Summering, Rev. Josh Pawelek, July 26, 2026

Our spiritual lives mirror the changing seasons.

This remains a gospel truth for me.[1] 

            Our spiritual lives take cues from the changes between seasons and the changes within each season—changes in the light, in the proximity of Earth to Sun, in the angle of Earth toward Sun; changes in temperature, color, the land, the wildlife, the night sky. All seasonal changes serve as prompts and cues for our spiritual reflection, practice and growth.

            For example, our spiritual winters are for rest and nurture, gestation, germination. They are womb times, dormant times, inward times, tomb times, dreaming times, healing times, seeds-waiting-below-the-surface times.

            Our spiritual springs are for rejuvenation and resurgence, bursting forth, rising up. They are fertile earth times, greening times, red-buds-on-branches times, warming times, planting times, youthful times, awakening times, resurrection times.

            Our spiritual summers are for exploration and play, invention and innovation, learning and growth, discerning vocation, discerning meaning and purpose. In our spiritual summers we find ourselves both rooted-in-rich soil, soaking up nutrients and moisture, and moved to venture out, to wander along our growing edges, to wander down roads not previously taken.

            Our spiritual autumns are for harvest, settling in, winding down, letting go. They are ripening and reaping times, gently falling leaves times, waning and decay times, preparing-the-fields-for-winter-rest times, reckoning with death times, thin veil times, remembering-the-ancestors times.

            These are some of the ways I describe how our spiritual lives mirror and respond to the changing seasons, how so many spiritual prompts and cues are embedded in our experience of the changing seasons. My descriptions are not universal. They don’t travel well. They don’t apply at the equator or in regions with two predominant seasons, rainy and dry. I say “our spiritual lives mirror the changing seasons” because I like the sound and feel of that language; but for some it may be more useful to say, simply, “our spiritual lives mirror the patterns of the earth;” or “our spiritual lives mirror the changes in the land;” or “our spiritual lives mirror the movements of the night sky.”

            I also note that our spiritual seasons do not always align with the calendar. Spiritual winter for rest, which may be necessary at any time of year. Spiritual spring is for rebirth, which may come at any time of year.

           Here, now, it is summer in the northern hemisphere. Summer’s mid-point is next weekend. Those who follow the neo-pagan wheel of the year might know it as Lughnasadh, the ancient, Gaelic first harvest festival occurring on the cross-quarter day between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. At least some of the mythology associated with Lughnasadh tells of gods fighting over the dispensation of grain. Some may also know the summer mid-point as Lammas, or Loaf Mass Day, or the Feast of First Fruits, a Christian first harvest celebration in some English-speaking countries.

            As I review the various mid-summer festivals around the world, harvest is definitely a theme; which makes sense: if one plants crops in March or April, certainly one will be harvesting by mid-summer if not sooner. But for me, as a prompt for spiritual reflection, harvest belongs with autumn, and I don’t want to arrive at spiritual autumn too soon, at least not in this sermon. I don’t want to miss the themes at the heart of spiritual summer, which for me are exploration, play, invention, learning, growth, seeking meaning and purpose.

            I’ve always thought of spiritual summer as a time to pursue passions and interests we haven’t yet pursued or which we’ve been neglecting. So often, for so many reasons, we aren’t doing the things we really want to do; we aren’t living the lives we long to live. I think of those words attributed to the 20^th-century American Christian mystic, Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Spiritual summer is the time to do the thing we feel called to do, so that we can come alive, so that we can live meaningful, purposeful lives.

****

            At the recommendation of a colleague, as part of my summer study leave, I’ve been reading a set of novellas, the “Monk and Robot” series, from the science fiction writer Becky Chambers. The first book in the series, Psalm for the Wild-Built, published in 2021, takes place on Panga, a moon that was once an industrial center, filled with factories that relied on robot labor. One day, the robots decided they didn’t want to do factory labor anymore. They disappeared into the wilderness. Humans respected the robots’ decision, and adapted by recreating their society, such that now Panga is a post-industrial, post-capitalist, green utopia.[2] Note: So much science fiction these days is dystopian. But the Monk and Robot series is utopian. Panga feels like the place we’re longing to create on earth today!

The story begins as Sibling Dex, a monk who tends a monastery garden in the city, feels restless. Dex, who uses they/them pronouns, decides to change vocations, becoming a travelling tea monk. They bike from village to village with their tea cart. People visit the cart and open up to Dex, sharing their stories, problems, challenges, questions. Dex listens, engages in conversation, then brews a special cup of tea for each person they speak with, selecting tea leaves that will soothe the unique stress, anxiety, heartache or ailment the person is living with.  It’s a ministry, for which Dex becomes very well-known. People look forward to Sibling Dex’s visits to their village. Dex, at least initially, is doing the thing that makes them come alive. They find a sense of purpose to overcome their restlessness. As I read it, Dex is in the midst of a spiritual summer. They are summering—not in the sense of vacationing, but in the sense of finding the truth at their core.

            But the restlessness returns. Sibling Dex is no longer confident serving tea is their purpose. They’re not sure it’s meaningful, at least not in an ultimate sense. Something else calls them. They decide to journey alone into the wilderness, a radical decision, since humans don’t do this. I read the decision as Sibling Dex moving deeper into their spiritual summer, exploring, searching, seeking.

