Friday, July 29, 2011

Blogging across the fence


I like to think of blogging as meeting for coffee, or over the back fence. People used to do that, and in some places they still do. Recently my Mom was over at my Aunt's house and she saw a gathering of people in the front yard playing dominoes. Yes, in the front....almost scandalous nowadays. They were laughing and carrying on and having a great old time. It was a good thing to see. Of course my Mom, never having met a stranger, had to go talk to them.

They exchanged information.....greeting.....fellowship. A bit of bringing Heaven down to earth. All because they made themselves available. Open.

I have lived before in neighborhoods where every evening a symphony of garage doors would open with big yawns and swallow up the cars and the people in them and that was the last you saw of your neighbor. One time my Mom was visiting and she got so starved for people she flagged someone down who was driving by just for someone to talk to.

In these days of mobility and technology we often lose that sense of community. It gets to be a challenge to get back in touch with it. That's why I like blogging. I feel like we are virtual neighbors meeting over the back fence. A little solitude is a very good thing, but too much is not good, we tend to make ourselves crazy.
God knew that too.

Sharing beliefs, joys and sorrows, snippets of our lives makes us feel like we are not alone. We join hands across the aisles, finding common ground in all sorts of things. We see how we are the same and how we are different.

And how wonderful to be able to pray for someone I have never actually met!

So pull up a chair, gather around, pour yourself a cup.

You don't even have to call before you come by.

".......and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near." Hebrews 10:24, 25 

6 comments:

  1. Dear Lori,
    Oh Yes! I agree. Blogging is a neighborhood. Joy jumps in me when I see you or some have visited. And I've been guilty and slow lately as I have been taking a professional course for three months. May God bless you and other active Bloggers lovingly. A Million Thank You's for dropping by!
    Love in Jesus, Bill

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  2. Well, I will pray a blessing over your course Bill. Your faithfulness and dedication to Scripture is so refreshing. I will keep stopping by! Lori

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  3. What a great photo of times gone by.

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  4. I liked this post, my mom was just like yours when it came to talking with everyone and anyone! Last fall my husband & I went to Mackinaw Island in the upper peninsula of Michigan. This island boasts of having no motor vehicles (horse-drawn buggys only), and as the entire island is owned by the state as a park, with few people living there year-round, it is the perfect example of a close-knit community. We were pleased to actually witness two neighbors chatting over a fence! Imagine living in a time where this would be commonplace? Well, we may not live that way now, but God surely has blessed us with the ability to have these internet homes to visit with REAL people to get to know & love! I have a heart full of gratitude for this blessing.
    Love In Christ,
    Lisa

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  5. I SO would love to go there. Sounds like my kind of place! No cars, no motorized noise....I can't imagine how peaceful it must be. Lori

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  6. It is a wonderfully unexpected community, isn't it? I never anticipated it. I started blogging solely to "build a platform" to hopefully support my book...but was so glad to discover that it became SO much more. Now I pray for and love friends I've never met across the miles -- it's become less about me and what I need, and more about celebrating others and relishing this wonderful community. God is delightfully tricky like that, isn't He?

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