By Rod Anderson

Finally the time has arrived! After a long challenging winter, and even a spring and early summer of unfavorable stormy weather, it’s the “dog days” of summer! I’ve never liked that cliché. Just because the canines, and other fur-bearing creatures, are uncomfortable in the heat doesn’t mean we have to be. I rather prefer to turn that cliché around, and on its ear, to remind all of us these are the “God days” of summer, when the fruits of our labors are ripening with the richness of God’s abundance and God is multiplying every seed into bumper crops for a very hungry world. More than “dog days,” these are “God days.”

And finally the time has come to take a “staycation.” It’s been advertised as the 2008 new option for every family. Actually it doesn’t sound “new” to me. Growing up on the farm in a former agrarian generation, summer vacation meant we had the freedom to stay at home so the whole family could work the land in the growing season. It was all about our vacation to work … not our vacation from work.

But that was then and this is now and the value of food produced by today’s modern agrarians and fuel consumed by today’s modern vacations has called us to reconsider the freedoms we have come to cherish in the “God days” of summer! Maybe (no … for sure), our freedoms to “vacate … vacation, as well as our freedoms to “vocate” … vocation, are more and more on our minds as we get out of the classroom or out of the office or just out of town to play, and as we stay at home to be learning and working harder to cover the rising costs and even worshipping more because our world is less sure … or maybe even turned upside down on its ear!

Word & World, my seminary’s scholarly journal on the theology of Christian ministry, dedicated the entire summer 2008 issue to the automobile! Did any of us alumni ever suppose wise staff and editorial board members could have gotten their collective noses out of their summer readings and research projects to write articles with titles like “What Does the Bible say about the Automobile?” or “Effects of Auto-Mobility on Church Life and Culture,” or “Actually, You Did Go to Seminary to Deal with Parking?” Members of the Seminary Board of Trustees, whose vocations were automobile dealer and auto industry executive, even wrote perspectives. The poignancy and timeliness of such writing must have been guided by the spirit.

Most “motivating” to me (pun intended) were “Face … to Face” articles by two faculty … “Is the Automobile Essential to Freedom? No!” by Mary Hinkle Shore who just gave up her car and uses public transportation and a bike, and “Is the Automobile Essential to Freedom? Yes!” by Rolf A. Jacobson who lost both legs to cancer 30 years ago and gets around in a lightweight, high performance wheelchair and a hand-control equipped car! You could take up such a debate while riding together on the bus to work or in the car to vacation.

Fred Gaiser, the editor, asked in his preface to this issue, “What does the Bible say about all this?” Of course, nothing, but also, everything. As stewards of the earth, and as those set “free” to do so, how are we to find our way through such questions as these?

In Acts 8:31, Philip meets an Ethiopian official reading and riding in his chariot as he traveled along the road and asks him if he understands what he is reading from the book of Isaiah. The official responded, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” Here in the “God days” of summer, whether on a vacation or staycation, we’ll need some guidance also as we struggle with the ethical, and even theological, issues of global warming, carbon footprints, dependence on foreign oil and even freedom to/freedom from work.

Nat King Cole’s song title from 1963 calls these the “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.” The adjectives make the point. Call them what you will, but enjoy them. They are a gift from God to be cherished and used well!

The Rev. Rod Anderson shares this space with the Revs. Timothy A. Johnson and Tim Power as well as spiritual writers Dr. Bernard E. Johnson and Lauren Carlson-Vohs. “Spiritually Speaking” appears weekly.