            In the wilderness Dex meets the robot Mosscap, the first human-robot contact since the robots left the factories centuries earlier. It turns out Mosscap has left robot society to learn how humans are doing. There is a basic question at the heart of Mosscap’s research; what do human’s need? Through the course of their ensuing conversations it becomes clear Dex needs meaning and purpose. Mosscap is confused by this. [Humans], it says, “the creators of us … originally made us with a clear purpose in mind. A purpose inbuilt from the start. But when we woke up and said, We have realized our purpose and we don’t want it, you respected that. More than respected. You rebuilt everything to accommodate our absence. You were proud of us for transcending our purpose, and proud of yourselves for honoring our individuality. So why, then, do you insist on having a purpose for yourself, one which you are desperate to find and miserable without? If you understand that robots’ lack of purpose … is the crowning mark of our intellectual maturity, why do you put so much energy into seeking the opposite?”

            Mosscap, though it, too, is searching, and expresses a clearly-stated purpose to learn what humans need, is also content just to sit still and observe. Apparently, robots will sit still and observe a small feature of the natural world for decades at a time. So Mosscap is genuinely confused about Dex’s anxious search for meaning and purpose. Dex struggles with Mosscap’s questioning. I do too. I realize that over the years, I’ve put enormous energy into what I am calling summering, into figuring out how to live in a way that is meaningful and purposeful. I’ve put enormous energy into conducting my ministry in a way that is meaningful and purposeful. Countless times in countless ways I have said to you that one of the central roles of this congregation in your lives is—or at least ought to be—supporting you in seeking, discovering and pursuing meaning and purpose. That’s not about to change. And I don’t think Becky Chambers is suggesting that it should, though she is clearly wondering how to value the human search for meaning and purpose.

            I take from her a caution that the search for meaning and purpose—as important as it is, as deep and profound a part of the human condition as it is—may not always get us where we think we want to go. We may never find fulfillment. The answers we seek may be more elusive than we imagine, may remain mysterious despite our best efforts. The journey may never end. That’s the caution. But I also read her as saying it’s OK. She’s counseling us to approach our searching more lightly, to pursue it more gently, to leave space—even cultivate space—for spontaneity, serendipity and the unexpected; to spend more time sitting still and observing. There’s a message here about trust and acceptance. I think Chambers is saying ‘yes, search for meaning and purpose, as Dex is doing, but also relax. Breathe. Settle in. Trust there are certain, fundamental truths that surround us, hold us and live in us whether we’re successful in our searching or not, whether we find the meaning we long for or not. Two things Mosscap says speak volumes to me in this regard.

            First, Dex asks Mosscap: “’It doesn’t bother you …. The thought that your life might mean nothing in the end?” Mosscap responds: “’That’s true for all life I’ve observed. Why would it bother me?’ Mosscap’s eyes glowed brightly. ‘Do you not find consciousness to be the most exhilarating thing? Here we are, in this incomprehensibly large universe, on this one tiny moon around this one incidental planet, and in all the time this entire scenario has existed, every component has been recycled over and over again into infinitely incredible configurations, and sometimes, those configurations are special enough to be able to see the world around them. You and I—we’re just atoms that arranged themselves the right way, and we can understand that about ourselves. Is that not amazing?”

            Second, robots were designed to live forever. When Dex learns they have chosen to let themselves decay over time—have chosen impermanence—they are incredulous.

“‘…. You could live forever. But you chose this. You chose to be impermanent. People didn’t, and we spend our whole lives trying to come to grips with that.’

            ‘I didn’t choose impermanence,’ Mosscap said. ‘The originals did, but I did not. I had to learn my circumstances just as you did.’

            ‘Then how,’  Dex said, ‘how does the idea of maybe being meaningless sit well with you?’

            Mosscap considered. ‘Because I know that no matter what, I’m wonderful,’ it said. There was nothing arrogant about the statement, nothing flippant or brash. It was merely an acknowledgement, a simple shared truth.”

****

            It’s summertime. Mindful that any of us could be moving through any spiritual season at the moment, I’m trying to name the essence of spiritual summer. I’m clear it’s a time for searching and seeking. I’m clear it’s a time for exploration, play, innovation, creativity, for doing the things that make us come alive, especially if we’ve been avoiding those things. I’m clear summering is for discerning meaning and growing in our sense of purpose. I also understand we don’t always get there. We don’t always find what we’re looking for. We don’t always experience fulfillment in our searching, and, as it did for Dex, this may feel problematic, even painful, which may bring us to a place of anxiety, even existential worry – my life is finite; surely it means something, surely there is some point to it! What if there isn’t?

            It is very human to ask these kinds of questions. In this summer season I am finding some comfort in the insights of a fictional robot: that consciousness is exhilarating, a gift beyond measure; that we are a collection of atoms that arranged themselves in a certain way and now have the ability to perceive ourselves and the universe—and this is a blessing; and, that despite our impermanence, we are wonderful.

            Whatever spiritual season you find yourself in, I wish you well on your particular journey. And in all your spiritual summers, I wish you a fruitful search for meaning and purpose which hopefully includes time to sit still and observe. And whether your searching yields the answers you seek or not, I remind you of the gift of exhilarating consciousness. I remind you that you are wonderful.

            Amen and blessed be.

[1] Here’s an example of a similar sermon on the same theme from a few years ago on the transition from winter to spring: https://www.uuse.org/post/turning-rev-josh-pawelek-february-2-2025.

[2] Learn about “Psalm for the Wild-Built and other Becky Chambers books at https://www.otherscribbles.com/#/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built/.