The Porch

We have some neighbours who spend hours sitting on their wide and spacious front porch, quietly taking in all the comings and goings of all the rest of us.  Sometimes I wonder if they count the number of times I pass by their home on my various trips to take kids to activities.  I hope maybe they do notice us all and send us their blessings in our busyness.  They have certainly become part of our daily community and I do appreciate the way they are to me the steady watching sentinels of our neighbourhood.

These days I have also been sitting quietly more often, in what I call front porch times of my heart.  After periods of significant internal rearranging it has been important for me to quietly sit and let life settle in my heart.  In days and years gone by I never sat quietly doing nothing.  I would always have a book or some craft in hand.  I would be taking a break between tasks to be done.   It has been wonderful now to slow right down and enjoy being.  I am consciously cultivating empty time in these days.  So often the bowl of my life has been so full of so much striving and activity that there is no space for receiving and listening to the surprises of God.  I want to be an open receptacle of God's love, letting go of my own plans and ego.  I imagine a beautifully shaped open bowl with a life giving blue-green glaze in my heart.  It has been emptied of all the nicknacks of life and is beautiful as is, whole and full of God's love.  There is room for others there.

In the front porch times of my heart I am quietly watching and observing, all the while praying for those who pass by and stop to chat.  These times are not limited to sitting on an actual front porch.  They are those quiet moments when I take a little longer to empty the dryer and quietly muse as I gather the warm clothes in my arms.  They are moments spent for an extra few minutes  sitting in the car after dropping the kids off somewhere.  They are intentional spaces of time savoured and gently noticed in those extra minutes in the ordinary run of life.

Even though it may look externally like I am busy with one thing or another these days, inside I am sitting quietly on the front porch of my heart with my open blue bowl cradled in my hands.  I can practice these moments all day long, praying and gently holding out God's love to all who pass by, a watching and loving sentinel in the places of my world.