A GLIMPS OF HEAVEN

                                             

 I have often wondered what the climate in heaven must be like, and I can’t help thinking, it emulates a perfect June day in Minnesota. I really believe, in the place where we believe there is eternal life, that it’s eternal summer.  As the old saying goes, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” There are so many things that happen in June that reinforce my thinking this way. Everything is so new and fresh, and the flowers are blooming everywhere. Babies of every species are making their entrance into the world. The days in June are the longest, so we can enjoy them the most. It’s not that warm and not that cold, and those soft breezes we always enjoy, are filled with the smells and fragrances of summer. The world that was so drab and dead in winter, is now cloaked in shades of living, growing, green.

I first fell in love in summer—in a world that was so perfect back then, and she seemed so perfect too. All through our wedded life, it seemed, we endured the cold months—always looking forward to June, when life began anew for both of us. That first summer that we fell in love, a song was born called “Theme From a Summer Place,” and the lyrics still reverberate in my mind today. “There’s a summer place where it may rain or storm. Yet I’m safe and warm. For within that summer place your arms reach out to me and my heart is free from all care.  For it knows, there are no gloomy skies when seen through the eyes of those who are blessed with love. And the sweet secret of a summer place.”  Bern Williams said it best. “If a June night could talk, it would probably boast that it invented romance.”

Yes, June does seem to be a carefree month, and your memories reaffirm this. You think back to your youth, that last day of school, and three whole months of freedom from studies and responsibilities. Long days at the lake swimming, fishing, baseball games and building forts in the woods. Hopscotch diagrams chalked on the sidewalks, and riding your bikes down country lanes—your dog running behind with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. It was a time when you shed all of your worries—along with most of your clothes. Tan bodies, freckles and sun-bleached hair was the fashion. There was no one waking you up in the morning, but yet, it was so hard to fall asleep at night because you didn’t want to turn your back on another perfect day that seemed to be sliding away too fast. James Russell Lowell said, and I quote, “And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.”  Yes, it’s been said that “summer is a time when you can be lazy and still be respected in society.”

We here in the lake country are especially blessed. Those who are retired find every day a vacation day. Those who aren’t, flock here to indulge. They, too, need to shed their tensions and worries, and they know that it’s best done on the quiet shores of a sandy lake. It’s been called “heaven on earth” but we will never know for sure until we get there, will we. I, for one, am betting they’re not that far apart.