My Porch

My porch is a place that I love.  This year for some reason the weeping birch has really wept and it seems to always leave a persistent layer of dried something or other, everywhere!  If someone drops by I have to shake the cushions from my bricabrac chairs so they can sit on less than dried pods of sort. The glass topped macrame table is usually dusty and needs constant cleaning but usually just gets a swipe occasionally.  The porch needs painting, some mending and that would be after a thorough scrub-down.

I like the old mismatched chairs with their faded unlike cushions.  I like the hidey-hole created by the overhanging leaf-laden overgrown branches.  I love the coziness of it.  Mostly I love it because it is where I spend private time with my friends.  Not a group.  Just one on one.  Or 4.  It's a place of connecting.  of renewing.  of sharing.

The other evening a friend dropped by during an early twilighty evening and we talked until darkness.  We talked of concerns about life and living and challenges and opinions and our individual states of mind.  We shared with trust and hope and encouragement for each of us to stay on the path of the Gospel.

It was renewing and refreshing and enjoyable.  It filled my heart with the soul satisfying emotion of goodness.  Goodness for friends and goodness for life.  It gave buoyancy to my inner self.  Rejuvenating to the core.

I've thought about the pleasantness of that evening and again felt that we are all moving way to fast and we don't take time/make time/have time to enjoy each other except in a super quick text-like fashion.  Abbreviated words.  No clue as to the emotion behind the somewhat cryptic letters.

I see young mothers just pulled so many different ways and even my Laurels.  I have thought and thought about them.  There seems to be no time for staying in your jammies on Saturday morning, curled up in your favorite blanket, eating a bowl of Captain Crunch and watching The Roadrunner and laughing at his antics with Wiley Coyote.  There seems to be no time for relaxing and recovery in their lives.  It's a constant pressure of goGoGOGO!!!  Is anyone every told... Go play outdoors!

This really came home to me last week.  7 days into school and ALL my Laurels are already admittedly exhausted and worn-out and overwhelmed with their schedules!  7 days!

In my own life I see myself scurrying (now that's quite the mental image!), well, maybe slow-bustling along, to various appointments.  Seldom if ever accomplishing all of what I had planned, and dutifully jotted down on my list- in the anticipation of crossing each task off throughout the day.

Even with PorchChat being my favorite thing to do...I don't have the time all the time!!  It's usually arranged around two busy schedules.  It's an occasional occurence not a fixed item on a schedule.

Listening to the horror of the world news and saying my summation, to remind me that God is in charge, I hear myself say...truly these are the last days. It's only going to get worse.  We need to cling to the Gospel. We've been told etc. etc.

In the midst of that thinking/speaking I remembered a scripture in Matthew.  About the horror of the last days of wars and killings and etc. etc.  plus we know about the natural calamities that will befall us.  It's just overwhelming.  But this one verse... Could this be the happenings?  today?  now?

Matthew 24:22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those ^adays shall be shortened.

So...IF these are the last days (and they are!) and IF for our very survival the days are now being shortened (and it sure seems so, doesn't it??) then...it makes sense as we strive to live and do all of the things that we have been used to doing, that we'd find ourselves on overload constantly (wouldn't we??)  as it would seem an impossibility.  It would be impossible to squeeze an hours worth of activity into less than an hours worth of available time!

Maybe that is why we feel to downsize/organize/de-junk and all those sorts of good deeds to gift ourselves with more time?  Maybe our prioritizing is off base?  Maybe matters of the heart never really surface?  Maybe we never get to connect with each other in ways that would strengthen us?  We really don't have the time?  The days are shorter?????

Well, these are just my mulling/pondering thoughts.  Perhaps far out?  I don't know but I do know that my life is more satisfying with real people sitting on my porch and just visiting instead of endlessly cage-running, chasing my list, of perfectionist behavior and accomplishments!

I read this article below, yesterday, and I thought it was excellent.  one of my favorite lines was this...we need to be humans being not humans doing... something along those lines.

The Disease of Being Busy- read article here