The Death of Summer

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Some people favor autumn over other seasons, but many more prefer summer with its beach-worthy days and balmy evenings. I’m in that camp.

Last week my kitchen thermometer dipped into the 30’s overnight, unseasonably cold for the Midwest in early September. It was a glimpse of much colder days immediately ahead. Although September is lovely, it prompts sadness over August’s demise.

Today when Jack and I went walking on the beach, 20 mph winds whipped around us, and I was glad to be zipped into a winter coat. Temperatures weren’t extreme, still in the high 50’s, but the beach felt chilly. I laughed, remembering how the same temperature feels warm in April or May. When it gets “that warm,” we dig out our capris and sandals. I suppose that’s because in spring we still have our winter skins on, after muscling through bona fide cold.

Now it’s time to get used to falling temps again, and that doesn’t feel so good. The same holds true for life’s emotionally cold, harsh seasons.

Once in a while God lets winter winds buffet us, causing us to mourn the loss of warmer, cheerier times. We’re forced to leave a pleasantly warm emotional season and enter a ruthless cold one, usually against our wishes. My many new widow friends feel this way. None were ready to say goodbye to their men or to go-it-alone. But God allowed death to come anyway, and each wife found herself in the unwelcome season of widowhood.

Some of the women tried to bargain with God: “Please, Lord, don’t take my husband! If you do, then take me, too. I can’t possibly live without him.”

A few prayed, “Transfer his illness to me. Do anything you want to me, but just don’t take him!” And yet God did, bringing in a wintry season of deep loneliness and forced change.

So they struggled along, doing what had to be done, feeling what had to be felt. Then one day they realized they’d found a bit of relief from grief, and after the first year, actually felt hopeful. This isn’t to say they’d stopped missing their men. But signs of spring’s emotional thaw began at about that time, and “I can’t” slowly moved to “I can.”

This is true for most of life’s crises. Time spent squaring off with the undesirable changes and tackling the new beginnings gradually mitigates the negative impact. And one day, a widow who said, “Oh, Lord, anything but that!” finds herself smiling again as her heart moves into a new summer season.

God allowed her to experience winter winds, but he was also faithful to bring spring blossoms. So when we’re tempted to grieve the passing of our favorite season, we should remind ourselves God will eventually bring it around again, outside our windows and inside our hearts.

“I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. They [his people] will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid.” (Ezekiel 34:26b,28b)

 

A Grain of Salt

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For the longest time I didn’t know what the strange looking, igloo-like buildings alongside Chicago expressways were all about. Several years ago I asked Nate if he knew.

“For salt,” he said. “The salt used on streets during the winter is stored there.” That explained the trucks and snowplows lined up outside each building.

Salt is a beautiful thing, forming in crystals made by God’s laws of nature, some so eye-catching they look like valuable art. But salt is more commonly known as a work-horse mineral. Among its uses:

  •      Flavoring food
  •      Enhancing thyroid function
  •      Making ice cream
  •      Preserving things
  •      Cleansing things
  •      Melting ice

 

That last one is made possible on Chicago roads only because salt is cheap. The earth has a great deal of it, and it’s easy to mine. So it’s shipped from faraway places on barges and trains, and stored in the dome-like buildings along local expressways, then flung on the roads before and during snowstorms.

Scripture actually mentions road salt. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said that salt can lose its flavor. His listeners knew the importance of pure salt, not just to enhance food but in reference to temple sacrifices. The Old Testament repeatedly mentions the covenant of salt, the offerings of salt, and the purity of salt.

Jesus’ sermon compares the positive aspects of salt to the way Christians can effectively represent the kingdom of God. And then he gets to the road salt. Apparently if pure salt is mixed with other chemicals, it becomes un-salty. It’s no longer good for use with food or as a sacrifice, or in any other way. It might as well be thrown on the ground and trampled (or driven over). Then he applied this image to believers who leave others with a bad taste in their mouths about him and his kingdom.

When salt is brought to the storage “igloos” in Chicago, it’s sometimes dumped in through a ceiling hole by way of a conveyor belt. Workmen know the exact slope of the natural pile-up of this road salt, which is the same shape of the buildings: an angle of 32 degrees. The entire space can be filled with salt for efficient, maximum storage.

Jesus wants those of us who’ve entrusted our lives to him to be maximizing our influence for him and to be efficient representatives of his ways and his Word. Just like the domes are completely filled with salt, we’re to be fully filled with him, demonstrating how “tasty” the Christian life can be. He wants us to represent him in ways that are uncontaminated by the world and palatable to non-believers.

Instead of being like road salt, useful only to walk on and drive over, we’re to be like table salt, making others thirsty for more.

 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be… trampled underfoot.”  (Matthew 5:13)

Pick Your Poison

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In the news recently a mother from Alaska was put on trial for using hot sauce to discipline her son. She was found guilty of child abuse because she video taped the episode to get on a TV show entitled “Mommy Confessions.”

I haven’t watched the video and don’t have an opinion about her tactics but must confess that years ago I initiated several hot sauce episodes at our house, too. I was making a point about unacceptable language, trying to fit the punishment to the crime as Dr. Dobson had taught us. I did let the offender run to the bathroom immediately to spit and swish, but a drop of hot sauce was always effective toward improved speech and usually didn’t need to be repeated.

Last night we ordered Chinese food for dinner, expecting to serve 10 or so, and in the bottom of our boxful of food was an abundance of sauce packets: sweet, soy and hot. Holding up one of the yellow packets, I said to Nelson, “Do you recognize this hot sauce from your childhood?”

“Yeah,” he said, laughing. “But I love it now.”

His comment got us talking. Was the “yucky” childhood taste of hot sauce a precursor to developing a fondness for it later?

As we ended the conversation he said, “I wonder if you drank enough poison as a kid, you’d eventually get a taste for it.”

I thought of the first time someone tastes alcohol, a poison of sorts. It’s often bitter and unpleasant. But a young person who considers beer drinking to be sophisticated will keep trying, gradually gaining a liking for it. It may lead them into alcoholism, and in a sense Nelson’s question about getting a taste for poison has its answer.

The same principle, though, can work the other way, too. Developing a taste for something positive can start with forced bits that seem negative. Take, for example, prayer or reading the Bible. For new Christians, neither is easy. We wonder whether or not our prayers are getting through, and Scripture seems confusing. But we want to obey God, so we grit our teeth and keep trying.

One day we see a prayer answered or realize a biblical passage has touched our need, and we want more. We’re developing a taste for something that was distasteful in the beginning. Eventually prayer and Scripture can become addictions of the highest sort.

Of course it’s important to put the right things in front of our children, but the same is true for us. It’s probably a good idea to be cautious about new experiences, knowing small tastes can grow into demanding addictions.

I’m not sure what will happen to the newsworthy hot-sauce-mom, but since I’ve made a true confession in this post, the authorities may come after me, too.

“Ships, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder.” (James 3:4)