I like to think of summer as a time when warmth (eventually, this year!), long days, and a languid moment or two shift our busy brains into another space—deeper, quieter, and yes, maybe more confused.

Sometimes what was tight and certain in winter... loosens and maybe even falls away in summer.

M. Scott Peck, in his book “Further Along the Road Less Traveled” argues for this way of being year-round. He has his own translation from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and suggests that one way to say blessed are the “poor in spirit,” is to say blessed are the “confused.”  He goes on:

“Blessed are the confused. If you ask why Jesus might have said that, then I must point out to you that confusion leads to a search for clarification and with that search comes a great deal of learning. For an old idea to die and a new and better idea to take place, we have to go through periods of confusion. It is uncomfortable, sometimes painful to be in such periods. Nonetheless it is blessed because when we are in them, we are open to the new, we are looking, we are growing... Virtually all of the evil in this world is committed by people who are absolutely certain they know what they're doing. It is not committed by people who think of themselves as confused. It is not committed by the poor in spirit.”

Think about your own way of groping towards the new, about the liminal periods when the invitation is to be open, even when you don’t know exactly open to what. I do believe we alternate, in unpredictable ways, between confusion and the new life that can quickly become foundational. In writing about revolutions, a democracy expert on the National Security Council noted in a recent editorial:

“In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.”

I think this also applies to the inner revolutions in our lives. I remember a dear friend, in the midst of storms, who could not see her way through to a divorce... even up to the minute before something shifted, and the way was clear. In all our lives, the penny drops; the “impossible” shifts to “inevitable.” There is post-confusion relief. There is blessedness.

In Peck’s words, where are you currently searching for clarification? May this summer bless any creative confusion you are amidst, and may it sow the seeds of new chapters, new clarity.