Ever met a puppy you wanted to kick?
I know one. His name is Sirius.
People tell me all the time how wonderful Sirius is.
The same people say this while whipping back sun-bleached blonde hair and applying tanning oil to their already bronze bodies. They say this while glistening bags of sweat drip off them.
They say this with sand residue between their toes and coolers full of Coronas within arm’s reach. They say this while skipping over dunes, collecting shells, and constructing small castles for crustaceans.
They say this while watching a thermometer climb to Hades-like temperatures. They drive vehicles with propaganda reading, “salt life,” beach vibes,” or “I’m on island time” plastered on their back windows.
Standing beside them, dizzy from the sweltering heat, slathered in enough Coppertone SPF100 to hide my freckles, in the middle of prostrating in the hopes that the Holy Spirit will send a cool breeze, they turn to me and say,
Isn’t Sirius just the best? “Aren’t summers, just like, the best?”
I stare at them. I stare at Sirius.
This hound of hellish heat is the brightest star in the Canis Major constellation. According to ancient Roman astrologists, he is the harbinger of the dog days of summer, a time when Fahrenheit numbers surpass desirable credit scores.
“Oh yeah,” I say back while pushing Sirus’s hot muzzle away from my groin. “This is bliss.” The word bliss sounds more like “mliss” because my face is melting.
The truth is, this isn’t blissful. This is hell. And as of this week, my backyard could be mistaken for a circle in Dante’s Inferno.
My Yankee neighbor, the frozen descendants of Pilgrims, see no problem with Sirius. Many think I’m a sun worshipper because of where I’m from.
“Wicked hot today!” But I bet you like this kind of weather, right? Being from the South and all.”
“Oh yes,” I say. “Being scorched into nothingness is pure nirvana. I miss it like I miss sitting through a Sean Feucht concert.”
“Who?” they ask.
“Never mind,” I say. “Please pass me another popsicle or cold lob-stah roll.”
Perhaps by now, you’re thinking I’m reverse hibernating. Happily shivering away beside one of a half dozen AC window units within the parsonage. You might think this but you would be wrong.
Three very demanding responsibilities pull my red hair and ginger skin into the fiery furnace, and no, it’s not Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego. It’s child one, child two, and a small garden.
This is not our first garden. My spouse and I are proficient at growing food our children rarely look at, let alone touch. One will graze on sugar peas while the other enjoys digging up radishes before they are ready.
Sacrifices are made; innocent root vegetables needlessly perish so tomatoes and okra can grace our table. Hand tools are removed and placed in sandboxes, lost forever, like the library of Alexandria. It’s a complicated and self-defeating system that works for us, and it involves daily attention.
This is especially true when it doesn’t come up a cloud, causing us to strip down to the least amount of clothing allowed, head outside, and receive our recommended amount of vitamin D while tending the garden.
My spouse weeds. I water.
Meanwhile, my children pretend to be Pentecostal. They run around, flailing their arms, shouting incoherently. Their sounds are not the language of angels but of people nearing dehydration.
Thus, the water sprinkler.
We have several at our disposal. A couple came with the house. However, only the finest lawn-soaking devices for our children will do, so we procured a multicolored wacky wiggler for ourselves.
While my offspring speak in tongues, I hook up the cheap plastic distraction. The water courses through the small tubes, sputtering sporadically. Within moments, the spray is covering everything within a fifteen-foot radius.
My youngest wants to play musical chairs.
I grab four Adirondacks sitting near the back deck and make a small circle within the wet zone. We’ve played this game a few times before. I
sing whatever lyrics come into my head. Today, it’s a combination of “The Wheels On the Bus,” “Ring Around the Rosie,” and INXS’s “Don’t Change.”
When I stop, we both scramble to secure a vacant seat, which there are plenty of. She laughs, waiting for me to do it again.
I laugh, too because I’m in the throes of a heat stroke and think her face resembles the Sun baby from Teletubbies.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s take one away.” I remove a chair.
I turn, this time belting lyrics from the Doors “Alabama Song.”
“Well, show me the way
To the next whisky bar
Oh, don’t ask why
Oh, don’t ask why”
My oldest knows this tune and decides to take a break from collecting bug bites to join us. We’re now a deliriously drenched trio.
“Everything alright over there?” our neighbor yells from across the street. He’s a real farmer. I know this because he has a four-wheeler, a tractor, and a John Deere Gator.
“Yes, they’re fine,” I say with a nod. My oldest and I continue to sing about whiskey and death like we’re at the Grand Ole Opry.
Improvising, my oldest shouts at a pitch that would turn a dog’s head, “I’m the lizard king!”
“Lizard king?” he yells back. “Like Jim Morrison?”
“No. Pretty sure that’s from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians,” I say back.
He laughs nervously and slowly disappears behind the barn.
Having successfully terrorized the locals, I return to the task at hand. It’s then I notice the youngest has brought the removed chair back into the circle.
“No, baby, I say. “We’re supposed to take one out.”
She looks at me the way my spouse looks at me most of the time– like I’m stupid. Clearly, I don’t understand the game. We do the same thing a few more times— me explaining to her we need fewer chairs, she bringing the chair back.
Her grace to my ignorance finally wins. I leave the chair be.
Minutes later, both children’s OCD kicks in and they move on to something else. I collapse into one of the chairs and enter a state of contemplation.
Cold water pelts me in the face every few seconds. I wonder if this is how Thomas Merton meditated in his Kentucky abbey.
I’m more likely to get lost in prayer than find myself in it and so is the case today. I wonder where God is in this moment while my pigment changes to a shade resembling an heirloom beet.
While watching my children, I receive an answer. They duck and hide under the already heavy branches of a crab apple tree.
Two furies of relentless energy. They include me in many of their games, breaking and changing the rules as quickly as they make them up.
I rise and walk over to my spouse. She’s trying to fix the “love is love” banner hanging from the fence that protects our greens from multiple chipmunks and at least one rabbit.
I bend down to lend a hand. I touch the edge of the rainbow cloth, look at the image of two hands making a heart, and reread the words: love is love.
Blinking sweat out of my eye, I mumble a parable. “Maybe we should add chairs, not take them away. Maybe we’ve been playing the game all wrong.”
“What was that?” my spouse says. Are you stroking out on me?” I assure her I’m fine.
“Good. My clothes are sticking to me, and I’m ready to head inside.”
She stands up. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah, I’ll grab the girls.”
I holler loud enough to get their attention. They drift in my direction before making a beeline back to the water sprinkler and the chairs. I follow.
Before my spouse can reach the door, the youngest yells, “Come, Mommy!”
The oldest joins, “Come play with us, Mommy, you can sit here.”
My spouse turns and leisurely makes her way over to the chair I kept trying to remove— the chair my youngest kept returning —and because of her, we all have a place to sit.
No one is left out; all can play. All can participate.
Finally, the game comes to an end. The sprinkler is turned off and the chairs are put away.
Walking towards the house, I hear the author of John’s Gospel say, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”
A place filled with plenty of seating, a place that never runs out of chairs, a place that never takes away but always adds to.
A place that celebrates PRIDE and rejoices in Juneteenth.
I am hopeful for such a place in these dog days of summer.
A kin-dom full of rooms and chairs.
I just hope there’s AC there too.
received his theological education from Campbell University and Wake Forest University School of Divinity. He is an ordained minister affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and enrolled in the doctor of ministry program at McAfee School of Theology. When not spending time with his spouse and daughters, he can be found writing and baking late into the night. He currently resides in New England with his family. His thoughts and reflections are his own.
