Emmanuel Magazine May/June 2017 | Page 7

with thunderstorms and heavy rain, but also magnificent rainbows. We know that the hot sun will return so again we can feel the warmth and light of God — the warmth of the Spirit of God. Indeed, as someone remarked, “Tis easier to find God in the summer.” The popular song “Summertime” serenades us with the pleasant, relaxed mood of summer: Summertime and the livin’ is easy Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good-lookin’ So hush little baby, don’t you cry One of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing And you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the sky But ‘til that morning, there ain’t nothin’ can harm you With daddy and mammy standin’ by. And recall Sonnet 18 of William Shakespeare: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. And finally, the description of summer by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist: Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into 149