years of summer children
running barefoot free in
the dusty roads ‘til dusk
& the horn of the night
train calls them home
I have a favourite rock at nearby Crescent Beach that bears quiet witness to the abiding sense of what childhood summers can mean. In season and out of season finds me pausing on the gravel path before this inscription on the rock at the foot of the acacia trees kitty-corner up from the pier. “years of summer children running barefoot free. . . .” The rock’s engraving prompts questions in me, bittersweet questions I sometimes like to brush away, and at other times follow.
When was this time of summer children running barefoot free ‘til dusk? Is it still so today? If not quite so today, as if I didn’t know, do the children and adults who live here, and others who visit, nonetheless delight in liberty of spirit?
Summer can seem like a kingdom that should never end, a kingdom in which childhood ought to be joyous, lighthearted, and barefoot free. And adults should keep some of this childhood alive within. Summer can evoke Sehnsucht, the longings of the heart for goodness we have experienced in this season and those we yet wish to have. Which summer childhood memories do you cherish? Several come to mind for me: 
- getting new rubber flip-flop sandals that I wore thin by September;
- seeking out the swings at Riley Park near Little Mountain, with friends or alone;
- on hot days splashing in the park’s wading pool with all the many other shrieking children (standing room only);
- walking to the candy store down Main Street with my 10 cent allowance;
- learning to ride my friend’s two-wheeler bicycle;
- tenting with my family on road trips through BC to Alberta where the green-to-turquoise lakes, white rushing rivers, majestic Rocky Mountains, and the wide-open prairie filled my heart;
- looking through the open tent flaps at the magical orange moon over Osoyoos Lake, a beauty that you recall all your life;
- jumping through the open surf with my parents at Long Beach, Vancouver Island;
- eating blue cotton candy at the fairgrounds;
- the sound of the ice cream truck;
- sitting outside with my family in summer pyjamas on a hot night;
- catching my first Rainbow Trout.
In some sense, I think we are all summer children. We were born for the Kingdom of Summer—isn’t that why we sigh when summer ends?
But then, as we well know, the longing for summer bliss too often disappoints. And this injured planet generates other summer memories, memories laden with sorrows, some too heavy to bear. We are perhaps summer children in a winter world.
Summer may bring weddings, thank God, but usually more funerals than weddings. Summer awakens joys, but also peculiar sorrows. That’s why I pause at this favourite beach rock with a wistfulness, a homesickness for what I have known and still long to arrive at. Summer awakens a longing in me for that better country, my true home, as C. S. Lewis depicts in the final book of the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle. 
The everlasting country where the old are young again and where it is impossible to experience fatigue, fear, or sorrow. Where all is well again, where the best of each country lives, and where our stories will truly begin. With others, I long for this Great Beginning, the New Day. Meanwhile, with others, I cherish memories and glimpse new pictures of summer that warm my heart:
- the couple at the bench overlooking the ocean, she in the wheelchair, he gently rubbing her neck, and then, having lifted her onto the bench beside him, sitting with his arm around her;
- the children and father building a sandcastle together;
- the grandmother with her granddaughters who are walking along beach logs;
- the man flying a kite;
- the mother watering the shrubbery, holding the sprinkler just right for her eager toddler to drink from;
- the families picnicking;
- the teenagers playing volleyball;
- friends walking side by side;
- taking time for Gelato;
- the joyous couple on their wedding day.
I ponder the years of summer children playing ’til dusk and the horn of the night train calls them home. I reread the words of George MacDonald in his essay “The Imagination: Its Functions and Its Culture”: “This outward world is but a passing vision of the persistent true. We shall not live in it always. We are dwellers in a divine universe where no desires are in vain, if only they be large enough. Not even in this world do all disappointments breed only vain regrets.”
This summer I long to celebrate all the special Kingdom of Summer moments – running barefoot free – and when dusk & the horn of the night train calls, I want to remember that the best is yet to come: Home. As summer children in an often-winter world, I’m looking forward to the true Kingdom of Summer that is to come.
Thanks for reading, for listening!
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Watch for my Autumn blog “Why Should School Be Easy?” in September.
And on some magical late May or early June evening, when at the 49th parallel the setting sun in the northwest shines with elvish beauty through the leafy green just so, there the blue irises at the entrance to our herb garden reign supreme. Shining sentries, serene, in salute to every good thing.
They testify of family—past, present, and future—planted on the soil of good fatherhood (and motherhood). They signal Heavenly Joy, cheering us on. Danke, Papa, danke.
and caring for his family, friends, younger ones he mentored, and others all his days. In track and field, he loved the 100 meter dash best. But in life, I’d say he was the long distance runner. You could see that he had his eye on the goal, and in his heart what mattered most in this life and for all eternity. Dad embodied what it means to be faithful to God and good to man. I owe him (and my dear mother) much, much, much.
and because, first and foremost, we have Our Father, who art in Heaven. . . . Every image of good fatherhood is a reflection of The Heavenly Father’s heart. In the words that have been attributed to George MacDonald, that I can’t now locate, “This is and has been the Father’s work from the beginning–to bring us into the home of his heart.”
