Can school already be back in session? When I was a kid growing up, the school term was always out at the end of May and didn’t resume until after Labor Day. Those lazy-crazy-hazy days of summer always seemed to fly by quickly. I can’t begin to imagine how quickly they would seem to fly by if school resumed early-to-mid August.
As soon as school was out, Vacation Bible School started. I seldom was eager to get out of bed that early since it was summer vacation, but we always went to VBS. Not only did we go to VBS at our church, we always got the privilege of spending a week with our maternal grandparents. Invariably that week always coincided with Vacation Bible School at their church.
Okay, under a veil of transparency, with some embarrassment, I have to admit that one of the things I liked best about VBS was the craft activities. I say that, but I still remember the songs we sang and the animated hand motions we made to go along with the songs.
For starters, there was song, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man.” We’d use a hand to show how tall he was, and then we’d figuratively climb up into a tree. We’d then use one hand on our forehead as a sun visor to indicate that Zacchaeus was “looking”.
We sang songs with lyrics like: “Yes, Jesus loves me” and “Red and yellow and black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” It never occurred to me that ours in a world where anyone would make a difference concerning the color of one’s skin.
Perhaps VBS seemed to extend the innocence of childhood. I didn’t grow up in a world where hatred and alienation seemed to divide folks in different groups or where the logo on your shirt indicated some class differenation between the haves and the have-nots.
I grew up in a day when parents seemed to take seriously the Biblical mandate of “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Either that or my parents intuitively knew I needed a lot of instruction, structure and supervision.
I’m not sure what most parents do today, but I get the sense that participation in “select sports” or anything other than church becomes the priority. I am saddened that as a culture, we’ve lost something too valuable to relinquish so easily.
Although this summer’s Texas heat wave has been treacherous, I wish that kids weren’t already back in school and that the lazy-hazy-crazy days of summer have ended.
My summers always included weekly trips to the library where we got to pick out a book. My mother was intent that our reading skills would improve over the summer.
My family always took a family vacation. It was car travel 101 with three kids in the back seat periodically asking, “how much longer until we get there?”
All My Best!
Don
Carpe Diem 