Simple Summer Pleasures
On a recent cool summer evening, Ray, Mother, and I joined one of our daughters and her family at a nearby park. I loved the girls-against-the-boys paddle boat race, sliding down the slide with our grandchildren and the talkative four-year-old who befriended us on the playground, and eating grilled hotdogs and kettle chips at the picnic table.
I can’t say that I actually enjoyed falling out of the swing –backwards and headfirst, but it made a great story afterwards. The combination of a round plastic swing and very slick leggings and feet that didn’t touch the ground turned out not to be such a great combination. When I started sliding, there was nothing but the ground to stop me. It did. First, our daughter (and Ray, too, of course) checked to see if I was okay. I was. Then, she told me how comical I looked while I was falling.
All evening I looked forward to feeding the ducks in the lake. There is something beautiful and, at the same time, pleasantly predictable about throwing a piece of bread into the water and watching a duck (or three) glide toward it, open its bill, and gobble it down. The grace of the swimmers, the ripples on the surface, and the tiny dribbles and splashes are copies of the same pictures I saw as a girl in Centennial Park in Nashville. Sweet, sweet memories of simple pleasures.
Summer is a time for simple pleasures. I pray that your summer has many.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
Psalm 23:2