It’s a true summer day, here in eastern Virginia. Very still; little breeze. Dripping-wet humid. “Hotter ‘n Hades,” as my Virginia-native, 89-year-old father-in-law would say.

I love it! It’s also the time for the most beauty in the garden, with the Easter lilies and day lilies, the daisies and sundrops.

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Today is a recovery day, following the Synod Assembly and the driving to and from Roanoke College all day Friday and Saturday. (I come back Saturday night, so I can lead worship the next morning. I don’t think the Synod Assembly should take pastors out of their Sunday morning worshiping communities. Since this is Virginia, they won’t change the way they do things. So I just practice some disobedience.) I’m staying at home today, reading for next Sunday’s sermon.

I finished my Memorial Day reading this morning. This year it was two of Tim O’Brien’s books from his experience as a grunt in Vietnam: “Going After Cacciato,” and “The Things They Carried.”