The View From Our Back Porch

From our back porch…
We see the sun pouring through the trees in the early morning mist and the shadows stretch across the pasture in the late afternoon.

From our back porch…
We hear the birds sing – dozens of them in a rainbow of colors, each with a different note to trill.

And we see the cattle – black, brown and white – browsing on the hillside or lounging in my father-in-law's pond, muddying the water as they flick their tales to wet their skin and drive away persistent biting flies.

My father-in-law is 96 and blind.
He lost sight in both eyes in separate coal mining accidents more than 50 years ago. Even though he doesn't see the cattle, or the pasture, or the pond, just hearing them and knowing they are there means to him that things are still right in the world. If only it were that simple for the rest of us.

When we are sitting on our back porch – overlooking the beautifully scenery and hearing the lovely sounds of nature – we too can believe that all is right in the world.

But then we go inside to watch the evening news and are reminded…
the fighting continues, as does the robbing and the killing, and the drugs, and the cruel mistreatment of children and we wonder, how can this be? How can there be two worlds so contrasting?

The world of our back porch is comforting and peaceful and gives us respite from that other world that rampages on and we have come to the conclusion that the world "out there" is in desperate need of more back porches like the one attached to our modest three-bedroom rancher in our quite little world in East Tennessee.

Humble though it may be...
Our back porch is the best place to be.