The beginning of June is an interesting time of year. School is not yet out, but all the academic learning pretty much is wrapped up (at least for the children who live at my house). The apricots, peaches and nectarines look beautiful, and they’re starting to smell good, too, but they’re still hard and sour. The weather cannot decide if it’s a season of fog, or sunshine or of rain. Vacation is on the mind, but there is yet work to be done. If summer were a nap, we’d just be falling asleep, not quite awake yet, far from the deep slumber of August.
The first weeks of June are an in-between place, and such places can be unnerving because during early June the Summer is as yet only half-formed. But that which is half-formed also is half-unformed and herein lies a joyful possibility. The summer may yet be imagined into existence. Plans may yet be laid down. Hopes may become incarnate.
In June there’s still time to buy a new pair of sandals, or to discover a new author whose novel can be read on a beach we may yet arrange to visit.
And my prayer for you is this: may this early June be a time when you see past the uncertainty and into the possibility of a lovely summer. May such hope and grace be yours in every early June: those you find on your calendar and those figurative early Junes that may come along at any time of the year.
Ben