Sunday Evening

"If you sit down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet." — Proverbs 3:24

It is Sunday evening and I am in the living room in the chair by the lamp, which is where I have been on Sunday evenings for as long as I can remember. The windows are open. It will be June this week, which still surprises me, the way the turn of a month always does. You would think a person in her seventies would have stopped being surprised by the calendar.

The week ahead is a simple one. I have laundry tomorrow, which is always Monday, and the garden needs watering if the rain does not come by Wednesday. I have a pot of soup beans I will start Tuesday afternoon, and they will last me through Thursday, and by Friday I will have moved on to something else. The rhythm of a week is a comfort to me. It is not exciting, and I do not need it to be.

I called Hannah this evening. She answered, which is not always the case, and we talked for a few minutes about Caleb's school year ending and what she is doing this summer, and it was the kind of conversation where neither of us said the important things, but we were both on the phone, and that was enough for tonight.

The light is lasting past eight now. I can hear the creek from here when the house is quiet and the windows are open. It has been running steady since the rain we had last week, and it makes a sound that I have never tried to describe because I do not think it would come out right on paper. It is the sound of water doing what water does, which is go where it is going without asking anyone's opinion about it.

I am going to read for a bit before I turn in. The week is in front of me and it is an ordinary one and I am grateful for ordinary weeks. I have had the other kind and I know the difference.

Lord, keep the week.

Goodnight.