SUMMER SESSION #17-SORT OF LIKE WINTER BUT DIFFERENT

 I am sitting inside my air-conditioned cool house avoiding the heat of the Louisiana summer.  Inside it is the perfect 72 degrees.  As I thought it over, I remembered sitting inside my warm house in January and February avoiding the harsh-wet cold of Louisiana winters.  It was a perfect 68 degrees.  Through man-made advances--my life is relatively comfortable year round--no matter the temperature outside. (As long as there is no electrical interruption)

We are in the closing days of July.  One thing is for certain, it has been a HOT ONE!  We tend to think every summer has been the hottest, but Hero gives new meaning to the dog days of summer.  He is at least half chihuahua and does not like the cold.  He ALSO does not tolerate the extreme heat well in his old age.  Perhaps my dog and I are as one with the universe.  I do not tolerate the extreme heat well either NOR am I a big fan of cold extremes.  I can put on enough clothes in the winter to survive the weather.  Taking off enough clothes in the summer is not an option.  I become nauseated thinking about it.  Hero goes from the heated concrete in the courtyard to the cool ceramic tile of the airconditioned house multiple times everyday.  It is similar to the Polar plunge after a session in the sauna.

Though we do not have to endure but a few weeks of bitter cold here in Louisiana,  the sweltering heat of summer stays with us for months.  It will finally begin to cool down at the end of October with briefer and briefer returns to tropical weather spells.  I have to remind myself when #1 daughter lived in Pennsylvania, she endured winter like temperatures until our summer had begun here in Louisiana.  They did not plant their gardens until after Memorial Day for fear of a freeze.  SO, had I rather endure long months of winter with all that goes along with it or long months of summer like temperatures?  I remind myself on these sweltering days HOW I love living in the warmth of the South.  The option seems to be one extreme or the other.

We humans are certainly prone to be complainers.  Never satisfied with what ever our plight in life is.  Why?  Because the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence.

We are not unlike this cow--sticking our necks under the barbed wire trying to sample what we think is the better life.  Why are we so prone to discontent?  Malcontent breeds nothing more than frustration as we look around us at what we think is the better life.  The truth of the matter is---there is good in almost all circumstances.  If we train ourselves to look for the good, we will find it.  AND that leads to the peace of contentment with where God has planted us.  Words for thinking when you feel this summer will never end--

"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances."

Philippians 4:11

SUMMER SESSION #16- NOT A DRY THREAD

 I have been battling an episode of the blues.  Who KNOWS where this comes from--something in my inner workings has gone haywire.  I know you remember, I come from a long line of depressed people.  Those of us who are blessed with the down gene battle it in a number of ways.  My personal solution has always been increased exercise.

It is a proven fact that if you get busy and exercise the endorphins you produce will lift your mood.  I call that getting the joy juices flowing.  Depression left untreated does not normally cure itself.  You have to push the reset button to get that new lease on life.

With my increased exercise, I have also cleaned out my sweat glands.  For you see, there is never a dry thread on me when I exercise in the summer.  One thing my body does and does well is sweat.  The James's have a predominate sweat gene.   No matter what time I get up or how late I stay up---exercise in the summer is conducive to sweat.  That old saying, 

(I am not certain I agree with the last phrase, but we will leave that for another day) does not apply to perspiring during exercise.   You cannot even walk out the door without breaking a sweat here in the deep South in the middle of summer.   It is not just hot--it is stifling.  YET--life goes on and we must continue with our daily routines.  We learn to grin and bear it  or smile and sweat through it.  Sweating is God's gift to help cool our bodies.  As long as we are sweating, we are okay.  It is when something goes wrong and we quit sweating during the hot-humid Louisiana summers that we are in trouble.  A heat stroke is just around the bend.

So circle back--my remedy for being down is more exercise.  Exercise produces sweat.  The Great Physician not only gives me a remedy for being down--He also provides the cooling agent to keep me from overheating while pursuing a cure.  What a magnificent God---our Creator---our Great Physician---our provider.  He is AMAZING!

"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well."

Psalm 139:14

SUMMER SESSION #15-FRUITS OF YOUR LABOR

 Here where the growing season is lengthy---our gardens are beginning to produce the last of the summer crops.  It has been a HOT summer and the summer sun is not kind to our gardens.  Most of us gardeners are novice growers like me.    I have a raised bed with a few plants, but most of my produce comes from the friendly Ruston Farmers Market.  

