Six Months of Summer

I am early out on the patio again, this summer Saturday morning.  This outside space is one of three that offers sanctuary to my wintered soul; here by my little fountain, by the pond at the church, and of course the deck and/or dock at the cottage. 

This morning the temperature is pleasant, but I would also be quite content if it was cooler.  "Fresh" is how I describe it.  "Freezing" for my not-so-inclined-outdoors husband.  But I don't seem to mind sitting outside well into the fall season, with a cup of tea steaming beside me and an extra fleece blanket around my legs.  Just let me be outdoors for as long as possible.

But this year I will miss that gradual cooling part of the outdoors experience.  In fact I will skip fall altogether.

Earlier this week there was a prank posting on Facebook claiming that Environment Canada was predicting an early and severe start to winter in Ontario.  The picture showed a street piled high with snow, and the date that was suggested for such a scene was October 1st.  I saw it, and in the first moments when I thought it was legit, I felt bad...for all of you.  But me?  This year my summer lasts six months.

Unless things get early-autumnized by September 15, I will leave Canada while it's still summer, and arrive back two weeks before Christmas.  I know on the calendar fall actually ends December 21, but nobody's fooling us Southwestern Ontarians.   In our minds, winter begins with the first snowfall, which experience tells us normally happens, if not October 1, then certainly well before Christmas.  Most of the time anyways.

So I expect to arrive home to winter weather.  Having spent six months outdoors.

Almost all of waking life at Hot Springs happens without walls.  Every meal, doing homework and chores, games and crafts, just hanging around under the shelters playing guitar or ping pong.  And even when inside, for Sunday morning worship service or daily devotions, windows and doors are open wide and the outdoors, in more ways than one, comes in.  Sometimes bugs, sometimes sideways rain, but mostly in the form of hotly-coveted moving air.

Even two narrow properties along the road at the guest house that will be my room while I'm there, there is a covered porch with a small table and chairs.  I hope to be able to borrow or buy a suitable reading chair and spend most of my reading time outdoors, either there or somewhere shady at Hot Springs proper.   And I will shop at outdoor markets and visit classrooms that have only three walls, and worship with inmates whose meeting space connects with a common courtyard, and ride sometimes in the back of a truck all exposed and wild and uncovered.

Six months in flip flops.  Six months outside.

Thing is, I love fall too.  As much as I love to get outdoors come spring, there is also delight at the other end when things get 'fresh' and colours break free and tea steams beside me on the patio.  And then, when it's too fresh even for that, the first lighting of the fireplace and the warmth of a candle in the cozy sacred spaces of my indoor world; my office, the family room; my bed.

So I'm wondering. What does six months of summer feel like?

Will any of this matter by the time I get back?  Somehow I'm guessing that what I'm about to embark on will find me asking different questions upon re-entry.  Thing is, I can't even begin to imagine what they might be, here and now, on my patio on a pleasant summer's morning.   I don't know what six months of summer will feel like, or what three months away from my husband, family and church will feel like.  I don't know, really, what I'm in for, as comfortable as I feel with Thai culture now.  What will it be like to be immersed for that long?  Of course, not long at all compared to astonishingly courageous pioneers in cross cultural ministry who have served in times past and are serving right now.  But for me, longer than the three weeks I've experienced before.

My long time favourite Canadian music artist Steve Bell, composed a song based on a poem by St, John of the Cross and titled it the same as the poem, "Dark Night Of the Soul".  It's at least in part about a journey of spiritual depth into something unknown and risky.  Two stanzas in particular seem to sing into how I see what I'm about to do.

The hour made secure
And concealed the flight to my beloved
I took a chance
Left familiar treasures well behind
Too far for comforting

I went out by myself
Seen by no one else
Somewhat reckless journey from the start
Pressing through the night
Without light or guide
Save the fire that consumed my heart 
(Dark Night of the Soul - Steve Bell)

The questions I'm asking in the deeper places of me go far beyond what it's like to spend six months in summer.  That part seems like a gift.  But so will be the experiences that are not so flip-flopily welcome.  In fact, I expect my heart to be dismantled again, as it has in some way every single time I've gone before..

And I leave, trusting in the One who, to my mind, has orchestrated this whole thing, and, to my soul, has proven Himself faithful in every season, no matter how long it lasts.

The hour made secure
And concealed the flight to my beloved
I took a chance
And left familiar treasures well behind
Too far for comforting
I went out by myself
Seen by no one else
A somewhat reckless journey from the start
Pressing through the night
Without light or guide
Save the fire that consumed my heart
- See more at: http://stevebell.com/2007/06/dark-night-of-the-soul/#sthash.Y93RUjDi.dpuf

The hour made secure
And concealed the flight to my beloved
I took a chance
And left familiar treasures well behind
Too far for comforting
I went out by myself
Seen by no one else
A somewhat reckless journey from the start
Pressing through the night
Without light or guide
Save the fire that consumed my heart
- See more at: http://stevebell.com/2007/06/dark-night-of-the-soul/#sthash.Y93RUjDi.dpuf