The Southern Front Porch

There is probably no architectural feature more indicative of Southern culture than the front porch. When my husband and I bought our first house in Guyton, Georgia a year after we married, I fell in love with the porch. Really nothing else about the house mattered. Looking back on it, the porch was small and narrow but Ali Grace was tiny and there was no need for anything bigger. I met my neighbor then and we spent many a hot summer evening rocking our babies there. We remain friends to this day, almost ten years later.

Unfortunately I realized the importance of a porch way too late after buying our second home in Rincon, Georgia in the spring of 2004.  The house was by all accounts a step up from our first little starter home in Guyton. It was in a golf course subdivision. My husband loves golf and we thought it would be perfect. There was no porch, but there was a small "veranda".  I've since learned that "Veranda" is a yankee word for "Wish we had a porch".  We hardly ever used it and I sorely missed having a porch. We never even met our neighbors there, although we did hear their yapping dogs while sitting on our "veranda".

Finally we heard the call of the wild and decided it was time to move back to the country. It was a tough decision. We took a pay cut. A BIG PAY CUT. However, how many people get the chance to live in a house their daddy designed and their husband helped build with his own hands? What immediately attracted me to this house was it's front porch. I ordered the plans and my dad totally changed the outside appearance of the house as well as adding some square footage to the inside. We also bumped out the front porch a foot or so. I love my front porch. We don't live in a neighborhood any longer so I doubt anyone will be taking an evening stroll and just happen upon our porch. But, honestly y'all.... some nights I sit on that porch by myself and the wind rustles through the boston ferns and I really think to myself that life honestly can not get any better. It's therapeutic.

Recently I was sitting on my porch during one of those common summer evening thunderstorms. I looked around and what I saw was almost like a still life painting.  The ferns were gorgeous. Ali Grace's box of crayons was sitting by the door. Addie's dolls were sitting in the black rocking chair that has peeling paint. Pete's old tennis shoes were strewn across the porch where the dogs had dragged them around. You can tell a lot about a person by their front porch.  I didn't get a twitch from the disarray. I soaked it up instead.

Obviously my ferns are the pride of my porch. I love them and I baby them. I only want ferns that I cannot reach around. I am too impatient to grow ferns throughout the summer. I want a huge fern in the spring. I got mine this year at Louisville Hardware. I paid way too much for 6 ferns but I get so much enjoyment from them, I think it's worth it.  Two tablespoons of epsom salts per gallon of water will really  make them green up if you've wintered your ferns. I don't usually winter mine. I throw them out around Christmas time and buy new ones in the spring. Sounds kinda cruel I guess but I have no place to really store them. When my house was on the Christmas Tour of Homes, my boston ferns were still beautiful in December. That's one of the blessings of living in the South I guess. I try to mist mine everyday as well. Ferns like humidity and it's very hard to overwater them, especially somewhere this hot! As long as there are drain holes in the bottom of the container, there is little danger of overwatering.

Well I'm getting off the internet and getting back to my porch. Lately it's so hot, the only porch time I get is after 10! Have a wonderful week and if things get too crazy, go sit on your porch for a spell. If you don't have one, you are welcome on mine anytime.

Kids are like canaries..

Okay I've been MIA. I realize that. It's summer right? We have been quite busy so far with swimming lessons, vacation bible school, visiting grandparents, and trying to keep up with chores around the house. I always tell folks that we carved this place out of the bush. They laugh, but literally we did. Pete hacked his way into the woods with a machete so that we could see what this 6 acres really looked like. Believe me when I say it's a constant battle to keep the bush from reclaiming it!  

I had one of my first heartbreaking mommy moments this past week and I've thought about it a lot since. Ali and Addie both went to VBS at their grandmother's church this past week. Toni is VBS director and she's always asked to keep the girls that week and while I miss them, I realize it's not all about me and how I feel. It's about my children's childhood memories of their grandparents, so I try not to be selfish with their time together. The girls especially enjoyed spending time on St. Simon's Island. Anyway, they both had a WONDERFUL time. Luckily my brother in law and sister in law live across the road from my mother and father in law and so Aunt Jessica shared some of the responsibility for the kids last week. Thanks Aunt Jess! When we got home, Ali was telling me about Aunt Jessica taking her to Chic-fil-A and letting she, Addie, and Emma play on the playground. Ali told me that out of the blue a 2nd grade girl told her she was ugly because she had freckles. I tried not to appear upset, until Ali said, "she said something THAT ugly Mama and she had a vacation bible school shirt on!".  Out of the mouths of babes. I explained to Ali Grace that she was beautiful in every way and that God doesn't value outer beauty and so this little girl had a MAJOR problem since she was ugly on the inside. You see, ugly on the INSIDE is way harder to fix. 

