Lord, Where Is Your Sanctuary?

It is “Church-time” on a cool, blue-skyed, early summer Sunday morning. My neighbor is mowing her grass, except the grass is not hers any more than my grass is mine. When my neighbor and I are gone, the grass will still be here. Another neighbor has just returned from a run and is now doing her yogi stretches as we make small talk about the beauty of the morning. I sit on the porch swing and read Mary Oliver’s UPSTREAM. I hear the birds chirping or perhaps they are making small talk as my neighbor and me. A bright red cardinal sits and sings from the dogwood tree—bright red among the green leaves—and both so very much alive. The porch is the place of pots full of geraniums, daisies, petunias, begonias, spider plants, and peace lilies. All of this is alive as the Cardinal who has now been joined by the chirping and singing of sparrows. Lord, where is Your sanctuary?