As we in the West leave the traditional summer behind, we might find ourselves remembering some of its joys.  Perhaps we remember a trip we took, or maybe a family reunion.  Perhaps a baseball game.  Maybe a wedding, maybe a birth.  Whatever our memory may be, we remember it in the enduring warmth and expansiveness of the summer, the season when many of us try to make time to do something for which we do not have time at other parts of the year, a season when we can go outside without bundling ourselves up, a time when we just hang out with family and friends.  Either way, we remember those summer days as wonderful gifts in our lives.

     Not to say that summer is over:  almost a month remains until the autumnal equinox.  It is to say, however, that as, in some fashion, the weather changes and our lives resume their "normal" rhythms, we remain grateful for the opportunity, for a season, to let go, to loose ourselves, even for a little while, of our responsibilities.  To lose ourselves in the wonder of just "being" in the world
     Although with climate change, summer is beginning to look very different in many parts of the world, its inevitability remains constant:  it will always happen.
     Thank goodness--and God--for the rainbow.