Seven Ways to a Better Summer (July 18, 2026)

The Quiche Lorraine with fruit. Cocotte, Davidson, North Carolina. A pretty amazing French Bakery in a small WNC college town.

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Good morning. In the summer you may have a bit more time or space. Maybe you are on vacation, or the people with whom you work are on vacation (or as they say in the U.K., a holiday). Maybe the groups with which you meet are taking a break. Or you are driving some distance to connect with friends or family. Or you have come to a lull in the sports calendar. Apart from the heat–and yes, even if you slept through that eighth grade science class, climate change is real–it is a wonderful time or year.

So, seven ways towards a better summer. It is a highly subjective list.

1. If you have not taken the dive into British television, subscribe to Britbox or Acorn. Then start by watching Vera, or Shetland, or Foyle’s War, or The Detectorists. I could go on. And if you subscribe to Public Television as a financial supporter–in our area it is called having a Passport–-you can binge watch anything on Masterpiece Theater. Here I recommend Grantchester, Unforgotten, All Creatures Great and Small, and again I could go on. It is all so good. We are nearing the decision to let go of Netflix, and we wonder about Apple TV, except that Ted Lasso returns for its fourth season in August. Thanks be to God.

2. Many of you know that I am a huge fan of YouTube. So venturing toward music, I love the music of Darrell Scott, the singer-songwriter, whom I met at Merlefest one year. Find his recording Full Session/ Paste Magazine where, with just his guitar, he performs three songs: “I’ll Meet You in a Song”, “River Take Me”, and “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” (which he wrote for Travis Tritt). I heard an interview with him on WNCW about the first song, which is one of the best testimonies to our divided families in America, and he finds a way to bridge that, through music. In a different genre, I watched a documentary on the jazz pianist Bill Evans on Prime Video entitled “Time Remembered”. I love his Village Vanguard Sessions, and the film goes deeply into his gift and his troubled life. And speaking of jazz piano, have you heard Herbie Hancock’s rendering of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You”? It is sublime.

3. We do not live by bread alone. And so my confessed addiction is good coffee. Life is too short to drink bad coffee. So four of my favorite sources: Concord Coffee in central Florida, the Guatemala, Xocomil blend; Little Guatemala in Morganton, North Carolina, Antigua blend; Panacea in Waynesville, North Carolina, Creekside blend; and Deep Time in West Asheville, the Holy Trinity blend. These establishments are also operated by great people.

4. Many of you will know that I am nearing the end of my sixties. While the next decade does not begin in the coming year, it is quickly on its way. Two books have shaped my thinking about aging: Joan Chittister’s The Gift of Years, and Margaret Silf’s The Wisdom Years.

Silf notes that aging is the process (intentional or unintentional) of slowing down, and this gives us the opportunity for reflection on experience, which can then be transformed into wisdom, Whether this is beneficial to us or to others is shaped by our attitudes and how we channel regrets into gratitude, and how other-directed we can be.

5. The examined life is the life that is worth living, and for people who are white and male and privileged like me, leaning into the shadow is a part of growth. And it is a lifelong process. In 2020 I listened to a brilliant conversation between Brene Brown and Ibram X Kendi on How to Be An Antiracist. It is a podcast and if you place their names into a search engine there it is. It is worthy of an hour of your life. I love it because it does not avoid anything that is hard and at the same time it does not paint anyone into a corner. It is courageous and invitational.

My thoughts about the journey toward the racial reckoning change over time. I am not a fan of historical erasure, or what my friend Gil Rendle calls “work avoidance”. We are in that period now of national regression. And I don’t see much fruit in one group sitting on the sidelines and watching another group do the work. In my lifetime the change, the metanoia (Greek word for change, or repentance) has been relational, systemic and collaborative. And it never ends.

6. Speaking of self-examination, the United States context calls for followers of Jesus to learn more about a movement that is called “Christian Nationalism”, and about the horrors we are inflicting upon our neighbors. I recommend a terrific article in the most recent Atlantic about Maryville. Tennessee, a beautiful college town that has experienced an infusion of Christian nationalism in the form of spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare does not produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5). The author notes that spiritual warfare can be a way of naming the other side as demonic, and this leads to dehumanizing and delegitimizing political enemies. She quotes Matthew Taylor of Georgetown University, who adds, “It is a very useful way to get around the Christian imperative to love your enemy”.

And I must mention a sobering account in The New Yorker of the largest detention facility in the United States, which is in El Paso. The main character is a detainee who was originally from Cuba and worked in a pizzeria business. His son’s high school football coach also happens to work for ICE. And, I commend the Council of Bishops’ study, Building Beloved Community (full disclosure, I was the lead writer of the book, but many contributed). I am leading a conversation about Building Beloved Community at noon on August 5 at Central UMC in Canton, near Asheville.

For further reading:

Jonathan Blitzer, “Locked Away: Inside ICE’s biggest detention facility”, The New Yorker, July 20, 2026.

Stephannie, McCrummen, “The Demons of Maryville”, The Atlantic, August, 2026.

Building Beloved Community, Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church, Abingdon Press, 2025.

7. So #4, #5 and #6 are resources for a better summer and they require something of us. To do that kind of reflection requires a spiritual practice. There are a number of devotional books that I return to, and primary for me is Give Us This Day, which is Benedictine, and Moravian Daily Texts. I also read in the Psalms (NRSV); Eugene Peterson taught me to take three Psalms and to stay with them for a while. Right now, for me, those are Psalms 27, 121, and 139.

The summer is also a great time to keep a spiritual journal; you could ask yourself the questions, “What was the best thing that happened today?” and “What was the worst thing that happened today?” or, “When did I feel closest to God?” Or, you could simply compose a gratitude list, three occasions for thanksgiving.

And, lastly, I am an advocate for having a person to process all of this with. I meet with a spiritual director about once every two months (online). He is not a United Methodist, so our conversations are not denominational or work-related in focus. I have met with a coach, about once every two months, by phone. She is a lay person and this is more work-related, although underneath it all is the personal. For you this might be a friend, or your pastor, or a small group. The connection beyond yourself is crucial.

I could go on. I have not mentioned a few other podcasts, or the baseball season, or my daily walks, or stretching, or a few great restaurants we have found. All of that is for another day.

P.S. Fourteen years ago I was elected a bishop in the United Methodist Church. That affirmation changed by life, for the good. I remain deeply grateful for the work, for the people I have met, and for God’s presence through it all.

I am wishing you a great summer, and I thank you for reading, for sharing, subscribing and recommending, and mostly for your friendship and connection.