"I'll get a jar and we'll catch lightening bugs, okay?"
"Okay, but punch holes in the lid because we don't want 'em to smother while they're in there." I said to my friend as she headed across the street.
"I'll have Dad punch the holes. He won't let me use his knife. And, I'll put some grass in there so they'll have something to eat. I'll be right back."
After supper was over and I had helped... Mother by drying the last dish, permission was granted for me to go outside.
"Now, don't go so far that you can't hear me when I hollar for you, okay?" My Mother said. And I assured her I wouldn't.
It wasn't difficult to entertain the kids in my neighborhood on any given summer evening. Most of us had front porches and those porches were the gathering places for us. It was a peaceful neighborhood. The only sounds in the late evenings were the sounds of kids laughing, the jar flies making their sawing noises, occasional barking of a dog or a mother calling their child in for bedtime. We would ride our bicycles around the block until dark. Sometimes the boys would hide their bicycles and then jump out at us as we wheeled by, insuring a blood curdling scream from us girls.
Parents would set out on their porches watching their children play, swatting an occasional mosquito, and talking with some of the neighbors who had wandered over to visit.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if neighborhoods were once again like this? If everyone took time to visit with neighbors and children were free to run and play until night settled in? If there were no threats of kidnappings or shootings in the neighborhood schools?
If doors could be left unlocked without the threat of thieves? If people would mingle with other people instead of being entertained via a television screen? What if we really got to know one another? What if we watched out for our neighbor's children as though they were our own? Have we become a people who cannot be satisfied with the small pleasures in life?
I know the verse below is written to encourage Believers to not give up meeting together in a church like setting. But, could it not also apply to us getting together with friends and neighbors to encourage each other in our daily lives; to show love toward each other by taking time to listen to the problems someone might be facing or the praise that another might want to share? And, most of all, to be there for our kids as they play together in carefree abandonment?
"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV
"Okay, but punch holes in the lid because we don't want 'em to smother while they're in there." I said to my friend as she headed across the street.
"I'll have Dad punch the holes. He won't let me use his knife. And, I'll put some grass in there so they'll have something to eat. I'll be right back."
After supper was over and I had helped... Mother by drying the last dish, permission was granted for me to go outside.
"Now, don't go so far that you can't hear me when I hollar for you, okay?" My Mother said. And I assured her I wouldn't.
It wasn't difficult to entertain the kids in my neighborhood on any given summer evening. Most of us had front porches and those porches were the gathering places for us. It was a peaceful neighborhood. The only sounds in the late evenings were the sounds of kids laughing, the jar flies making their sawing noises, occasional barking of a dog or a mother calling their child in for bedtime. We would ride our bicycles around the block until dark. Sometimes the boys would hide their bicycles and then jump out at us as we wheeled by, insuring a blood curdling scream from us girls.
Parents would set out on their porches watching their children play, swatting an occasional mosquito, and talking with some of the neighbors who had wandered over to visit.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if neighborhoods were once again like this? If everyone took time to visit with neighbors and children were free to run and play until night settled in? If there were no threats of kidnappings or shootings in the neighborhood schools?
If doors could be left unlocked without the threat of thieves? If people would mingle with other people instead of being entertained via a television screen? What if we really got to know one another? What if we watched out for our neighbor's children as though they were our own? Have we become a people who cannot be satisfied with the small pleasures in life?
I know the verse below is written to encourage Believers to not give up meeting together in a church like setting. But, could it not also apply to us getting together with friends and neighbors to encourage each other in our daily lives; to show love toward each other by taking time to listen to the problems someone might be facing or the praise that another might want to share? And, most of all, to be there for our kids as they play together in carefree abandonment?
"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV
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