Dog days...

Happy July! In Southwestern PA we are in our tropical season with our "3 H" summer of heat, haze and humidity. I'm not a fan.

Exactly when do the "dog days" of summer officially begin?
(I looked it up: 3 July through 11 August)

If this isn't the dog days then we are at least in the puppy period of the summer.

So you are "in the know" and can impress folks with this bit of knowledge, the "dog days of summer" are named for the time when the star Sirius, known as the Dog Star, is in conjunction with or lines up with the sun. Sirius is the brightest star visible from earth. Ancients believed that the combination of energy and heat coming from these two great stars would naturally make the weather even hotter. Quaint and in a lot ways I can see why they would've thought that, forget the fact that a star is so far away from earth it could never generate enough heat to warm us. Yet, feel free to toss out this insight at your next picnic or barbecue.

All I know right now is it is stinkin' hot!

July is the heart of summer, the month that is wide-open with school neither ending nor starting, the month of vacations and get-aways.

July is the month when, and I'm blaming it on the heat, we slow down and begin to move as if in molasses. Spiritual guides warned of being wary of the "devil of the noonday sun." Their point is when one's spiritual life becomes more grinding then grace-aware and when your inner light is bushed and busheled instead of bright and a beacon to recognize it and remedy it.

Ask what it is that moves you, speaks to you, sparks your spirit. Be intentional in finding the WOW moments --- catch a sunset, notice a flower, listen to bird song. Do what is just. Instead of bemoaning how horrible is everything, do something: call your elected official, write a letter-to-the-editor, join a group committed to the cause.

My mother always referred to late spring and early summer "as the greening of America." We joked about it, yet, she was right and I can't help but notice how lush and full and green is the landscape. In the heat of summer, the challenge and the call is, in the words of Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB, "to be ever green, a strong shoot of justice, a steadfast tree of peace."