Like many of us, I dream of summertime’s sweet pleasures. This lovely scene of the blue bench in a dear family member’s garden pictured in this photo, graced as it is with late June-early July sunlight once again, speaks to me of the many sweet things, sweet pleasures of the season. Its quiet beauty enhanced with the wrought iron basket of leaves and birds on one end of the seat and the plump white hen figurine perched above in watchful rule beckons me to sit down and rest a while. What could be so important that I might miss taking this in? What’s my hurry? “Come now,” it whispers, “inhale the fragrance of the scene and with that recall the joyous days spent together.”
As for many of us, the word summer is sweet to my ear, soft, melodious, full of promise—the season I long to sink into as on a hammock wafting between heaven and earth. Summertime with its long daylight comes with a different pace, the delicious feeling that life is so much more than busy schedules seem to allow for. On the 49th parallel where I live, the early dawn and magical golden brightness lasting well into the evening inspires me into a Kingdom of Summer mood in which I feel that time is my friend. With this, many hopes for the season rise. This summer I wish to enjoy . . . this summer I wish to also complete such and such. . . .
Oh, but my wishlist grows rapidly and with the mix of personal expectations and pressing needs I all too quickly get closer to losing sight of the sense that time is my friend. Is time now my enemy? What if I don’t get such and such done? Anxiety peeks its ugly head, threatening to crowd out the sweet things all around awaiting my attention and so my pleasure. Anxiety is a wicked taskmaster and therefore fruitless, but a giant of a thing to overcome. Then too, maybe anxiety like well-worn clothing becomes so familiar that sweet things, sweet pleasures seem frivolous, even irrelevant in a world with so much pain and evil. Bad news and one’s own seasons of grief can all but bring about the death knell to pleasant reflections. Unless, unless, yes, unless we pay attention to the sweet things all around, promises of pleasures to notice and enjoy if only we will—not because pain and evil are less, but out of the slender hope that delight and goodness will prove to be greater still.
This summer I am wondering if I will pay better attention to the manifold sweet things all around me which can bring me pleasure, sweet things recent and remembered. It seems to me that if I’m going to counter giants, I will need to.
Sweet things, sweet pleasures there be.
Oh they abound, like these:
- a toddler’s gorgeous smile and hearty laugh upon seeing you
- children’s soap bubbles like giggles magnificently populating the air at a summer picnic
- raspberries ripening
- the yellow roses of home
- canoeing on a green mountain lake
- reading an enchanting book
- watching the clouds, some fishtail-like, others billowy, one heart-shaped (no, this one was real, not AI-generated)
- fresh hot cinnamon buns
- trying a new task and succeeding
- getting an email with the words, “YAY!!! this is the most FABULOUS of news!” because you can come to their special event
- a long-hoped-for result occurs
- an act of justice overrules injustice
- shared gratitude at the close of a long day
- a robin’s voice lifting in evensong
- and so much more.
In the balance with heavy things, sweet things may seem small, too light to effect the changes we hope for in the landscape of problems and great evils that we wrestle with. Their sweet pleasures are momentary passing things; the problems by contrast appear as large, looming beasts. However, it is marvellous how the sweet things bolster our spirits, enable us to grow mightier hope, seek the much more that we were meant for, consider the promise that one day every tear shall be wiped away. Like the rare shimmering lightshow in some clouds on a summer’s day,
the sweet things remind us of this spectacular promise that the best is yet to come. Their sweet pleasures are passing things, pictures real enough, beauteous reminders, but not the ultimate heart’s desire. As idols do, they will disappoint if taken so. But as fleeting carriers of goodness, bright shadows, they can help refresh, restore, and rejuvenate. As C.S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm has said of this way to view pictures, “Fix on any one, and it goes dead. You must do as Blake would do with a joy; kiss it as it flies.” May our attentiveness to these beautiful pictures grow heartily this summer. And while the sweet things, sweet pleasures cannot save our souls, they remind us that our souls can be saved.
Thanks for reading, for listening.
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Watch for my autumn blog in September: “Standing on Tall Shoulders.”
Monika Hilder 