Any crop which is currently being harvested can be found at our local farmer's Co-op.  The best crops of the season are on display and available for your culinary adventures.  My mouth waters thinking about all those seasonal delights.

My uncle  was a "Real" gardener.  We are talking about acres of crops.  He had LONG since retired from one of the area gas companies, but every summer he still planted his garden.  In the waning years of his life, he still planted peas.  Acres and acres of peas.  One of my last visits with my aunt, I commented on my Uncle's fields.  She told me that only thing he plants in his golden years is those peas.  "I told him I am not shelling, cooking, or putting up one more pea.  For all I care the deer can eat them."  I have laughed over that story many a time.  Uncle Jim just like to watch the crops grow.  Once they were grown, his part of the job was over.  He knew by the weather and the garden when it was time to plant, when it was time to weed, and when it was time to harvest.  He did not know much about the processing end of getting it on the table.  My Aunt had retired also---and one of the things she retired from was putting up the garden.  LOADS OF WORK!

Recently one of my neighbors told me her family was going to Kentucky to help in the places the tornado had destroyed so much.  I have done my share of service trips and told her I hoped they had a "fruitful trip".  They are out there being the hands and feet of Jesus.  Sharing the message--bringing in the sheaves.  They are sowing seeds on fertile ground and waiting for the fruit to grow.  What important work.  What a crop they will reap--the souls of God's beloved.

"  He who goes out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

bringing his sheaves with him."

Psalm 126:6

SUMMER SESSION #14-FRUIT OF THE SEASON

 FACT--you recognize something is  classified as a fruit when it has seeds inside the fruit.  I KNOW you realize tomatoes are fruits.  They have seeds in them, but they are not always associated as being fruits.  Lacking that wonderful sweetness we usually associate with fruit (lemons and limes being an exception), and because we often have them in a salad, we tend to think they are a vegetable.  Not so!

We have fruits galore here with our prime growing conditions.  Plums, pears, blueberries, figs, peaches, strawberries, satsumas... to name a few.  BUT one of my favorite summer fruits is the watermelon.  They reach their prime in the hottest part of the summer.  July and August find the crop coming in with fields filled with the refreshing treat. (though I love a good watermelon, they tend to give me "the burps")

I have so many memories of enjoying an ice cold melon.  Occasionally we would eat one straight from the field after cracking it open on the ground.  We would eat the meat of the melon while holding it by the rind with juice dripping down our hands, arms and face.  Nothing better than fresh picked fruit.

The poor watermelon farmer had to deal with numerous pests once they were ready for picking - raccoons, bunnies, squirrels to name a few of the field robbers here.  Perhaps the biggest threat during my growing up years were the roaming teens, looking for a field to grab a fresh melon from.  The farmers were prepared--some kept shotguns loaded with salt or bird shot.  Watermelons are ripe and the farmer's game was on to protect his field.  If you made it across the barbed wire  unscathed, you then had to worry about the business end of that shotgun.  Thankfully I never heard of anyone being killed by a farmer over a watermelon.  I do know of several aspiring thieves who gave up their melon stealing after hearing the BOOM of that shotgun and feeling the raining down of the pellets.  If you go a stealing in the dark of the night, you risked the wrath of a farmer protecting his crop.

Are we sometimes guilty of theft of other forms from our fellow man?  Do we steal their reputation by being a party to gossip?  Do we strip the self esteem of our neighbor by failing to see them?  Do we allow the life long consequences of abuse, neglect, bullying by refusing to become involved?  Are we trampling in the field of self image by refusing to bear the burden of anyone beyond the tight circle we draw around ourselves?  Are we stripping the fruit from the vines of our neighbor's fields by overt action or inaction?  Food for thought--literally.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor;

 therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Romans 13:10

SUMMER SESSION #13-BAREFOOTIN

 

Amazing how many songs I have stored away in the gray matter.  I cannot remember why I walked into a room, but a song from 1966 immediately bubbles to the surface when I think about being barefooted.  All my peers--your welcome for this reminder.

