It's July!  For many parts of the world, the month of July is a time for celebration, individual, group, and nation.  July 1st marks Independence Day in Canada; July 4th, Independence Day in the U.S.; and July 14th, Independence Day (otherwise known as Bastille Day) in France.  Also, during July, this year, anyway, Muslims the world over will celebrate Eid al Ftr, the joyous occasion with which they commemorate the end of Ramadan.  Finally, unless you are living in the far southern regions of the world, you are likely enjoying July as the high point of the summer, the month in which the season's warmth and carefree character seem to tumble about and come together, effortlessly coalescing in countless moments of thankfulness and joy.
     On the other hand, for some of us, me in particular, July marks the remembrance of another event:  the passing of my mother.  Like Scottish philosopher David Hume and American founding fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, she died five years ago on July 4th.  As I read Ecclesiastes this morning, I kept coming back to a verse I read frequently in the last days of her life.  It's in chapter three.  "There is a time to give birth," the writer says, "and a time to die."
     True enough, of course, but when its reality confronts us, it can overwhelm us.  Life is beautiful, but life ends.  It's the ultimate tragedy of being human.
     As we in the north therefore continue to move through our July and its many celebrations, and as nature's many creatures and plants, free of the throes of winter, continue to give birth, bloom, and shout at the glory of it all, I continue to pray that we will all find fresh occasion to ponder and consider the bigger picture in which it all occurs, the bigger picture without which, as Ecclesiastes also observes, everything is futility:  the love, the eternal and forever love of God.
     As Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:24-25).
     Then Jesus asks the question he still asks every one of us:  "Do you believe this?"