How to have a perfect summer

Summer. I’m slathering sunscreen on boys before their inaugural dip in the pool when I catch the first whiff of it; freshly cut grass, sunshine, chlorine, watermelon, and lemonade all mingle into a scent that transports me through time. I can nearly touch and taste the season getting ready to unfold. And these words from an old Ray Bradbury book run right through my mind. “Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered” (Bradbury). And so here we are. Summer, once again.

I read Bradbury’s book Dandelion Wine as a 9th grader under the instruction of my most favorite English teacher ever, and I quickly became enamored with the story. Douglas Spaulding, the 12-year-old main character, helps his grandfather capture the sights and sounds of summer; “to catch and stopper” them into a concoction they call Dandelion Wine. “This way,” they reckon, “you get to live summer over for a minute or two along the way through the winter.” Their favorite time of year “salvaged and labeled so that anytime you wish you might tiptoe in, reach your fingertips up … and touch it” (Bradbury).

And all these years later, not a summer goes by that I don’t hear the first sound of a lawnmower or feel the first splash of pool water and think of that story.

Because summer is the stuff that dreams are made of, right?  Who doesn’t long for those perfect days? For the way we delight in the company of friends and the easy rhythms of lengthening days. For less schedule and more popsicles; less hurry and more chess games.But.

That’s not always how it goes down.

If I were to make my own Dandelion Wine, “to catch and to stopper” moments of this season, I fear what it might actually include. Sounds of arguing boys and me yelling “No more video games. Turn off Fortnite!” Smells of burned grill cheese and sweaty shoes left in the kitchen. Sights of unfolded laundry, ill-aimed nerf bullets and discarded wet bathing suits. Yeah. Our summer in a bottle probably wouldn’t fly off the shelves.

And maybe you feel it, too.

As the kids toss their backpacks in a corner, cover the counters with end-of-year artwork and announce that the season of fun has begun, maybe you feel the pressure mounting. The pressure to produce a perfect summer.

I’m negotiating life with the little one when I remember it, though. In between the, “why can’t I bounce the ball in the kitchen?” argument, the words of this verse fall slowly over me. “I am the vine and you are the branches. If you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” 

Abide. Abide. Only in me will any of this work, the Lord seems to whisper into the early days of this new season. I don’t really believe him, though. I mean who wants into these messy upended days where everyone argues and nothing goes right? They feel like failure and I am certain God wants nothing to do with me when it all goes wrong.

And maybe for you, it isn’t this change of seasons. Maybe it is a new challenge, a hard relationship or work that never seems to end. So often, we don’t want our Creator to stand in the hard parts of our life and look at them. We just want to make it right on our own.

And yet, there he stands. “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” Jesus, beckoning to be let into our days.

It’s not going to work without me. You can keep charging ahead and working for perfect, but you’re never going to get there, he whispers over the cranky kids who can’t seem to find towels or kind words for each other.

“Apart from me, you can do nothing”.

And then I remember some more about that Dandelion Wine story I love. Douglas, the main character, gets really sick, several people he cares about die and all kinds of crazy happens in his town that summer. It is not perfect; not even for a minute. But Douglas seems to know something I am quick to forget.

Perfection is not what makes life worth holding onto. He doesn’t want to bottle up summer because it is perfect. He wants to bottle it up because of how it makes him feel. It is summer that makes him feel loved and amazed at his place in this world. It makes him feel alive. “I want to feel all there is to feel, he thought. Let me even feel tired now. I mustn’t forget that I’m alive. I mustn’t forget it tonight or tomorrow or the day after that” (Bradbury).

Yeah. That’s how we overcome the hurdle in front of us or banish the perfection-seeking ogre who keeps trying to steal our days. We feel all the things. We stay present in them; the mess, the boredom, the cranky kids, the hard job, the difficult relationship. We acknowledge them for what they are … and we give thanks. We are alive and we are not in this alone. 

This side of heaven, I will never understand why, but the Lord, the Creator of all heaven and earth loves us with an everlasting love. He pursues us with relentless passion and he wants to walk with us into whatever our ordinary days may hold. We mustn’t forget that love tonight, tomorrow or the day after that. It is a love that can change how everything looks.“I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the Lord’s holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19).

You are deeply loved, my friend.  Happy Summer!