You can order your copy of 
If you have more than one hometown, or maybe even had to flee yours, what stands out for you? What special things has your hometown blessed you with (even the unpleasant or very hard things) that have shaped you?
A lot of people move here but some of us get to be born here (sorry, yeah, that’s the ingrained Vancouver pride, or snobbery—take your pick—we never seem to get over it). The mountains, the ocean, the forests—well, it’s a supremely beautiful setting. Even the coastal rain is worth it, we say (most times)—liquid sunshine, right? After a long journey from the Old World in the wake of war trauma, this lovely city-by-the-sea is where my family planted their flag.
Thanks for reading, for listening!
Or is all grief horrid, unholy, the pain we cannot welcome? Then again, is holy grief the only kind of grief, the right kind—the other kind of grief is . . . is what? Can someone tell me what unholy grief would be? I have my moments when the thought that any kind of grief could be thought unholy startles me, even strikes me as wrong.
As the well-worn cover of my copy of C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain testifies to, besides the Psalms, the Book of Job, Lamentations, and other books in the Bible, this is one of my go-to books when it comes to grief. I go to The Problem of Pain because its author gives no pat answers, no quick consolatory phrases, nothing that minimizes one’s experience. And I go to this book because the author openly declares his own inadequacy for addressing the subject. (When empathy seems lacking, “good advice” feels empty, even rude, doesn’t it?) In his Preface Lewis speaks of the irony of him having written a book on this subject. The disconnect between what he believed about pain and what he felt about pain was such that he wished that he could have published the book anonymously. To which his editor responded that he could explain to readers that he “did not live up to [his] own principles!” While Lewis was willing to speak to the intellectual problem of pain for about 140 pages, he didn’t for a moment feel qualified to teach the necessary “fortitude and patience” when facing pain—and this is what makes him such an authentic fellow pilgrim to have at your side. I applaud his words here: “. . . nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.”
My own grief over the passing of our colleague Chris resulted in the essay, “A Holy Grief: The Pilgrim’s Path to Consolation.” The essay begins like this: 
Extreme angst, even despair, looms before each one. But Lucy responds to fear with prayer, and little by little, while the darkness is just as thick as ever, she begins to feel a bit better. Then the light grows, the albatross in a voice that sounds like Aslan’s whispers, “Courage, dear heart,” and after a while they are once again in full sunlight. Once again it is clear that Heaven is the one true help. Fear, even debilitating fear, is real, but does not have the final say when we exercise the faintest glimmer of hope—or, as in this case, someone else exercises it on everyone’s behalf. To stick with the boating metaphor,
I’d like to draw your attention to a marvellous reflection featuring our 
and green stems make bold promises to become daffodils and tulips in the coming weeks. But the days are often grey, and a surprise snowfall, rare, is almost, dare I say it, fun? Be careful what you wish for! I will say this: it’s certainly brighter.
that invite greater numbers of eagles to soar on the updraft and flocks of smaller birds to huddle together as they ride the waves in community. Glide, ride–this is how to take in stormier weather. Perhaps the shorebirds can teach me a thing or two about beauty in the waiting.
Absolutely: “Even youths grow tired and weary. . . .” And beware: with this season of fatigue they say the rates of depression and anxiety peak. Then, in these last couple of years especially, how often have you heard people say, “Everyone is so tired, so tired.” How often have you noticed a kind of exhaustion, physical and otherwise, in yourself and others? So, yeah, spring fatigue is a thing—and then some with cumulating fatigue.
In our world where dark forces flex their muscles, where natural disasters shake the planet, having something of this “passion of patience” seems to be the best response. So maybe let’s consider enduring seasonal fatigue with this kind of patience that is not exactly lethargy (or not lethargy at all, regardless of our tiredness) but is carried by a distinctive energy—not enormous energy, not yet anyway, but a quiet willingness to expect energy to revive us. Then we can venture to face fatigue in a quiet hope. Instead of succumbing to depression and anxiety, we might journey along in the expectation of hope that is yet to be fulfilled. And with such a quiet hope in the not-yet-but-still-to-be comes the faint stirrings of surprising joy.
me. And, last but not least, let’s allow ourselves to rest, to pace ourselves. We have it on the best authority: take one day at a time (Matthew 6:34).
Early February has me eyeing my heart-shaped cake pans and wondering if a fluffy white angel food cake baked with coloured sprinkles and, naturally, adorned with pink icing, will crown the evening. And what about heart-shaped cookies again? My sweet tooth still delights in cinnamon hearts.
