The Four Seasons and How to Tolerate Them

A few years ago, I found myself complaining about the weather all too frequently. I decided I needed to restrict my kvetching to just one season. So I chose my least favorite: summer.

Now I may even have to repent of that.

In a recent posting on his weekly blog, Br. Bede Thomas Mudge, the prior of Holy Cross Monastery, discussed the need to accept the seasons for what they are—and the energy that comes from doing simply that. The idea is to let go of the complaining and the steeling oneself against (in my case) the unremitting heat and humidity and the unpleasant person it makes me.

And unpleasant is the word for it. My concentration dwindles to zero, often making prayer a joke. My irritability goes through the roof. My lethargy leaves me not caring whether those work projects get done by the due date. Et cetera.

So if I simply accept summer—and my reaction to it—what happens?

Suddenly my perspective changes. Maybe it’s a good thing to go through times like this. Every year, like clockwork (or maybe thermometerwork), I get to see the unpleasant side of me, which breeds humility. Even more, I get to embrace the irritability and the lethargy and the et cetera, not as good things, but simply as part of who I am. It gives me a clearer vision of myself—and what is humility if not that?

Of course, this experience is hardly unique—as anyone familiar with St. Paul can attest. To keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me…. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

For me at least, it’s one thing to read about these experiences; it’s quite another to discover them at work in my own life—and to start recognizing them for the blessings they are.

P.S. None of this stops me from running the air conditioner when the temp hits 90. Got to keep that irritability from getting out of hand.