Lessons from the Back Deck

Today is a beautiful day. But it hardly began that way. At first, it looked we were in for another cloudy, grey, perhaps wet day. And while it is still overcast on occasion, there was enough sunshine and blue sky for my family and I to eat lunch on our back deck. Granted, there was a pretty cool breeze, but I love being able to sit on our deck, eat sandwiches, and just enjoy the gradually warming weather. I feel so blessed to have the house we do. The only thing we lack is a barbecue and I'm hoping we can pick one up next summer. Our back deck is positively screaming for a BBQ!

Just before eating lunch on our back deck, I went for a walk behind our house with my daughter Ella, who is now an active two and a half. At first, we observed all the work her mother and my wife, Alisha, did to extend our back lawn with much toil and sweat over the last week and a half. And then we proceeded to walk through the woods behind our house on a couple of the well-worn paths. Not only that, we also walked through some not-at-all well-worn paths. Ella insisted that we talk a stroll through a less-travelled section of our backyard, where our property meets and intersects with that of a couple of neighbours. I'm sure they wouldn't mind; a two year old can do little harm to their forested backyards!

But Ella is endlessly curious about everything, and she loves being outside. She trotted along with childlike confidence, stopping now and again to examine rocks, dirt, and the occasional twig. Being with your child like this is an incredibly refreshing experience; at least it was so for me. Unless I am with her outside, I rarely stop to notice all the minutiae of God's creation. Ella, well, she can't help but stop. She isn't hemmed in with the distractions of responsibilities and routines and schedules. Unlike us adults, she has all the time in the world. I find myself learning from my daughter, learning to stop, to pause, to put on hold my reasons for worry and endless movement from one task to the next. To keep pace with her is, in a way, to keep pace with the God who calls us to rest and trust in him. For all those little things that spark Ella's endless fascination are all things that God himself has made.

After lunch Alisha and Ella had to leave for a funeral and to spend the night at my in-laws. Once they were gone I gathered some of my books together and again sat in my comfortable adirondack deck chair. While sitting there, I found myself noticing sounds of rustling in the grass and shrubs just beyond our back lawn. I was hoping perhaps for a deer sighting. No such luck. It was only a handful of robins. But even so, there was something about just simply noticing anything at all. It didn't hurt that I was reading Mark Buchanan's book The Holy Wild at the time. It was a chapter reflecting on God as creator, and was a reminder to notice the setting in which God has placed us, this world that he has made, to be alive to it and therefore to him. How appropriate that both my little girl and this other pastor from across the country were, each in their own way, telling me to pay attention to the same thing!