I explore the wealth that fairy tales offer for our life’s journey, and also consider the ways in which we might misread them. It’s written for anyone who loves fairy tales but also has questions and concerns over them. Are they good? Or are they bad? Do we even need them? And just what is “happily ever after”? In this book I follow the story of a grandmother writing to her granddaughter Annie for the first twenty-five years of her life in which they explore these treasured stories. Rather than giving readers false expectations of life, how do these stories leave us richer and more able to navigate the challenges, sorrows, and joys of life with wisdom, courage, and love? 
This Valentine’s Day—and indeed, this month of February, being heart month—my hope for myself and my readers is that we can ponder the ways in which we can celebrate love. Maybe consider how our lives might become like a love letter to others. Think more about the different human loves—affection, friendship, romantic love—and like C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves, ponder that in our brokenness each of the human loves must become transformed by the fourth love, God’s love, charity, in order to become ever more true. It’s a journey.
January: A new number on the calendar, another opportunity for those New Year’s resolutions. But sometimes the December festivities leave us a tad tired (and that’s a polite way of putting it). Maybe the Christmas tree is still up. If Christmas was a good season, it really is a sweet reminder, too precious to take down quickly. (I don’t understand those Christmas tree burnings that are scheduled even before Epiphany, January 6, the coming of the magi, when in some traditions Christmas is celebrated. February, is it, the right time to consider taking down the tree?) The tree needles still look pretty good, right? Even though we’re after solstice, the lights and decorations console during these dark days. Perhaps keeping the tree up a little longer acts as a bit of a safeguard against the midwinter blues that could be just around the corner—maybe. Couldn’t hurt.
But in this state, where we presumably do not lie to ourselves about our unpleasant feelings, neither do we get closer to love. Nothing is solved, not yet. Nor are we being terribly truthful, because resentment has the power to become a broken record, replaying over and over, crowding out the fact that our hurt feelings are only one piece of a very big story, a story that could have the most excellent outcome if we would only let Grace have its way with us.
Only then can we rid ourselves of those toxic thoughts, the clinging resentments. Do it seventy times seven, as Jesus said (Matthew 18:22), meaning without number, every time we need to. Yes, we will need to, again and again. But then maybe we are helped in knowing how seriously we need forgiveness ourselves?
If you haven’t heard this before, or would just like to hear it again, here’s the link: 
How counter-intuitive to resentment: the humility needed to forgive is in fact “the mightiest sword.” Humility: as T.S. Eliot writes in Four Quartets, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire / Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless” (“East Coker,” ll. 97-98).
Don’t dwell on the past sorrows because God is doing a new thing, making a way where there formerly was no way, a way that leads to life (Isaiah 43:18-21).
I come from people who made paper stars for Christmas. They made them in their native Poland, and when their pilgrimage took them to Canada’s West Coast where I was born, they were still making them. And here my parents taught my siblings and me to make them.
Their beauty, simple yet elusive, is a testimony to faith and love, to courage in uncertainty, and to lasting goodness. They are a small reminder of the homeland I never knew but have since happily visited, and to the meaning of homeland as we are pilgrims at various stations. They speak to me still of the meaning of Advent and Christmas when we would be making these paper stars.
A marvel, this shining magnificence made by loving hands and a joyous heart. How its humble quadrangular form held the beginnings of splendour spoke volumes: a sign of family, of homeland in the heart across the globe, and of the meaning of the Christmas miracle wherever we find ourselves to be. Christ has come, and He is coming back. There is no loneliness that He cannot fill, no sorrow that He cannot redeem.
Here’s how. The awareness that opportunity doesn’t come around the same way again heightens our sense of the preciousness of our days. Just as C. S. Lewis has said, “There are no ordinary people” (“The Weight of Glory”), we’d have to likewise add, “There are no ordinary days.” Each day is a unique gift, bringing not only its unique challenges but also its unique blessings. Let’s not waste the day on trivia. Let’s guard against toxic ideas, emotions, and actions. In other words, writing toward one’s own death, which is really living toward one’s own death, means we’re more prone to choosing wisely with the result that we’re better able to transform from being static people for whom seemingly little can change to becoming dynamic people who initiate change. We become increasingly present to the moment, and therefore living our lives to the fullest. The awareness of living toward one’s death (with the emphasis on living) acts like a magnifying glass revealing noteworthy details. Or like a crucible in which the various particulars of our lives undergo yet higher pressure, often painful at the time, but resulting in a new creation.
The second Monday in October, or the Sunday preceding it, is the day we try to get together with family and friends to celebrate with turkey and all the trimmings. For our American family and friends, the last Thursday in November is the great day. And autumn brings the biblical Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot. 
Gratitude for the music heightens my sense of hearing.
Monika Hilder 