Summer Solstice

The summer solstice shows up on the 21st of June.

In England the sun will send a spear of light to the same place as it did thousands of years ago. Is it a blinking flashlight from our maker? "Here I am, in the same place, the same time, lighting the same spot as I have almost forever." Good message. Something's got to stay the same in this slippery, sloppy world.

As a girl, lying damp in the grass, watching with awe the endless stars, I searched for tiny Sputnik; and I feared my lonely, infinitesimal place in the sprawling universe.

But I loved peering in the grasses at the beach, as leggy bugs made their way over the sand; like stones to them; then sitting up on the same warm, dusty sand to see pelicans pause and dive into a steaming, blowing sea, swooping up swirling, flashing sardines. All this while great, green waves crashed in on themselves, roaring up, foam finally reaching me, and scaring tiny sand crabs (an unreal powder pink) scrabbling away, immediately redigging their holes in the wet, kicking dark damp sand back, just as our puppies did, who I'd watched grow from bumping sides of the mom, to birthing and breathing at once, and growing so fast that my eyes could barely see it, were scratching in the dry dunes scaring up the chittering, scolding quail, who raised their fuzzy hiding babies nearby.

I love God for reminding us to love the world. "Feed my sheep", Jesus said, a message as if to shepherds, but meaning us, and maybe more importantly reminding us of "the sparrows whose deaths were not unnoticed or apart from God." I think it was assumed we would take care of the world...not knowing what grasping people we would become. We are so wealthy now...beyond Solomon, I've read, and Solomon was a rich man!!

Maybe we can slow down, marvel at myriad creatures, at the environmental changes, grieve for ecological losses, check our self responsibility, and do as we're asked: take care of all life, for the love of it, and for salvation of our planet.

That sun peeking into Stonehenge was so important to our ancestors that a complicated, massivemonument was built. The same sun that beams into that space, also sends life and light to this watery wonderful place that is our home.

What an amazing event, this changing season.