Thinking about this incident made me wonder about the world as a whole. You know miners used to bring canaries into the mine with them since they were sensitive to methane and carbon monoxide buildup. As long as the canary was singing, everything was fine. If the canary died, you'd better do something quickly. As Christians, I think our canary may be dying. We are wearing our bible school shirts but are we really teaching our children those truths? We may be involved in our church every time the doors open, but when we're in our own homes and workplaces are we really reflecting the Good News? I really started to think how this little girl in her bible school shirt and her mean spirited actions are how some non-christians see the Body of Christ as a whole these days. This entire incident may have been a mere instance of simple childhood behavior, but it struck a nerve with me. 

For example, it sickens me to see the number of "Good Christian Men" who've walked away from their wives of 20 years or so because they've found their "soul mate".  I am not judging them. But, neither do I want to see their pictures on facebook and their constant status updates about being in love.  Additionally, I do not want to hear your whiny explanations of how the other woman had absolutely nothing to do with the breakup of your marriage. More so, I don't want to see your updates regarding what wonderful people you are and how the people in your church love you as if God means faithfulness in marriage for OTHERS. He gave YOU specifically a pass on this requirement. These are the same men who go to PromiseKeepers rallies and extol the virtues of Christian marriage constantly to everyone who will listen and even to those who'd rather not. Maybe I AM the one being a jerk here. I don't know, but it's how I feel. I say THAT to say THIS- until we get it together in our own marriages, we have absolutely NO credibility with non-christians regarding the "sanctity of marriage".  

Ali and I had a long talk about what it means to talk the talk and walk the walk. It doesn't mean thumping your Bible and telling everyone else what they are doing wrong and what they should be doing. It starts with doing what God told YOU to do.  Ali said "I think being nice to your parents and to others is important". Whew! That made me feel really good. Being nice to your parents means being nice to your parents your whole life. You can't spew on and on about what a difference the Church has made in your life and talk ugly around ANYONE, much less your mama. I hear so many men nowadays telling off color jokes and just generally talking filth around women. It makes me want to say "do the other men in your Sunday school class talk this way?" You are not winning people over that way and you are not fooling anyone.  

I recently had a facebook friend request from a former student from a LONG time ago. When I taught her, she was way off track. She got pregnant at 15 and dropped out of school. She had great parents who loved her, and two older brothers whom I adored. Even though her parents were active in the church and raised her knowing better, she made life very tough on herself and everyone around her for a few years before getting her life back on track. We all make mistakes and fall short, despite good raising so this in and of itself is not my gripe. Once we became facebook friends I realized through her status updates that not only had she gotten married, found her way back to the church, and reconciled her relationship with her parents- she's also gotten herself a HUGE high horse upon which to sit. Every status update condemned someone or some action. The straw that broke the camel's back and led to her deletion was  "it makes me sick to see all the immorality going on at Alatoona this week...girls dressed in nothing- don't their parents know better?".   Certainly it's hard to disagree that 14 year olds running around thinking they're Baywatch Babes probably isn't a good thing. However, I wanted to say "you had good Christian parents who raised two older brothers just fine. You came along, acted a straight fool, ran all over town like a dog in heat, and you're saying it was your parents fault? Statistics say that those 14 and 15 year old girls were probably NOT sexually active, even though we all know YOU certainly were at that age!"  Well I figured rather than write such a comment, I'd better just exercise my right to delete and I did.  I am so glad she's turned her life around and that she's happy again and on the straight and narrow. However, when did it become so fashionable for Christians to endure our own struggles and shortcomings and then with an attitude of disgust, point those same shortcomings out in everyone else?   But now, she's found God and foolishly believes that gives her a pass to start pointing fingers at everyone else. Sheesh. Give it a rest. 

I have a friend who had a rather unstable upbringing and unfortunately, fell into a life of drug and alcohol addiction. Addiction had a terribly strong grip and he only freed himself with the help of God and a wonderful woman who loved him despite his failures. They have both become very active in their church and although we disagree over some theological points, it warms my heart to hear from them. You will never find him shaking his head in "indignant disbelief" at the drug addicted among us.  His attitude is more along the lines of "I beat this with God's help and you can too". At least this is the impression I get.  He doesn't have this attitude of being "repulsed" by those who fall short.

All major Christian denominations have declined in the past decade. Christians as a whole are making up a declining percentage in the American population. I can't help but think that the rude little girl in her bible school shirt at Chic fil A is the canary coughing and staggering. 

So now that I've ranted for some time, I'm going to do better this week.  It's a new week, and I can't control what other folks do. I can only control how I choose to react. Have a good week everyone. Be good to each other!