91 - Tammuz

The early summer abundance is everywhere. Those who can, plant and tend; the rest of us go to the Farmers’ Market. Last week, Reid came home with sweet cherries and tiny, delicious asparagus from Michigan, bags of baby greens, ripe tomatoes, blueberries. We are produce ravenous, and fill our bellies with all these choice offerings. How clever of God to have made them all. We relax over our evening meal and give thanks.

Ninety-One

Tammuz

Tammuz is interlude, reiteration, steady growth:
Setting sprinklers, pulling weeds, nourishment
That signals the start of culmination.
Guide us, Eternal One, as we move in our tasks.

No longer wanderers, we have planted our fields,
We have set out our fruit trees.
Now we contemplate Your care for us
As we wait for consolidation of further growth.

The longer days wind in on themselves,
Longer sunlight erases the hurry;
Longer moments to linger: a book, an embrace,
To listen to children’s voices calling in twilight.

Hear us in the longer days, Source of Growth,
Calling as our fathers and mothers called,
Calling as we summon our children home from play.
Hear us as we call You in truth.

Hear us as we move into this time of increase,
As we gather up sunlight and breezes and rains
To lay aside against the unknowns ahead.
Hear us as we call You in truth.