July 4

The dead ordinary (and completely spectacular) days of Midsummer

It’s the 4th of July. 

The pinnacle of summer. Knee high corn and all that. (Already? How?)

The early air is thickening, and these feet need to move in hopes of shaking loose the vestiges of yesterday’s angst. I fire off an SOS text to a friend about my chronically bickering children—who as of last night seem dead set on fratricide. (More work is probably the cure)

My mom-battery is entirely out of juice, complete with that toxic white crust crumbling off the ends. I tie my shoes and pray for fortitude.

The rhythm of the road is comforting, while the collective influence of Jayber Crow and Hannah Coulter tugs my spiraling anxiety away from child-training, and pries open my eyes to the quotidian joys of a midsummer morning. 

At 8 o’clock the air along my route is quiet. Most weekend residents are still sawing logs, so the backroads belong to me and the bumblebees. (And a sour black cat that has crossed my path enough times to sentence my life to permanent bad luck.)

“Our lake” isn’t the flashy kind.

Its demographic leans more middle-aged pontoon than sleek speed-boat—and the cottages that do find their perch along its serpentine banks will never grace the pages of Architectural Digest. They are small, multi-colored, and working class. Many have paint jobs that are peeling. A few windows stand open just a stone's throw from my thoughts, so at this hour I hold my breath while walking by. Just in case. Nothing human-shaped seems to stir. (Though I do stumble across the front lawn powwow of a Thornton Burgess fraternity)

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I think about God, and wonder if he actually sees me? Down here. Walking and wondering around this sleepy backwater.

I offer a passing nod to the last hurrah of daisies as they interrupt my thoughts. Their heads bob with grace, giving way to the opening trumpets of orange daylilies next-door in the ditch. I receive their thinly veiled hint—God is not unaware of the steps my sneakers trod. I do not exist apart from his favor. ¹

So I talk, and he listens. Walking holy ground in this beautiful and broken and perfect paradox of early July.  Inside the hazy air which holds traces of wildflowers and coffee, lake water and cigarettes—I inhale his company. 

I ask him if I’m really cut out to be a mom. Would someone else do a better job? How badly am I screwing this up? I believe you are sovereign over all. But still…

He reminds me (again) that I’m not at the center of this story.

So we move on, and talk about him. Much better. He reminds me of his character: Faithful. Kind. Just. Good. Sufficient. Infinite. Merciful. All-knowing. All-present. 

Transcendent. Near.

My eyes swing up into the muddled blue and wonder: how many more minutes?

I really really wish he would just come get us. Scoop up our little family and all the saints—and real life shalom could begin in earnest. Wouldn’t that be nice. 

I whisper a little eulogy as I walk where roadside strawberries and wild roses have been rudely whacked down by a county tractor. No doubt Wendell Berry would not approve.

This section of road slants one shoulder toward the marsh, and the burping sound of bullfrogs gives me pause. I cannot fathom a Being who creates bullfrogs. My limited mind stutters in the presence of the Limitless—to think the omnipotent One who offers redemption also stoops down to fashion a bumpy brownish creature with too-big eyes. It’s honestly fantastic. 

I add yet another reason to thank him: “…that while he cannot be fully known, he can be sufficiently known.” ²

My eyes swerve upward, catching the slow wave of monarch wings atop a throne of lavender thistle. Good morning, your majesty. You look magnificent! Within seconds, we are rudely interrupted by a weekender atop an ATV. I uncharitably assume he is the redneck who will also be shooting off fireworks until dark-thirty—and I might as well charge him as the source of the cigarette smoke while I’m at it. Wait a minute.

Deep breathe. Share the path, share His presence. I wave and smile and ask God to bless image-bearers on annoying ATVs with beauty today too. I thank him for opportunities to practice patience, even (especially?) when I don’t feel like it. 

As my steps loop back along the lake, I pass mile three and two more humans. Gangly boys in shorts and bed-head. They are neither exercising nor meditating. Just participating in that aimless wandering of summer boyhood gone right. I’m curious what they think of me. Do I appear ancient to adolescent eyes? I offer a midwestern good morning, but apparently they’ve been warned not to talk to strangers.

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The crunching of gravel and the creeping warmth on my neck nudge me ever onward. These legs have covered four miles, but my soul has gone quite a bit farther—I am eager to be home.

I cut across the grass. Untie my shoes in a garage smelling like lawnmowers, and give thanks for fortitude.

Chilly mint tea waits inside—along with kiddos that are just beginning to rouse. I’ll offer “good-mornings” as a mama refreshed. That’s how I imagine it anyway. 

But when I walk in, there sits the 8-year old. Dressed remarkably like a girl who actually has a mother. Hair braided as though she’s been doing it her entire life, and beaming with pride as she announces, “I got up and unloaded the dishwasher for you.”

In the afternoon, the haze will cook up a thunderous downpour. In the evening it will rain some more.

I groan for a bit, considering my tomato plants are already on the verge of drowning. But it rains on us all and maybe I should remember how lovely the lettuce crop is looking. 

Under a musical porch roof we eat blueberry pancakes and fresh peaches for supper.³ There is squabbling over who will sit by whom. There is also sweet chorus: "You are the best mom because you make such good pancakes.”

They say all fireworks have been canceled.

I fold my bare feet into a porch chair. Tuck them inside my quilt-covered cocoon. Stare across shiny grass into the dripping, darkening tree line where string lights wink back—

And feel straight-up freedom rain down.

It’s the 4th of July.

1. ^{Luke 12:25} And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?²⁶ If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? ²⁷ Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ²⁸ But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!

2. Jen Wilkin- None Like Him

3. I cannot help but envision Revelation 22:1&2. Is this tawny, dripping delight a foremother of that fruit of perfection?