It's Hot Down Here
It was 104 degrees in San Antonio on May 31st. Not a good sign. Summer is always brutal in South Texas, but this is pretty early to be having tempertures over 100 degrees.
I expect July and August to be epic. When it heats up around here, it really is amazing. You walk outside and it hurts. I mean within ten seconds you feel like you are being roasted. The sun is so bright that all the colors fade. Light shimmers in the distance like a mirage, and the constant buzz of the Cicadas throbs in your ears, making the whole thing surreal. If at all possible people avoid being outsie from 9 am until 6 pm. It's still blazing hot at 6 because of the humidity, but at least the sun is low in the sky.
It's okay though. The heat usually breaks around the END OF SEPTEMBER! Then you can go outside as long as you are wearing shorts.
Texas Cicadas are annual, by the way, unlike their strange, northern cousins who only emerge every seventeen years. Ours come out every year in the hottest part of the summer. They are sometimes called "Dog Day Cicadas."
One More Thing About the Book
I need to say one more thing about my book, and then I'll shut up for awhile. The book is a collection of the best essays from this blog along with nine new essays that were never published here. I mentioned this months ago when I first told you that I had a book contract with Eerdmans, but some folks might not have read it.
I want to be sure that people are clear about the content of this book, so I put some information about it here. The titles of the new essays are there as well.
Don't Cry Over Spilt Tea
Michael Main (aka Pepe) wrote about something funny that happened at church last Sunday. I was going over to place my hand on Amy's (aka Evangelina) head to pray for her. She's been very sick for a long time. Michael had a glass of tea under his chair and I kicked it over. These things happen. Sometimes funny stuff occurs right at the most serious moments. If you want to read about it, you'll have to go to his May archive page and scroll down until you find "Don't Blog Over Spilt Tea."
Michael and I both like to write about things that happen at our church. I tend to focus on a few major things that I find to be deeply meaningful. Michael is good about noticing the little things, like the fact that my youngest daughter always slips her shoes off the minute she walks in the church door. He blogged about that once, but I don't know where it can be found in his blog archives. She had them off again on Sunday when she helped take up the offering. Her socks were rather dirty on the bottoms from running around, and they had fallen down around her ankles and were loosely dragging on the floor. I noticed Michael smiling when he saw it.
rlp
8:23:32 AM 
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