S is for SUMMER

For more than forty years, July and August have only meant summer holidays. I always had both months off at primary and secondary school and at university and now that I've been teaching ever since, come the last day of June, I know I'll be looking forward to at least a whole eight weeks away from work. I suppose there has to be some perks in the job! But summer lasts a whole lot longer, beginning in mid June and fading away in late September, though this year I think I missed it! And isn't it true that the warm sun and the thought of holidays and lazy days by the beach creates a mental mood that we don't experience for most of the rest of the year. Summer's also the time when many parents have to think of alternative recreation for their children to alleviate the boredom of weeks at home, so suddenly a mass of sports camps, football schools, mini rugby festivals, holiday Bible clubs, beach missions, summer creches, fun days and sleepovers are all competing for attention. It's funny, but I don't ever remember any of them being about when I was at primary school and anyway I don't remember being bored.

There was always something to do and, like most kids, I probably made my own fun. I was never fed up with videos, DVDs, game consoles, CDs, children's TV channels and mp3 players because there weren't any around but my trusty old bike covered plenty of tarmac and the football, tennis ball and rugby ball saw plenty of action around the walls of the yard. Then there was always grass to cut, doors, windows and roofs to paint, hay to make and a multitude of places to walk and play so it wasn't long before you would be counting the days rather than the weeks until the start of a new school year. Holidays, spent away from home, were never a big thing in our family and we were more likely to 'go for a day' to the seaside, Butlins or Dublin Zoo and the Sunday School Excursion to Newcastle was a an important event in the leisure calendar. Dad, like most farmers, was always busy at something during the summer, so we generally fitted our trips around his schedule, though we did head off to Portrush for a whole week and my sister and I would often spend part of the summer with our grandparents in Belfast. And nobody went on foreign holidays, visited theme parks or water parks and cruising was for the rich and famous or else on the Maid of Antrim for a couple of hours on Lough Neagh.

And though it's only half way through the year, I always think of summer as a watershed for so many of us. It's the time when we change classes or schools, when we leave school to start work or go to university, when we meet old friends that we haven't seen for a year and when we say goodbye to the childhood of others, when we cultivate new relationships on holidays and discover hidden gems around the world. Many of us remember our first summer driving a car, our first summer romance, the books we read during the summer, the family times away from home, the adventures and , unfortunately, the times when sadness blotted out the sun.And we often count our age as so many summers because after each one we close the door on part of our lives and open a new one. And yet summer is still routine for most of us even on holiday, lying in that bit longer, having cups of coffee every morning, going on a holiday, gardening, having friends round, reading a book - it's so predictable in a way when we want it to be so different to the rest of our year. Yet for farmers it is such a critical time for most of their year's work depends on what happens for those few months when their crops ripen and they know without that harvest the winter can be very long.

The writer of Proverbs tells us that 'Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer.' for they know that it is a watershed in their lives. Jeremiah reminds us that 'The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved,' and in those two verses I see both wisdom and foolishness. When the harvest has passed and the summer is over, I want to have stored up my treasures in heaven.