the abundance of summer

It's 1:30 am, and I'm wide awake. What better time to start a blog, right?

This summer has been a joy... quite a distinct difference from others in recent memory. I'm enjoying my house and my new dog. I'm reading voraciously. I go swimming and get sunburned and have fun just for the sake of having fun. I'm relaxed (for the most part) and happy. I think this is how regular people do summer.

When I think about seasons, I think of Parker Palmer and his use of seasons as a metaphor for our lives. These past calm months mark the longest and most bountiful "summer" of my life, a summer I never really believed would happen. Most of my life has been filled with alternating falls, winters, and springs. But when I think about the kind of summer Palmer describes... that abundance hasn't been there.

I've spent the vast majority of my life paralyzed by fear. I don't know when I first closed everyone out, but I remember even in preschool being petrified of letting anyone see my imperfection. I continued through adulthood to carefully erect giant barriers to keep people from getting too close with the result being my own impenetrable fortress. I didn't allow anyone to see the real me, not even myself. I thought that was the way to find the abundance I longed for... to earn the love I so desired by being outwardly perfect. How wrong I was.

Over the past year, as I've slowly let down my walls, I've found that abundance in authentic community. By the grace of God, I have a place where I've been able to lay my faults and wounds bare for all to see, and rather than being abandoned as I feared, I'm loved all the more. I'm free to be the joyful woman God created me to be, and in that freedom, to continue to grow and find who that woman is. That kind of love, that freedom, that joy... that's the abundance I was missing.

I'm glad to have experienced the bounty of summer, though I know fall will return all too soon.

I'll close with a quote from Palmer:

"In the human world, abundance does not happen automatically. It is created when we have the sense to choose community, to come together to celebrate and share our common store... Authentic abundance does not lie in secured stockpiles of food or cash or influence or affection, but in belonging to a community where we can give those goods to others who need them – and receive them from others when we are in need."

Good night.