By Ashlie Miller

“Have a great summer!” If you dig up an old school yearbook, someone at some point likely wrote that in the front or end pages of yours. Although it’s in the middle of the year, summer comes at a closure and seasonal “goodbye” for many people. We wish a “great summer” in a way that we do not proclaim any other season, except perhaps the Christmas holiday. While each season has its gift, does any season provide as much time for recreation, leisure, and renewal?

Swimming, running, and pickleball, hiking and camping in the great outdoors, attending games, outdoor concerts, movies in the park, grilling at the neighbor’s (Northern or Cali transplants, do not call this a barbecue, please), block parties, summer-themed festivals, and even the quieter hobbies of bird watching and gardening all bid us outside. Or maybe you escape the humidity and enjoy the air conditioning by catching up on puzzles, watching Christmas movies in July, completing the work-in-progress hobby or task, or reading.

Many also find a fire reignited, not just by sitting around a campfire and sharing stories and thoughts, but perhaps as students attending a camp or children at a Vacation Bible School. I remember the days of hot camp meetings as choirs joined together and preachers preached under a large tent over a sawdust-laden ground. 

Attendees of VBS, youth camps, and seasonal church meetings often leave with a sense of renewal, rededication, or recommitment to what (or Who) matters most. 

Even work can seem less like the exhausting tedium of toil in this season for some (with apologies to landscapers and road-workers). Extended hours of daylight can provide more opportunities for recreation after hours. 

The season can be a life-giving recharge before schedules for many resume or take an upswing in September. Recreation lives up to the name of RE-creating life and vibrancy within us.

Summer often takes us back to the memory of Eden – the garden of the dawn of the ages that held such promise, but was spoiled by mankind’s will, desire, and lack of contentment, trust, and obedience. The place of walking in intimate communion with God. 

We look to re-create such things through moments of leisure. Maybe if we spend enough time appreciating nature, we will learn something about ourselves or something greater beyond ourselves, if such things exist. Perhaps if we make time to connect with our neighbors, friends, or community, a hole of deep communion will be filled. If we are lucky, maybe some focused solitude on a worthwhile project will make work feel purposeful, beautiful, and enjoyable for once. But summer will end, and there may still be desires unsatisfied. C.S. Lewis famously wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Let’s not pretend that we can recreate Eden or heaven on earth through our recreation this summer, but if such pleasures and pauses bring a greater awareness of creation, our Creator, and a need to return to such things, we truly can “have a great summer!”