Ah, summer! So many plans undone. Let's see: I was going to go camping, go to the beach, read several novels that remain unread, and my wife and I even talked about taking salsa dancing lessons. Oh, well.
And yet, there were things about the summer that refreshed my soul. I'm thinking, for example, of the novel I finally finished reading last weekend: Yann Martel's Life of Pi, which would be great to read and discuss in a church book group. I'm thinking of a short hike my wife and I took up Big Cottonwood Canyon in Utah with one of closest college friends back in June, when we were visiting my parents. (It was a wonderful reunion with a friend I hadn't seen since I moved from Salt Lake to Cambridge, Mass., in 1996 — and a wonderful encounter with a landscape I love deep in my soul, but rarely see.)
So, as the official summer winds down and the church year gets ready to resume in most of our congregations, what moved and refreshed you? Did you have a favorite book? Favorite movie? Favorite meal? Favorite place?