Rhythm of Life

It's early August, which means back-to-school time.  Or at least that is what the retailers keep telling me.  It is 95 degrees outside, 1000 percent humidity, and Wal-Mart is showing me pictures of cute kids in sweaters surrounded by autumn leaves.  Right.  I sweat like a stuck pig just walking out to get the mail and somehow I am supposed to think about fall and school.  Do I look like I want to worry about such things in the dead of summer?  Pour me another lemonade and talk to me about school in September.
In our house back-to-school actually starts in July.  My wife is a fanatic about getting school supplies early. Normally I would be repulsed by such behavior, after all I believe that there should be a constitutional amendment banning any Christmas advertising before Thanksgiving.  However, in this case I suck it up since we save a fortune.  One of my kids has to take 12 glue sticks to class this year (are they going to eat it?) so better get it for a quarter a pop when you can.  Even if they are still selling firecrackers and sunscreen in the next aisle.
Summer is sacred to me, even though my favorite season is fall.  I am not a big fan of oppressive heat (though it beats freezing cold) and still have emotional and physical scares from hot plastic seats in station wagons when I was a kid.  But summer is about freedom and I resent anyone or anything that tries to take it away from me (except my wife, of course, whom I love and who saves us money with her school supplies on sale obsession).

My attitude about summer is a reflection about how thoroughly ingrained the American educational calendar is in my life. September-May is for getting up early, working, and then getting up early the next day.  Summer, summer is about sleeping late, playing, going to the pool, sweating, and going to bed late. Little wonder the rhythm of school rules my world. Since 1973 I have been a student, teacher, or had a child in school all but three years. That's right, 34 of the past 37 years if you are keeping score at home.  On top of that, almost every institution and organization I am associated with is influenced by the school calendar.  Activities are delayed because of mythical holidays like Spring Break or Christmas Break or Fall Break.  The program year starts in the fall, the new season starts in the fall, don't even think about planning anything before Labor Day (except school which now starts in mid-August for some kids.  Hope they all have AC).

Even churches are under the spell of the academic calendar.  Most Christian education takes place from September to May.  Then many congregations have this little thing called Vacation Bible School.  I never understood VBS.  Why, in the middle of summer, do you expect kids to want to go to something with the word school in it.  VBS always seemed like false advertising to me.  It's not a vacation if it is school.  Even I know that.
I realize that the American educational calendar took its shape and form from rural life.  That is why there is no school in the summer, kids were out in the fields.  Even though we stopped being an agricultural society almost a century ago the calendar remains unchanged.  For the most part.  There are a few school districts that want year-round education.  They may well succeed.  And our children may be smarter for it.  But changing the school calendar will force us to give up a powerful symbol.

Ponder this - fall is about death.  The growing season is over and we harvest what we can.  Leaves die and fall off the trees.  The warmth and greenness of summer are gone.  Even the days get shorter.  In the middle of all of this contraction and decay comes the excitement of newness and beginning.  Pretty cool, don't you think.  The rhythm of the school year reminds me of God (who knows, God may have even thought it up).  What looks like the end is really God creating a new beginning.  Death gives way to life, uncertainty to excitement.  It is so like God to find a way to remind us that life, not death, will always prevail.  Yes, the freedom of summer passes away, but in its place comes new opportunities for growth and learning (and football, le'ts not forget football!) 

So, I don't mind the end of summer or the beginning of the school year.  But please, all you retailers, chill out.  Let me enjoy my summer.  The school year will start soon enough.