Summer is almost a foretaste of heaven!

The Summer seems to have really arrived here in Bo'ness. everything is looking absolutely spectacular. The Bo'ness Fair has a great influenece on the way the town looks at this time of the year. Most people have put extra work into their gardens and it means that the whole town looks well cared for and of course very colourful with arches and frontages on houses. There is something about summer that makes us all feel just perhaps that little bit more optimistic. Is it the weather? Is it the fact that we get time off to go on holiday? Is it that we can get into the garden and enjoy a summer evening with friends? What ever it is I just know that most people like Summer. For me one of the most inspiring phrases about summer comes from C.S. Lewis in Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan speaking to the children says: ". . . you are - as you use to call it in the Shadow Land - dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." I think there is something quite liberating about the above phrase. I can still recall the amazing sentiments of joy bubbling up within me as a child knowing the school term was over and the holidays had begun. Walking away from school was a truly spiritual experience. For me it was like a huge cloud had been lifted. It was summer, time to play. It was just fantastic getting ready for holidays as a child. It was so exciting in our family. The big case would get packed, my dad would have on his ‘sports clothes' as he called them, a tweed jacket and cavalry twills. Then it would be off to Ireland for two weeks with the big case on his shoulder and us children following behind and my mother keeping us all together as we walked up the gangway. Those were exciting times for a boy who lived in the city. The chance to ride a tractor, the opportunity to sit in a big milk lorry. I can still recall the smell of the milk lorry cabin with the torn leather seats and the petrol and oil mixing together in the atmosphere to create a smell that for me says ‘all is well'. Those were happy days without a care in the world. Can you just imagine how wonderful that feeling is for a child? C.S. Lewis uses that experience of ‘end of term' to help look forward with expectation to the time when we will find ourselves released from the term of this life and we will be facing eternity. Death then is nothing to fear, it simply is the gateway into the light and the peace of God's presence. I think this phrase of Lewis' reminds us that living for many of us is just existing in the Shadowlands, indeed that phrase describes all of us. Deep down in our souls we know there is more something quite wonderful to look forward to even better than any Summer holiday. I've come to the conclusion Summer is almost like a foretaste of heaven. It gives us a chance to think in a different way about life. The cold wind of the winter is over and the fresh warmth of the Summer days beacons us to think positively about life and also about life after death. So why not kick your shoes off this Summer and get ready to enjoy your holidays. Yeah the dream has ended – let us make this day the first morning of the rest of our lives. If God is for us who can be against us?

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Posted By: italker   On: 30 Jun 2010   At: 12:00am

Yeah the last week has been a reminder to all of us that India is a country of many different facets. Anyway hope your enjoying your break and that there is a touch of heaven around Bo’ness.

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Posted By: rae   On: 29 Jun 2010   At: 6:02pm

ahhh Temple Bay smile  Your photo makes me long for India.  I can’t wait to go back.

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