Sounds kind of strange, I know. She will scoop snow into a small glass bottle. It melts into water and she keeps the bottles of melted snow to remind her of the cold, beautiful places she’s been. 

There’s a lesson in that for all of us as this summer arrives. We can look back on the cold as a reminder. But also as a sign of the reality that winter will thaw and a bright new season will always come. For everybody all over the world, that season is now. 

American poet William Carlos Williams wrote: “In summer, the song sings itself.”

Let’s join in the song this year, grateful for all God has brought us through the first half of this year. He will continue to carry us through all that is to come if we stay close to Him. In the meantime, let’s rejoice in this new season and be glad in it.