Just in case you haven’t looked at the front of your Order of Service, could you do that now? I chose the image of the child building a sandcastle as something close to the heart of “Summertime and the Livin’ is Easy” as suggested by our theme today and the music you heard at the Offering time. A child has no heavy concerns (at least, so we like to imagine) and no deadlines, not even a work ethic. A child can live in the moment, in each of those easy moments of a summer day, perhaps more fully than anyone else. But of course, even for a child, the living may not be particularly easy. She may not live anywhere near a place to build sandcastles, or have any way of getting to such a place; or the weather may be rainy, or the child may be sick, or his parents are going through a bitter divorce in the middle of summer, or ...... anyone of a number of things that may make life hard – just when friends are having the most fun!

You’re probably all aware that times like Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries can be particularly hard on us when we’re already under stress, or lonely, or grieving about the loss of a person or relationship or some aspect of ourselves. I’ve found that it’s also extra tough to deal with the problems of life in the summer, when the rest of the world seems to be relaxed, and mellow and in vacation mode. There have been times when I’ve even been angry at the sun for shining when my own life has felt very grey and dreary, rather in the same way that the poet W.H.Auden expressed when he wrote, in acute grief,

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, ......
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Well, maybe that sounds a bit too dramatic for the situation I’m suggesting here – the situation of just feeling out of sync with everyone else’s summery mood – but we can probably all relate to the underlying feeling, the sense that the world is going on without us, regardless of our circumstances, and that everyone else is having a better time than we are, and it’s just not fair!

I’ve noticed (both in myself and in other people) various ways of dealing with this -- this kind of minor alienation or sense of exclusion -- and I’ll run some of them by you before inviting your own thoughts and experiences. They’re coping strategies, something which we all need, so I wouldn’t want to characterize any of them as negative or inadequate, but there are probably some which generally work better than others, and certainly some which work better for particular people and personalities. John Green spoke here last week about “six ways of being religious,” and just as he recognized the validity of each way and the importance of finding your own best way or combination of ways, so I want to recognize that there’s no “one size fits all” answer to coping with summer when the livin’ ain’t easy. Here are a few things that work for some people and might be custom-tailored for you – and I’m taking inspiration from the framework John discussed, based on Dale Cannon’s book.

First: ritual. It’s not hard to understand how rituals are an important part of most religions, but how can ritual help us in more practical ways, for example getting us through a summer weekend in which everyone we know seems to be away at the cottage or relaxing by the pool and they haven’t invited us, and in any case there’s all kinds of work that we have to get done before Monday and no money to go away even if we were invited? Am I suggesting some kind of a lucky charm or a spell that can be cast to make everything miraculously all right?

Not quite, but I don’t think there’s any very clear distinction between religious rituals such as saying the Rosary or calling the Four Directions and the kind of thing we do as individuals to help ourselves. Moreover I don’t think any of them are necessarily superstitious. One useful ritual, which could be called religious or practical, might be the deliberate and intentional repetition of an act of gratitude. You’ve probably seen the reminders of how blessed we all are in material ways in this affluent part of North America – you know, “If you have a roof over your head, you’re luckier than all the people in the world who must sleep on the street tonight,” and so on. Try something like this when you’re in the summer doldrums:

This country is blessed with more fresh water than anywhere else in the world. There are lakes and ponds and pools, in the city as well as outside it, and even better there is water flowing from the kitchen tap and the bathroom shower. I give thanks for the fact that I can have a shower today and take a drink of cold water whenever I want to.

That’s certainly a religious ritual, rather like our singing of the hymn just now in which we express gratitude for the love all around us – which we may not be sensing and may in fact not have experienced at all consistently from the time of our birth. It’s a practical ritual because, in my experience anyway, it does raise our awareness of our fortunate place in the world and reduces that sense of being singled out for the misfortune of being lonely or overworked or stuck in the city or financially strapped or whatever it is. Add to your gratitude these familiar words about your present distress: This too shall pass. Use your intentional gratitude ritual ritualistically – it’s repetition and familiarity that give ritual its power, and although we Unitarians tend to be rather suspicious of such things, you may well find it helps you through some dark times.

Second: action. In traditional religious language this is often called service – action that’s aimed at being useful to someone else. It’s not always much use in crisis situations, but it can be an excellent coping strategy for those long stretches of dismal grey mood that can sometimes last a whole summer through, because we’re grieving a loss, or going through protracted hard times, or just because ...... At Christmas time a good counterpoint to depression might be to get involved with an agency that provides festivity for street people or lonely people. In the summertime perhaps it could be work (or simple visiting) with other people who’re finding the livin’ ain’t easy – those who’re in hospital or a nursing home, those who can’t get out of their apartment to take in the summer air even on a balcony. Maybe you and the person you’re visiting could share photos and memories of summertimes when the livin’ was a whole lot easier – if we can get past the delusion that summers will always be that way, we can enjoy those memories as the treasure that they are and can even in a small way experience them again. “Ah yes, the summer of ’83 – now that was a time .....!”

