It is my favorite time of the summer.

Work has not yet picked up to full speed.

My adult kids are not here using our house as

home base as they transition from place to place.

My soul is settled.

My heart is quiet.

My breathing is deeper, slower.

I could sit for hours on our porch,

reading,

thinking,

writing,

praying,

listening.

Listening to nothing at all.

Or listening to everything:

at least five or six kinds of bird calls,

the wind in the trees,

the sound of kids whining to their parents

as they ride bikes past my house.

Smiling, as I remember how that works …

But mainly, I just allow my ears,

my heart,

my soul,

the luxury of

silence.

I hope and pray you can find

even a few minutes of this kind of space

in the coming weeks of late summer.

For we are bombarded,

terrorized by noise,

most of our live-long days.

I love how Barbara Brown Taylor puts it:

"Sight and sound both come at me with such velocity every day

that I have learned to

defend myself against them.

If I do not limit their access to me,

I will grow such thick calluses

that I am no longer capable

of seeing

or hearing

things that really matter."

(Barbara Brown Taylor)

How do you defend yourself

against too much sight and too much sound

so that you

can really see,

can really hear?