The sandals I wear walking the crowds in Charleston drop in the bag I brought for the “just in case your feet start hurting and you need to change” possibility. We’ve walked King and Meeting, sat on the rooftop counting steeples while dipping blue corn into duck and melted cheese, tried on hats and sipped lattes through straws in tall chairs when our feet start to scream.

It’s a cerulean blue canopy, cumulonimbus kind of day and we’re celebrating a seventy-fifth birthday along breezy streets, holding dresses down and pushing hair out of eyes. Two hours away from a dinner reservation, so we take a ride in the car. I change my shoes.

H drives us to the neighborhood of a friend, under low branching trees bearded mossy, trunks smiling cracked and wrinkled wise.  Rows of houses shutter tall in ivy blankets on banks of water, their windows watchful over kids bouncing balls.

And this quiet beauty awakens the soul to the nearness of the kingdom of God in the heart of summer.

Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ~Luke 21:29-31

And His kingdom brushes eyelash across my cheek at the turn of the corner. We pull up wide-awake to the banquet table of summer’s homecoming in a grassy bridge dividing quiet water. Park the car to get a closer look. We forget our feet hurt.

I linger in sun’s golden hue as she lies down. Stand statue with the blue heron and tip toe with the gulls in shallow shoals. Watch how a father instructs his children on catching the riches of summer’s bounty. And He unfolds the kingdom and all her vitality in the festival of summer along the causeway of surprise.

 

On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit in every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ~Revelation 22:2

Hebrews 4 describes the kingdom as a true Sabbath, not slumber but a restorative rest after winter’s brittle misery. I intersect with a glimpse of eternity on the way to dinner. And I am ready to walk in new shoes, eat from His table with the people I love.

Is your heart ready for summer?

Linking with Imperfect Prose, God Bumps & God Incidences, Thought Provoking Thursday, WLWW.