Hanging in There

Last time you heard from me I was in crisis.  That is the way it tends to go, I usually squawk when pinched!  However since given the clear that I was COVID negative, I have been busy wrapping up summer program and starting my new school year. At this moment things feel stable-ish and I am hanging in there, literally.  Meet my new happy place!

So to make a short story long, I have been enthralled with hammocks for a long time.  As a kid, we had one of those big wide flat ones you put on a frame when we went camping.  In later years my friend Tammy and I spotted someone in a purple hammock on the square in the middle of my town.  Ever since, we have been on the look out for a hammock in the trees or other unexpected places.  I even bought a blanket style woven one a few years ago however without easy straps, it was never used and eventually found its way in a yard sale.  Then a couple of months ago when social distancing at the lake with my friend Melissa, she suggested I take a nap in her hammock.  After that I was on a mission to get a hammock even knowing I would rarely use it because I didn't know where I would put it. So when a family at school gave me a thank you gift of a $30 Target gift card I knew what I wanted to do with it.  A few weeks ago I made a special trip to Target to purchase the  hammock.  Again I wondered if it would be one of those things I bought and never used.  Just a few days later, my mom and I were invited to a cabin on the lake and said hammock was tossed into the car.  While contemplating trees at the lake, Melissa pointed out that I could hang it on the porch railings of the Octagon shaped cabin.  Thus mom and I gave the hammock its inaugural swinging.  I spent 4 hours that afternoon in that hammock.  I was hooked!

I came home and was determined to find a spot for my hammock in my yard so I could use it often.  After circling the yard several times I came up with a spot on the side of my house.  I mowed a path through the Ivy to the trees so I could  hang the straps without fear of stepping on a snake.  Couple of days latter I mowed a bigger patch to make it easier to get in and out of the hammock.  My next plan is to put pots of bug repelling plants in what I now call the Hammock Garden. 

It is amazing what some lightweight canvas, hung by webbing between two trees can do for one's soul.  Hard to explain the peace and happy that swinging in my hammock brings.  I love to look at the trees.  Today though while talking with my friend Christine, I was distracted by some dead branches such that as soon as I got off the phone, I pulled out my tree shears and trimmed them.  Now it is much more peaceful staring up into the trees.

I have made this space my new "office."  I had three meaningful conversations with friends on the phone in this spot this week.  And sometimes I just like to swing and "be still and know God."  Okay so that doesn't usually last too long as being still and doing nothing doesn't come easy.  However I recall a book on prayer that I read last year about a guy whose prayer spot was a hammock.  He talked about what a sacred space it was.  I totally get it.  Currently I am reading (via an audio book) Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron and in paper back Holy Noticing by Charles Stone.  Both of them in very different ways address the idea of God meeting us in the quiet, awareness, creation, and creativity.  Sometimes I have to fight the thoughts that hanging in my hammock is frivolous, lazy, selfish, etc.  But lets just say I am working on it.  And it seems to be getting easier and easier.  

I am so grateful for all my outdoor spaces.  For more than 12 years God has provided this great little  house with a fabulous yard.  There are 4 plastic Adirondack chairs, a porch rocker and swing and now a hammock.  Lots of space to meet God in his beauty and creation.  So if you are in the neighborhood, come on over and we can hang out and "be still and know God" together!