Most children enjoy the experience of shucking their shoes in the summer.  After months of having your feet confined in your brogains,

your feet were set free for a summer of either no shoes (barefooted) or sandals.  Flips flops came along somewhere in my teens.  Those flip flops--though still popular today--consisted of a thin foam pad with plastic straps.  Not bare feet---but pretty darn close to it.  Those were the days when you feet became tough from walking around sans shoes all summer long.  The skin begins to thicken and your soles begin to harden from daily exposure to the perils of the ground.  Stickers, rocks, roots, sharp objects, various insects, hard surfaces...all could inflict harm when stepped on.  BUT then there was that wonderful feeling of the soft carpet of grass, a wonderful sandy beach on the lake or shore, a cool stream with squishy mud between your toes...  As with many things in life--there is the good and bad to be enjoyed or endured.

Summers were filled with freedom from confining clothing.  Three wonderful months of shorts, tee shirts, and no shoes unless we were required to "dress" to go to "town".  There were exceptions to summer dress and "town" and "church" were two.  Take off your shoes and put on your play clothes for June, July and August.  Come September your toughened feet would once again have to adjust to the confinement within those leather coverings.

Shoes are not all bad (some women love shoes) and not all good.  Personally I never go without shoes.  They are just shoes---a covering for our feet to protect and shield them.  The Word tells us our sandals are part of our spiritual armor-the Gospel of Peace.  The foundation upon which we stand in the sure knowledge of what Jesus has done for us.  We never should walk out the door without our Gospel of Peace in who we are in Christ firmly strapped on.  The foundation upon which we walk through life.  

"and, as shoes for your feet,

having put on the readiness given by the

gospel of peace."

Ephesians 6:15

SUMMER SESSION #12- LATE AT NIGHT IT COMES CREEPING A--ROUND

 

Everyone in my season of life knew immediately what this blog title was referring to.  We all know the song.  You are welcome for sticking yet another golden oldie in your head for the day.

Even the blackest of thumbs can grown this here in the South.  I currently have some in my flower bed.  Think--handle it with kid gloves---or better yet a long metal instrument.  This stuff grows in the sun--in the shade--in the wild--in the flower bed--and is SO innocent looking.  Why it has those lovely little white berries on it and grows even when you totally ignore it.  In fact, it does best when ignored.  Before you know it--your world is overgrown with it.

My first case of poison ivy was not until I was an adult.  Did I develop an allergy to it or had I some how managed to avoid it?  There is no avoiding it here, so I must have developed an allergy.  Since that time, I have had it many-many times.  I have had it in my eyes, around my ears, on parts of my body it could not have touched, between my fingers and toes, up my arms, around my legs.  There are not many parts it has not spread.  For you see, if you scratch, you invite it to spread.  The allergy is to the "oil" from the plant.  It causes these blisters to form.  Scratch it and that allows the spread.  Can I tell you how difficult it is to abstain from scratching it?  It is an itch like no other itch. 

I have all but bathed in calamine lotion.  At best it is a very temporary help.  I have used Benadryl cream, Benadryl by mouth, (then you sleep while you are scratching)  and various other over the counter remedies.   The very worst of times, I have had injections of a steroid. The best topical I have ever found had lidocaine in the lotion which will temporarily numb the area.  Every time I itched, I applied more.  Before you know it, you cannot feel any part of your body.  Truthfully this incessant itch will get better--in about two weeks.  As with many of our maladies--time is the healer.  Time and staying out of the poison ivy.  (I currently am battling a bout of this malady.  Thinking washing my hands after coming in from a weeding session would take care of the problem, I was puzzled a day or two later when I first thought something had bitten me in the middle of the night--right under my nose)  Turns out I obviously had the oil on my hands and wiped sweat off my face and neck before washing my hands.  I am still suffering 10 days later---SIGH!

NOW--for a real kicker--the vines loose their leaves before any other plant in the fall.  BUT the plant oils are still in the vine.  I have gotten a really nice case by pulling vines not suspecting it was poison ivy since the leaves were gone.  AND to add insult to injury, I have gotten it from a pair of gloves I used a YEAR before that had come into contact with the plant oils.  YES--once again I got the rash from touching the long idle but oil laced gloves.  DO NOT FOOL AROUND WITH POISON IVY!

HERE is my solution---a liberal application to the leaves of Round Up.  For all you environmentalist---you OBVIOUSLY have never had poison ivy.  This is the way to nip that rash in the bud before it even gets a toe hold and requires no touching by me.  Spray this on the leaves, it takes the poison to the root, and the menace dies.  Don't go fooling around with this lovely plant--stop it before it has begun its dirty deed.

NOW--I know I do not have to spell out today's application of this summer lesson.  You ALL know I am speaking of sin.  Ask the HS to head the sneaky bugger off before it has a chance to come creeping a-round.

