Fr Digby Samuels, our Diocesan Youth Chaplain tells how even now we can ‘squeeze the best out of the Summer’.

Squeezing the best out of summer – no not a cider ad- but an invitation to ask the Holy Spirit to help us not get snowed under as many of us return to our usual routine.

“Hey now summer in the city…”  was a number one hit in the late 60’s and perhaps describes something of your summer experience this year – dramatic, upbeat, full of action – or perhaps “Summertime and the living is easy” is more evocative of these past few months for you. There was a chance for a change, a time of peace and refreshment, a time to be with family or friends. Or perhaps neither of these hit the mark because for you the summer time has been painful, desolate or anything but a positive experience. The return of everyday life may be something of a relief. Wherever we’re ‘at’ my hope is that ‘holiday’ included for all of us ‘what it says on the tin’: ‘holy’ days, a time in which the Lord could get through to us and speak to our hearts.

The Gospels record that the Lord took time out alone and with his disciples to rest, to ‘be’, even if that precious time got curtailed by the demands of others. Interestingly the great Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche communities, records that he would often choose to spend his free day at another of his communities finding rest in the love that was there – quite an encouragement for those who simply just can’t get away; for as St. Therese teaches us we can always give and receive love even when there’s ‘no getting away from it’.

However, it’s possible for a whole society to collude in becoming so frenetic that the “one thing necessary”- creating the conditions for listening to the Lord, to sit at His feet, -becomes increasingly difficult. Pressing economic, political and personal demands can become something of a tyranny, especially as unemployment figures rise and the recession hits the lowest paid. And so a summer break for those who are in a position to have one at least provides a chance to savour life at a different pace not dictated by the ‘tyranny of the urgent’. Ironically though, such space and time can prove difficult to enter, at least for some for whom the hyped up pace of living has become so habitual that the ‘system’ just can’t handle a change of gear into a deeper level of relating to God and others.  “Humankind cannot bear too much reality” as T.S Elliot wrote and the holiday can threaten us with this!

The answer? No easy ones but ‘back to the drawing board’ of prayer, meditation, the sacraments; all vital channels for the Lord himself to give Himself to us both individually and as a community.  Mary and Martha in the Gospels show us the perfect balance of ‘desert’ and ‘market place’, of receiving and giving.

As a chaplain for young adults I’ve noticed in my involvement with Retreats and Pilgrimages over the summer that when we create the conditions for stillness, this deep thirst for God comes to the surface. “Make your home in me as I make mine in you” begins to be experienced as real. The sustained silence in the chapel when 4000 young people worship together at Taize would be one example of this truth. The obvious listening to one another from the heart within a small group would be another. Yet another example of the fruit of such prayer would be the peacefulness and kindness of those doing the duties of service such as distributing food to their fellow pilgrims at Taize.

May the Lord bless us with an increasing desire to put Him first in our often busy lives. May we notice the sirens that beckon us away from Him towards the false god of surface living and so missing the intimate sharing in His divine life –to the full in heaven, but ever deepening here on earth.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 11:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.