Ode to the Country Summer

The rural lifestyle is something we here at Relics & Bones embrace with gusto. With our HQ here in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, we are also blessed with being able to experience all four seasons to their fullest--gorgeous springs, lush, green summers, spectacularly colored falls and the peace and serene beauty of snowfalls in winter. But my own personal favorite season is, and always has been, summertime!

With that in mind, I was pleased to see an article come through one of my news feeds this morning: Beethoven's Homage to Summer. The piece comes to me from a publisher's site I just recently discovered: Plough . . . "[a] Publishing House, founded in 1920, is an independent publisher of books on faith, society, and the spiritual life." I can identify and embrace so many of Beethoven's words quoted in the piece from Plough. For example:

“How glad I am to be able to roam in wood and thicket, among the trees and flowers and rocks. No one can love the country as I do. My bad hearing does not trouble me here. In the country every tree seems to speak to me, saying, ‘Holy! Holy!’ In the woods there is enchantment which expresses all things!” To Therese, his “immortal beloved,” he wrote, “Do not forests, trees, rocks re-echo that for which humankind longs?”

If you want to read a peaceful piece this morning, I recommend Beethoven's Homage to Summer.