Summertime, and the Living is ??

by Marcy Jackson, Co-Director

Last week, listening to the radio, I was briefly and very pleasantly transported by a recording of the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald singing “Summertime.” In that moment I heard the beauty and the promise of these words: “Summertime and the livin’ is easy…” Ahhhh, summer! The song ended too soon, and staring at my lifeless computer screen I felt suddenly bereft, brought back to the demands of my workaday world.

The lyrics of ”Summertime” are full of rich meanings, but I’d like to focus for a while on that troubling first line. I say troubling because time and again I come to the stark reality that in summertime or any other season, the livin’ feels anything but easy. We don’t have to look farther than the local gas pump, the grocery store, the headlines in today’s newspaper to know that things are troubling indeed, both at home and abroad. But it’s also troubling to me that every year, right about now, I find myself holding the memory and promise of an era of my life when summer really was “a time apart,” a time to find a different rhythm—more connected to nature, recreation, and long evenings of light and warmth.

It’s been a long while since I’ve experienced summer that way. I recognize that this comes as a result of my own collusion with the busyness and general state of being in “constant partial attention” that is in the air I breathe. But in the U.S., in particular, a larger cultural phenomenon also seems to be at work. An article looking at vacation policies around the world by Julie Z. Rosenberg (www.Vault.com) says that compared to almost every other country, Americans work longer and harder and vacation the least. Not only are we given fewer vacation days than nearly any other country in the developed world, we also take fewer of those days off! Apparently, Americans have a hard time relaxing.

So, coming back to the song, if I wanted to honor the summer season and also be authentic to my own life and work, how would I complete the phrase: Summertime and the living is _________? How would you?

In the work we do in our Courage & Renewal retreat series’ we focus a great deal on the cycle of the seasons and the ways in which each season offers new metaphors, questions, and images for our lives and work. In summer we reflect on abundance and fruition, on the people our work serves and how we relate to them. It’s a time to stand at the edge of our own gardens and stop long enough to take in the lovely view of all that has been sown, taken root, and flowered, giving thanks for all that has been and is to come.

Which brings me back to how I’d complete that sentence above. I think I’d say: Summertime and the living is abundant! Here in the Pacific Northwest, it shows up in the abundance of nature as seen in the vast proliferation of everything green and growing. It’s abundant in the choice of ways to be outdoors and take to the hiking or biking trails, the mountains, the lake where just maybe “the fish are jumpin’.” Sometimes abundance shows up in areas I’m not that crazy about—like the volume of work during a time when I’d rather be relaxing. But it also shows up for me in my abundance of gratitude for friends, family, and meaningful work and in the abundance of ways in which Courage & Renewal work and Parker Palmer’s teaching and writing have touched so many lives.

In another manifestation of abundance (and abundance truly does take many forms!) the CCR board has been looking back with gratitude at the last ten years of growth and development of Courage & Renewal work, and looking forward into what the next decade of our work will hold. We recently adopted a new purpose statement that reflects this work of looking, listening, and discerning:

The Center for Courage & Renewal, an educational non-profit organization, exists to nurture personal and professional integrity, and the courage to act on it, by:

• Helping people in the serving professions—and others who wish to live and work more wholeheartedly—renew their vocational vitality and deepen their professional practice.

• Supporting these people in becoming forces for positive change in their workplaces, professions and communities, as well as in the lives of the people they serve.

• Contributing to the growing national conversation about reclaiming integrity and courage in professional and public life.

We’re excited about all that this purpose statement intends and holds, and we’re eager to live into it more fully, with your help.

Here’s where you come in! Many readers of this newsletter have come through CCR programs or Courage to Teach, Courage to Lead, or Circle of Trust retreats led by facilitators around the U.S. and in Canada. In the last ten years we have gotten a very good start on bullets one and three above and we are in the early stages of finding ways to address bullet two: supporting people (who have been through our programs or touched by our work) in becoming forces for positive change in their workplaces, professions and communities as well as in the lives of the people they serve. As we lean into this, we welcome your ideas and input about what would help YOU feel supported in this way. We don’t want to mislead you by saying we can and will do everything that is suggested, but it would be of great benefit to our thinking and moving forward to hear from you. (And, by the way, this newsletter is one important way that we are offering support and encouragement to people.) Please send your comments to our Communications Director, Tracey Denlinger.

I’d like to conclude by expressing our abundant thanks for who you are and what you do to make this world a better place, a more whole place, an easier place. And I’d like to bring us back to that beautiful song Ella sang. May you find time this summer to “rise up singing” and enjoy the abundance the season has to offer.

Summertime and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high
Oh your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’
So hush little baby, don’t you cry
One of these mornings
You’re goin’ to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take the sky
But till that morning
There’s a nothin’ can harm you
With daddy and mammy standin’ by

—Lyrics and music by George Gershwin