“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” John 14:27

Mid-November, and I am on the front porch. Bright sunlight, warm air. I sit in jeans and cotton mock  neck, light shirt, and my old moth-holey “writerly” sweater. After last weeks frigid, snow-clad, even icy days, how delicious!

I sit, and with me sits the vase of still surviving mums that porch shelter and cold outer air must have worked together to preserve all week. Now and then a sparrow or a chickadee drops by, winter friends on nearby branches.

It’s getting late, and I have an errand to run, paint for the mudroom, but this is rare opportunity to grab, for a bit of outdoor sitting and semblance of stillness.

Semblance,  because heavy machinery rumbles around me, both north and south on the road, and a chorus of yellow lights are flashing, and now a distant loudspeaker squawks, and male voices exchange blurry words. And here comes the traffic guy in helmet and bright-light chartreuse, strolling the edge of the blacktop,  carrying his “stop” and “slow” sign, now stationing himself at the end of our driveway…

But only momentarily. Thankfully, he moves on.

Someone’s pounding or chopping across the way, and inside, dear husband’s running the shop vac, sweeping up plaster dust.

But it’s still still in the inward sense for me, as I savor another unexpected late-summer flashback.

It’s like a momentary peek from heaven beamed down through cloud cover like happens now and then  on autumn Earth. And even when resounding “boom!” of gunshout startles and jerks my pen into a scribble on my page, I think of heaven’s peace, Christ’s peace, which the child of God can enjoy, even amid earthlife’s hubbub.

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” John 14:27

~~~

Linked to