"No test of temptation that comes your way is beyond the course

 of what others have had to face.

  All you need to remember is that

God will never let you down; 

he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; 

he'll always be there to help you come through it."

I Corinthians 10:13 (The Message)

SUMMER SESSION #11- LIGHTING THE WAY

 Here we are smack dab in the middle of the long hot summer here in the deep South.  I seem to be stuck on my memories of the past. " It was the best of times , the worst of times."  Charles Dickens.  As I thought this over I realized though I write mostly about the best of times, there were really hard times growing up also.  It seemed I lived in Mayberry, but there was loss, pain, and stress even in my youth.

Growing up in a small rural town, we were surrounded by woods and fields.  The parish I grew up in was known for its crops and trees.  Many of my childhood friends had gardens in their families.  Many of the families grew most of what they ate.  Canning and freezing were a summer activity for many of the women.  It was a classic example of rural South living.

Having already confessed to being easily entertained, the summer lightning bugs were a favorite evening entertainment.  Remember we might of had a television, but we only received the signal from one station and the offerings were slim.  Thus we often played until Momma finally called us in.  As long as we were out of her hair and not killing each other, we were left to entertain ourselves.  I have sat and watched and even chased lightning bugs many a summer evening.  Catching a jar full to take inside to light up my room was great fun--poor bugs.  They usually were tossed out the back door with the arrival of daylight.  

During those years--in the 50's and 60's there were lightning bugs galore.  I see a handful occasionally today.  It seems the heavy use of pesticides, light pollution and loss of habitat has led to a worldwide decline.  Our march toward the great civilization has robbed us of one of the wonders of my youth.  This is only one example of one of God's creations sadly becoming extinct.

I am showing my age by mourning the simplicity and beauty of my youth.  Yes, life was harder, but the reward of our labors was a simpler life filled with the beauty of God's creations.  Where are we headed?

"And God saw everything that he had made,

 and behold, it was very good.

 And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."

Genesis 1:31

SUMMER SESSION #10- WATER, COOL WATER

Go Back to the first summer session post and you will discover the theme for most of us in Louisiana in the hot summer time.  Cool-Clean--WATER

 

That brought back this memory of a song from LONG ago.  You are very welcome for getting that melody stuck in your head.  We spend a great deal of time here in the sweltering South trying to stay cool.  We talked about that in that first post.  Some of the sure fire remedies involved water.  Pools, Beaches, Lakes,  Splash Pads, Water Parks, Wading Pools, Running Through Sprinklers, Slip and Slides and one of my favorites that deep creek with swing hanging from a tall tree.  One of the water treats young, old and in between can enjoy is the summer storm.  

Living 300 miles from the Gulf, the summer air currents often bring us a pop up storm as the water vapor builds in the atmosphere.  OH, how I love to sit and watch these storms roll in--night or day-makes no difference.  The kids enjoy running and playing in the rain and puddles--as long as there is no lightning involved.

Those storms can roll in quickly and dissipate even quicker.  You never know if it will be ten drops of rain or an all day deluge, but we are usually thankful for the water.  Nothing waters the yards, trees, bushes, and other greenery like a nice shower.  A slow steady rain, which usually comes with a low, makes for a great time to read and perhaps take a short nap. 

After the rain has faded into the horizon, we are left with one of two things- a slight cooling of temperature or the makings of a regional sauna.  You must experience 90 degree temperatures with 90 % humidity to really understand how hot it is.  You walk out your door and immediately break out in a sweat.  The air is literally heavy feeling--if you are exercising you cannot get a good breath.   The air conditioners are straining to keep us cool as we hunker down in hopes of staying cool.  It is a tall task--well into October.

OH, But then there is always the promise of the shower from the heavens.  The cooling effect---even if short lived--of the cloud given shade and the cool of the rain.  A reprieve from the oppressiveness we live with.

Life can be oppressive--sometimes for long stretches.  One of the sure fire remedies is the quiet still times in the presence of God.  The assurance of His presence---even when the discomfort of stresses weigh us down.  There is the promise of His grace raining down upon us.  Gentle--Tender Grace.

8 “You heavens above, rain down my righteousness;

 let the clouds shower it down.

 Let the earth open wide,

 let salvation spring up,

 let righteousness flourish with it;

 I, the LORD, have created it."

Isaiah 45:8