Carefree Summer

Lately I've been frustrated by all the things on my growing to-do list.

It seems we have a variety of responses to having too much on our plates, but for right now I'm frustrated. I don't mind so much having ten thousand things to do in the winter....but summer...it just seems like a crappy time to be preoccupied with a to-do list that's too long to get done.

I was trying to put my finger on why it irritates me so much to be overly busy in the summer...part of it is the short period of time of great weather, part of it is the fact that I've had a few overly busy summers in a row, but part of it seems related to this idyllic notion of summer that I have.

Summer to me is supposed to be carefree.

It's supposed to be that time where responsibilities and work and all the demands just get set aside for playing. I think this is a pattern most of us develop when we're young - work hard during the school year, but cut loose during the summer. Wake up and find a new adventure each day. No plans, no places you have to be...

I miss that. I miss the memory I have of it anyway...I realize that part of the glory may just be nostalgia, and its perfection may be a function of remembering.

But it makes me wonder about the heaviness I feel in my not-so-carefree life these days. I feel careworn instead.

Maybe some of it is self-imposed. Maybe I feel the weight of responsibility when I buy into illusions of life that make things heavier than they need to be. Illusions of permanence. Illusions about myself and my false sense of omnipotence and importance.

Maybe having my butt kicked to the curb by life lately is actually a gift. Maybe losing some battles in life can remind us that what we've been working so hard for, is actually not so important.

When things started to come apart in my professional life a few months ago, I had the wisdom (occasionally) of stopping and listening. Trying to sense the Spirit's voice in the midst of my sadness and anger. All I could hear was "don't get lost in the details". I wasn't exactly sure of what that meant. It seemed to be a reminder that the details weren't so important...but I neglected the first part..."don't get lost".

It's easy for us to "get lost"; to be emotionally and mentally far away from our true identity, the true sources of our value, the truly important and meaningful things in life.

In my desire to have a care-free summer, I've been hoping for a removal of difficult and pressing things. It's the typical North American mindset - that happiness is the absence of suffering or strain. But the truth is that to be carefree is not to have the demands of my life disappear, but rather, it requires me to re-orient my relationship to those demands, seeing them for what they really are, and not taking them at face value or getting sucked into their traps.

To be carefree (not careless) is perhaps ultimately about "not getting lost in the details", about re-aligning our perspective to the bigger realities of life. That we are valued because God has infused us with value as his creation, his children, his friends. That most of life is fleeting and temporary and that all that really matters is to love God and love the things God loves. That the world is ultimately a safe place, not a place where everything works out how we want it, or place that's free from suffering, but a place but a place where God will not be thwarted in his work of redeeming all of creation.

My carefree, or at least not careworn summer is available if I choose it. If I choose to believe and act as if I believe certain things about the world. If I refuse to get lost in the details.

Postscript:  ....and my anger about the people who did this to me? Well, I think I can avoid becoming bitter if I recognize that the things they've taken are not of ultimate importance, and that they can never take away the things that really matter in life.