merton.

thomas merton is a hero of mine. during many hard days, i've read his words and been able to see the Lord in a different way. from a very honest angle. an angle that gives me hope. thomas' life is incredibly interesting and i encourage you to read any of his writing. 'seeds' is a classic. here's an excerpt from my reading tonight:

"even the capacity to recognize our condition before God is itself a grace. we cannot always attain it at will. to learn meditation does not mean learning an artificial technique for infallibly producing "compunction" and the "sense of our nothingness" whenever we please. on the contrary, this would be the result of violence and would be inauthentic. meditation implies the capacity to receive this grace whenever God wishes to grant it to us, and therefore a permanent disposition to humility, attention to reality, receptivity, pliability. to learn to meditate then means to gradually get free from habitual hardness of heart, torpor and grossness of mind, due to arrogance and non-acceptance of simple reality, or resistance to the concrete demands of God's will.

if in fact our hearts remain apparently indifferent and cold, and we find it morally impossible to "begin" meditating in this way, then we should at least realize that this coldess is itself a sign of our need and of our helplessness. we should take it accordingly as a motive for prayer. we might also reflect that perhaps without meaning to we have fallen into a spirit of routine, and are not able to see how to recover our spontaneity without God's grace, for which we must wait patiently, but with earnest desire. this waiting itself will be for us a school of humility."

--thomas merton.

summertime.

i haven't been a big fan of summer for a long time.

when summertime meant no school, no summer job, just lots of VBS and family activities. weeks of time stretched before you to do nothing but play til it got dark, it was magic.

as i've gotten older, summer has become less about freedom and more of an inconvenience. my schedule looks no different than the rest of the year, except it is hot-as-all-get-out.

but so far this summer--it's been like a little slice of childhood.

took a lake wylie adventure and just ended up jumping into the neighborhood pool around midnight.






discovered the best bbq i've had, maybe ever. at a restaurant called whispering pines in albemarle.






headed to the drive-in movie, where it felt like we had transported back to 1952. the music, the fireflies, the ice cream. magic.





on sunday we had church and celebrated a birthday at pinky's and had porch time with plenty of red wine.






we headed to the pool bright and early on the fourth and swam and laid in the sun for hours. i hadn't put on a bathing suit and lounged at a pool since..i actually can't remember.












last night we waited out the storm together and grilled and passed around baby arthur and enjoyed each other.

at one point we took a drive and saw this:






and broke out into patriotic singing for the rest of the ride.

we picked up more friends and brought them to the party and we walked down the road to the park that had a terrific view of the skyline. we watched the fireworks with everyone in charlotte. and walked back in a huge pack of people to kate's house. sat on the porch, said our goodbyes and finished the night with a few patriotic episodes of the wonder years.

and i came home and fell asleep face down on my bed.

like a 5 year old.
summer 2011, so far so good.
vacation is happening in 3 days.






cannot wait.
happy summer.