It is my favorite time of the summer.

Work has slowed a bit.

My adult kids are not yet here using our house as

home base as they transition from place to place.

My soul is settling down.

My heart is getting quiet.

My breathing is deeper, slower.

I could sit for hours on my porch, 

just reading,

thinking,

writing,

praying,

listening.

Listening to nothing at all.

Or listening to everything;

at least 5 or 6 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 summer.

For we are bombarded,

literally 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."

How do you defend yourself

against sight and sound?