Yeah! I can’t believe it either! It’s 85 degrees! It’s only hit 70 a couple of times so far this year, here close to that big drink of water, called Lake Michigan.
Living here has made me cynical. Is spring (our weirdest and almost non-existent season) really here, or are we just being teased?
Back to Lake Michigan. It is the largest lake contained within one country (the other Great Lakes border Canada,) with 22,400 square miles of water, and dimensions of 307 miles long x 188 miles wide.
It can get rough! Remember the song about the Edmund Fitzgerald, the iron ore freighter that sank in November of 1975, with the lost of all 29 crewmembers? It’s one of 1,500 shipwrecks in the big lake.
It gets cold. This winter it nearly froze over completely. Ice mountains as large as houses formed along the shore as far as you can see. These unbelievable natural structures are built as some of the ice breaks and is swept ashore by the waves, and keeps accumulating.
It keeps things cold. A five mile drive west can get you about 10 degrees warmer.
But today, 85 degrees. Daffodils and tulips are up, though the trees are being very modest about showing much leaf, yet.
Physically and emotionally, I just do better when the weather is warmer, and outside activities become a possibility. I am indeed a shorts and flip-flops sort of guy.
Winter is hard for me. My soul tends to go dormant. I try to get with it, but so often I feel trapped, desperate, jittery, wanting to be somewhere else.
It’s bad enough that most of nature goes dormant in the winter, without me joining the seasonal trend.
It occurs to me, that it is the antithesis of what God’s Spirit wants and what our souls needs.
All of these observations weave together as a reminder to nurture life, life within us, life that God has put there, life that we need, and life that needs to be shared.
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.― Howard Thurman
Fourth of July on Lake Michigan @ Kenosha, WI
