06/11/2026
Summer has a way of arriving all at once. School lets out, schedules loosen up a bit, and suddenly the days are long and full of possibility. It’s easy to miss it even then. We carry our hurry with us like a second skin.
But following Jesus isn’t only about what we do, but also about how we pay attention.
The Psalms are full of people who stopped and looked. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” the Psalmist sings, “and the sky above proclaims God’s handiwork.” This isn’t poetry about some fantasy world, far removed, a picture for the imagination. It’s an invitation to notice what’s already here: the light filtering through a canopy of leaves, a garden doing its unhurried work, the way a summer evening slows everything down, whether we’re ready or not.
Jesus was someone who looked closely at the world. He noticed lilies and sparrows and seeds and soil. He found the sacred hiding in ordinary things, and he invited his followers to do the same. That practice, we might say, is itself a spiritual discipline: deliberately shutting out the noise long enough to receive what creation is offering.
This summer, we’d love to invite you into that kind of attentiveness. Take a walk without your phone. Sit on your porch and just listen. Visit a park. Plant something. Watch a thunderstorm from somewhere safe and dry (or not—run around in the rain and get soaked, if that’s your thing). Just let yourself be delighted, whatever you do.
The world God has made is still extraordinary. We just have to be willing to notice.
-Rev. Derek Penwell