Third: devotion. When you’re hit with seriously bad news just as you’re starting a vacation that was supposed to be upbeat and relaxing at the same time, or while you’re toiling away at your job because you haven’t been there long enough to qualify for vacation time, you might need something that reaches a little more deeply and strongly into your inward resources than either a ritual or an activity. This may be the time to remind yourself of the values and beliefs you hold most dear and devote yourself to affirming them. What is your personal credo? If you believe in a Great Spirit which guides the universe, for example, or are a goddess worshipper, or have faith in the human capacity to shape our destiny, now is the time to bring yourself intentionally into harmony with that Great Spirit, or the goddess, or your own reason and willpower and inner strength. Devote yourself to those ideals, knowing that this is where they show what they are made of – not that you are challenging them to prove their value to you, but that you’re providing the raw material for a more mature spirituality -- an enhanced understanding of yourself and what you truly believe.

Fourth: healing. (Well, Dale Cannon calls it Shamanistic Healing, but I’m recommending any kind of healing you can get!) If the summertime, or particular difficulties that crop up for you especially in the summertime – if those things are making you more aware of sore spots in your psyche or pains in your personality, then do look for help from whatever sources you most trust. The language of religion speaks of holiness as an ideal; Unitarians are more likely to speak of wholeness or healthiness; all of these words are from the same root and mean essentially the same thing – living life to the fullest potential. Is this summertime difficult for you because your physical health is poor ..... or your emotional or mental health? Any illness, of body or mind, can wreak havoc with our ability to enjoy even the most beautiful of summer days, even in the most idyllic of settings and situations. Look for healing.

Who will you go to to find healing? It could be a conventional or alternative health practitioner, a spiritual leader, someone close to a shaman in the traditional sense. Or it could be to your inner self, if you’e learned to be in touch with that and to be your own healer. Wherever you go, it will probably help to go in a spirit of optimism – in trust that you can be healed and that the sun can shine again and the living be easier than it is now. Seek and you shall find!

Fifth: mystical experience. You know, for a tradition that’s characterized by such respect for reason and scepticsm regarding the supernatural, we have a surprisingly large proportion of members who would say that they have mystical experiences, or even characterize themselves as mystics. And summer is prime time for inviting and encouraging and meeting such experiences and entering into them fully. The weather may not be marvellous this year, but there have still been some wonderful sunsets, and will be more – a beautiful sunset is one of the most commonly cited occasions for mystical experience, along with starry skies and other natural settings and events. This summer, in which perhaps the living’s not easy for you, could still be the summer you remember as initiating you into mystery and mysticism.

It might be good to read about mysticism, if it’s foreign territory to you, but although information’s useful an open mind is the most important accompaniment as you venture into new experiences, just as when you’re physically travelling abroad. Above all, just let yourself be in the moment, as you gaze at that sunset or that starry sky or simply sit in meditation. It can do wonders for a troubled soul. Did you see the article in yesterday’s paper about the Mars-watchers? Oscar Cole-Arnal said, “I’m very aware of how small and insignificant I am when I look at the stars. That provides a profound sense of peace.” It may provide that for you, too.

And the sixth and last way of being religious which may help you when the livin’s not easy is reasoned inquiry. My guess is that I hardly need to encourage most Unitarians to engage in that. And yet, when we’re going through a hard time, it’s often neglected. Just learning to ask ourselves, “Why am I feeling like this? What can I do about it? How can I find more ease with myself and my situation?” – those questions and our path to the answers can be vital parts of our spiritual quest, the “free and responsible search for truth and meaning” which is the central principle of our Unitarian tradition. As we try to discover the truth about such an apparently mundane thing as a sad summer, we can take a giant step toward finding the meaning of our life – not life in general, perhaps, but our own very personal life in particular. God (or the Devil, or Both and the One) -- God is in the details.

Now I want to hear your resources for coping when you’re “out of sync” with the season? First, we’ll have a minute of quietness for you to gather your thoughts, and then I’ll invite whoever wishes to come forward so you can use the microphone to share your experience with us. You may want to tell us first what particular summer occasions have been difficult for you, and then what helped. Now, the quiet reflection.