Revival of the Front Porch

I frequently blog about the need to reconnect people with nature. Perhaps it is also time to emphasize reconnecting people with people. In the home I grew up in the front porch was an important place. The front porch was the place you could say "hello" to a neighbor across the street or even someone you knew driving past. Mom always had plants sitting on the porch or hanging from the ceiling, and chairs or a bench were available for friends to sit a'spell. The front porch was an inviting place to engage in conversation and strengthen relationships. "The porch is a physical space that is both personal to its owner and hospitable to guests and strangers. It is a threshold of community: neither a place of anonymity, nor of complete intimacy. It is a place where new connections are wrought and old connections are strengthened. One can be invited onto a front porch even as a passerby; it provides opportunities for welcoming the stranger." (Front Porch Revival: The Past, Present, and Possibility of a Neighborhood Mainstay, by Kendra Langdon Juskus)

The front porch can be a great analogy of a flourishing life for all God's creatures: open, green and inviting.