SO WHATAYA DO WITH A BIG RIPE PIECE OF SUMMER FRUIT?

Some people like to call summer days juicy ripe pieces of fruit. On a sunny green morning, the metaphor makes sense...!

One way to eat them might be to dissect each into its components. Say like slicing a fat peach into halves or quarters you can enjoy before biting into them. Another way might be to simply devour them in big soggy gulps. What's important is not how we do it, but how much we savor doing it. Because in Chicago, Huckleberry sweet days are in limited supply.

Watch the kids at play, and you're seeing summer days being gobbled up like promises. Of climbed trees, hugged grasses, smelled flowers, fragrant balms in Gilead. Notice young adults in weekend action, and you're seeing the days being squeezed dry with every drive or dive. Study older adults in park bench repose, and you're seeing the graces of summer being inhaled with every glance.

The Bible tells us that Paradise was a garden of many fruit trees. Perhaps the writers' imagery of beauty. It's one you'll find easy to buy into the next time you stroll an orchard of orange trees or a field wine grapes. From Texas to Tuscany, summer and ripening fruits go together like -- well, like we do whenever we happen upon the meadows of our heart's desires. The person we love, the dreams we want, and of course all those secret desires we ache to satisfy.

So there it is, summer lovers...! A handy metaphor for like during our Julys and Augusts. Harvests of juicy ripe fruits waiting to be picked. When you think about it, that isn't so much just a metaphor for summertime, as it is a meaning for life. A lot of ripe fruit out there. Either it gets picked, or it withers on the vine.

Can't have that, now can we....?