love.

I'm sitting in my rocking chair (a recent acquisition in my room) next to my wide open window, enjoying the first of many summer evenings to come. The last rays of the sun just disappeared behind the mountains, and now the sky is a canvas of varying shades of blue. The breeze coming in the window is blowing in scents of summer - freshly mowed grass, a neighbor's barbeque dinner, and the smell that I can't really describe - the smell that is Colorado. Clean and fresh and comfortable. I can hear the neighbors in the backyard, finishing up their dinner. My parents are downstairs talking, and somewhere in the neighborhood kids are playing a game of baseball. It's all so familiar and so comfortable.

Each house on my cul-de-sac houses a family. Obvious, I know. But take a moment and really think about that - each house is a network. All over the world there are people who know and love those inside each house. And maybe those networks will never cross. But they exist.

I remember when I flew back from home at the end of spring break this past semester, I was sitting on the plane when this idea struck me. To my right was a mid-thirties advertising executive from New Jersey whose main goal for the two hour flight was to get me to explain the "basic plot" of Moby Dick to him. (A big white whale bit of a guy's leg, now the guy is mad and is trying to kill the whale in revenge. Profound, I know). And to my left was the window. And as much as I tried to maintain focus out the window, Thomas won out every time. You see, as annoyed as I was with him, I just kept thinking about the person waiting to greet him. All the people so excited for him to be visiting. People who love him in California, and people who inevitably miss him in New Jersey. Just like I had people excited to see me in California and people missing me in Colorado. Maybe it should have been an honor for me to meet this man, Thomas, who had people loving and missing him all over the United States.

I wonder what it would look like if I always considered it an honor to meet someone new. If I always thought about how many people love and respect those I interact with every day, how different would those interactions look?

I'm not sure...I guess it's just another thing to think about.

I pray for you today, that you would see beautiful sunsets and skies of wondrous colors, and that you feel just as loved as you are.