And now…. {Drumroll, please}…. It’s time for the One Word at a Time blog carnival!
This week’s word is: Porch
You are welcome to join in either by writing or reading or both. If you write a post on the topic of ‘porch’, please add your link to the little widget below so we can all find it!
Remember, if you tweet your post or any of the others in the carnival, please use the hashtag #owaat.
Thanks. Enjoy!
An Empty Porch
Billy Coffey paints a picture of rural Virginia where life is slow and well savored and evenings are spent sitting on the porch swing watching the world pass lazily by.
We have a porch swing.
I think I sat on it once.
….For five seconds or so.
The reality of my life is something way different to the idyllic scene that Billy portrays.
I’m constantly on the go. Constantly busy, constantly needing to be working on one thing or another.
I don’t have a nine to five job. Time spent on the porch swing is time I’ll have to make up working into the the small hours of the morning.
There’s a part of me that would love to be able to chill out, relax and just enjoy life sometimes but then there’s another part of me that would go terminally insane – my mind just doesn’t slow down like that!
All this puts me in a quandary.
I want a porch-swing life but I’m not wired for it, or at least, we’re not set-up for it at the moment.
So I’ll have to just keep on wanting what I can’t have.
Isn’t that just how we are with many different things? We want what we don’t have?
People use phrases like “The grass is always greener on the other side” and they’re completely right. Wherever we are, we’re always striving to get somewhere else.
One of the most important things in life – and one of the things that we miss most often is learning to be content.
The apostle Paul even told us,
…I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
Sorry for adding to the hecticness, Peter!
I think it’s pretty incredible too that Paul says he “learned to be content.” We can beat ourselves up, thinking we should be further along, but it’s a learning process for sure. Thanks Peter!
Oh, I’m great at beating myself up!
Paul really was a spiritual giant and when I see some of the stuff he wrote, I realize how much of a spiritual baby I still am!
Pingback: Waiting on the Porch {a parenting parable} | Alyssa Santos – Rocks.Roots.Wings.
Well, you could take your laptop out to the porch! It would still be multitasking but in a more relaxed way, swinging, birdsong and all.
Swing, sweat, squint at the screen….
It sounds like a great idea, but with 340 kids (or maybe it’s just 3 but feels like 340) I’d never get any work done
Peter: Be cautious about burn out!! Perhaps just before bed, take 5 and relax on that swing while gazing at the stars, and whisper a “Thank you God for this busy day that you allowed me to work.” Rocking in a chair or swing is a wonderful therapy!
I think God will give us the chance to all gather on one big deck one day.. enjoying each other’s company and encouragement!
He gave me an unfair trade and life has never been the same.