Stop it.  Whatever you are doing, stop it.
That’s the whole idea of the Sabbath.
God worked, created for six days, and then rested.
It’s a very old story and like most old stories it speaks
a human truth.
These bodies we are, these complex gifts of bone and blood,
muscle and flesh, are made to move and make, to shape and create.
And they are made to rest, to renew.

That’s the whole idea of Summer.
I know not all of you have schedules that allow for a summer vacation.  If you don’t have a vacation coming up,
these words might be even more important for you.

These bodies we are,
these complex gifts of senses and emotions,
need a change of pace, need a break.

In summer, things do shift.
Days are longer, nights are shorter.
Schedules shift.  School ends.  People graduate.
More people travel in the summer than at any other time of the year.
More people move in the summer than at any other time of the year.
It’s an active time.  Even vacations can be busy.

Yet, all this activity doesn’t ensure the break we need
for renewal and restoration.
That’s what I want this summer,
for myself, my family, and for you.

And, so,
I want more than anything else today
to offer you the invitation to notice beauty.

My colleague, Lynn Ungar is a poet.
She knows what I’m talking about.

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In her poem Camas Lilies she writes:

Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.

Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground bulbs
for flour, how the settler’s hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?

And you—what of your rushed and
useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything,
leaving only a note: “Gone to the fields
to be lovely. Be back when I’m through
with blooming.”

Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake.
Of course, your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

                                                            -Lynn Ungar

Lilies fed generations of native people,
ground flour for nutrition,
tender blue eyes for fulfilling beauty.

You are useful and beautiful.
Let the lilies remind you of this.
Your work matters—and it is good to go to the fields and be lovely.
Luxuriate in loveliness,
in the beauty of the earth, in the splendor of the skies.
For a time become that perspective.

You don’t have to do anything.
Busy does not equal usefulness or importance or worth.

For a time
just stop what you are doing.
Breathe in fresh summer air, filled with the fragrance of jasmine.
Give thanks for sunshine.
Gloria for green,
in flower stems and tall tree leaves and needles.

Hooray and Hallelujah for blossoming flowers
of every size and shape and color.
Thanks for fresh water to quench my thirst, and delight my sight,
in silver sparkles and waves breaking.

Stop what you are doing.
Go to the fields, the mountains, the ocean.
Be lovely.
Shine your loveliness on one another.

My spiritual director said this week, “Reclaim your purpose-lessness.”
Toss off, shake off. Let go (for a time).

Be like that lily of the field for a moment, arrayed in all your glory.

You are rooted, drawing up nutrients, soaking in warmth and sunlight,
reaching to the sky.
You are a lily, opening up, blossoming, bending with the winds,
a lily, one among thousands, in an endless field,
flowing, moving, dancing, blossoming.

Whole temples have been built to honor this blossoming.

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The B’hais built a magnificent temple in New Delhi:
A lotus, with petals unfolding, sunlight warming, renewing,
up-reaching…

calling all humans, “Come and do likewise.”

And near Pondicherry, overlooking the Bay of Bengal,
the followers of Sri Aurobendo built the Matrimandir,

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the Temple of the Mother, a huge golden blossom,
emerging out of petals, reaching skyward. 
An opening in the top enables the sun’s rays
to reflect into the meditation room, the Holy of Holies,
where one sits in utter silence.

Come and be beautiful.

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Toward the end of her life, Helen Hitchcock Maxon was invited by her daughter Jo to reflect on, and write down, the beauty she experienced. 
It’s a practice worth doing.

Among many memories of loved ones, Helen included the beauty she found in the world around her:

The arching of a monkeypod tree
The funny little tufted flowers

Beaches and sand, especially on camping trips
Sliding up the beach in white foam
The sun’s heat shining down on you

Great white cumulus clouds over the mountains
The blue of the sky
The deep, deep blue looking down into the ocean far out at sea

Roses, especially big pink ones

Light of all kinds:  city lights at night, the glow of sunsets
twilight gradually coming

Flames with their silky, wavering translucency, the colors of
orange and red with streaks of blue and yellow or white

Water lilies
Warbles of under water colors and light in a shallow place

The smell of lavender

Stars – O stars!  And the planets I see at night.

Stop what you are doing and remember. 
What highlights your list of beauty? 
Where can you go to be reminded, renewed, restored?

When you are overwhelmed
by the violence and injustice in the world,
when life’s twists and turns consume you,
when you are full of loss and the grief is overwhelming,

When you receive a diagnosis, or a loved one dies,
when a relationship ends,
when you lose a job,
or must move across the country,
that is the time to remember beauty. 

When life is busy, work and parenting unrelenting,
pause, and breathe.

When you can, walk in the sunshine,
maybe down a sandy beach, with waves rolling in.
Take a walk, and for the first ten minutes
do nothing but notice beauty.

See how your awareness shifts.

When you are overwhelmed with life,
that is the time to walk a trail through a mountain meadow. 
That is the time to go out on the darkest of nights,
when the air is crisp and the sky is clear
and behold the majesty of the cosmos,
galaxy upon galaxy, there
to offer you inspiration.

Or if it’s all you can do,
that’s the time to look out the window,
breathe in the fresh air,
simply remember the beauty you have known and loved.

Here you are this morning, breathing, seeing, hearing,
being all the miraculous gifts you have received. 
So small, yet connected to all that is.

When our bodies tell us the life force within is shifting,
growing tired, and we begin to imagine a last breath,
that is the time to wrap ourselves in beauty.

Accept the invitation. 
Be like Ferdinand the Bull.
Find your favorite cork tree, or maybe it’s a Live Oak or Pine. 
Sit down, feel the ground beneath you, solid, full of life-giving nurture. 

This Earth:  your home.

Accept the invitation.

Write down your list.
What beauty do you know?
Revisit it, whenever you want,
it’s only a memory away.
Remember that waterfall,
the soprano’s note rising, still higher,
the soft touch of a newborn’s skin.

Let all the beauty we have known
illuminate our hearts and minds.
Let that beauty shine through your eyes.
Shine your loveliness on the world.

I remember my mother’s words when,
a year after my father’s death,
I asked her about her grief. 
She said, “Oh, it’s like a rising tide filling me, and then, and then,
an even bigger wave of gratitude washes over me.”

I want to be like that. 
I want to stand like the lilies of the field. 
I want to notice the fragrance of jasmine. 
I want to see a young child take her first step. 
I want to notice the beauty and let the gratitude wash over me.

I want this for you, and you, and for all of us.

As this summer begins,
my hope for you is to be out standing in your field!

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