Mid-week News - June 20, 2012

Dear Family of faith, I hope you are enjoying this balmy first day of summer. Compared to the heat blast in the Northeast, we have it easy. Isn't it amazing that in the past year the people up north have been getting our hurricanes and heat waves? And some people say the weather systems aren't messed up! This past week I was standing in the shower in our bathroom and looked over at the "garden tub" next to it. I realized, that in the almost four years we have lived in the house, I have yet to take a bath in that tub. Not once did I indulge a long-soak in the very thing that was meant to be a 'come-on' for the sale of the home. I wondered how many other people there were who have such accoutrements in their Florida homes who never use them. It made me think of how many "free" pleasures we have access to in life that we never use. There are children to read to, pets to cuddle with, sunsets over the ocean to watch, hugs and hammocks, hiking paths and gardens to visit...the list seems endless. They cost nothing extra, only a little time; yet day after day they remain unused. I wonder sometimes what I will be thinking about if and when I get housebound and maybe even bedridden from the ravages of age. What will I regret missing? I don't think it will have anything to do with things I could buy with money; mostly I will probably think about the people I knew, the places of beauty I've been, and the unused pleasures I didn't realize could mean so much. Maybe this summer, you could think about those things, too. Better now, than too late.