In the stillness...

As I was swinging in the twilight, the patio lights flicked on. My folks have always had lights around the back deck, sometimes they change, but always they are there. Dad turned them on for me because he knew I was sitting out in the swing to reflect, to end the day.....Something tells me like the breath in the trees that this moment will not come again. The particular wind in the trees, snatch of neighbor girls singsong voices, in them I hear my own voice mingled in from years ago. The gentle clink of windchimes, the single bullfrog, only will happen just this way, tonight. Circumstances may be similar, but my feelings, thoughts, sentiments, frame of mind, just this way, just tonight.

The stillness envelopes me as I remember things of long ago. I see the spot in the yard where the clothesline stood. I see the sheet drapped over it and I see us fishing for prizes at my birthday party once. My brother and his friend Doug attaching prizes behind the sheet.....I feel the sadness that comes when past and present collide, and a bit of joy too. This is life, and the breath of God flows through every moment we exist.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account." Ecclesiastes 3:10-15