“Do you want to go inside?  It’s hot out here.”

I asked the question of the little tyke sitting in the rocking chair next to the nearly identical one in which I rocked.  My grandson had required a little aid climbing up into the big black chair, but it seemed likely I would need his aid when it was time to stand up again.

“No.  I like it here,” was all he said in reply, keeping the motion of the chair going with only his arms—his legs being much too short to let his feet push off the concrete below us.

I like this kid.  I do.

He takes to new things like most folks gravitate to the old and familiar.  Give him a moment to consider a new food, and he’s likely to say, “Why not?”  He may reject it just as quickly after the trial, but he’s game to give it a shot.

Me?  I like the old paths—worn smooth by years of use, and leading to destinations I’ve visited many times before.

But here I go again, chasing rabbits when I’ve not even begun to follow the path I started out upon.

I want to talk about those rocking chairs.

Well, to be honest, I already did talk about them.  At the memorial service for my sweet neighbor yesterday, I talked about them.  But I want to talk about them a little more here.

I’ve written a number of times, over the last few years, of the delightful neighborhood the Lovely Lady and I have the privilege of calling home.  Many of the folks who dwell around us have lived here for 30 or 40 years, and some for close to 60.  It is the neighborhood in which the Lovely Lady grew up.

The thing about folks having lived here for as long as they have is that it means many of us are what we call senior citizens.  And, it seems, time is growing short for some of us.  In reality, it is growing shorter for all of us.

The house on the corner was home, for nearly sixty years, to two lovely people, who had a better view of the neighborhood than anyone on the street.  Sitting on their back deck, they could view every foot of the cul-de-sac street (and most of the homes thereupon).

On many days, as I walked out of the neighborhood to stretch my legs a bit, the aging couple would be sitting in the same rocking chairs you see in the photo that accompanies these words.  I usually wandered over to the four-foot-high chain-link fence around their backyard and, leaning on the top rail, would engage the couple in conversation.  Often, at a break in the discussion, he would make a suggestion.

“Why don’t you come on up here and sit with us, young man?”

Never mind that I have not at any point in my residence in this neighborhood been a young man.  I would usually declare a mental hiatus in my exercise program for the day, and wander onto the covered deck to sit, and to speak and be spoken to.

I cannot express what those conversations meant to me.  I learned more about the history of the Christian university a couple of blocks up the street from me on that porch than I had in forty years of living in this town.  I learned about the people—many of them, faculty at that university—who used to live in different houses on the street.  I learned about—well, you’re not interested in all the different people and things we talked about, but what I actually learned about, sitting on that deck, across from that dear couple, was how to be a neighbor and a friend.

But night after night, those rocking chairs welcomed their occupants, ready to undulate gently, forward and back, as they sat, watching and listening to the microcosm of our little neighborhood.

A few years ago, Skip passed away.  The sadness lingers.  In truth, I think it always will.

Still, watching Patty carrying on without her life’s companion, I noticed that she came out on that deck most evenings and sat in her rocking chair—watching over the neighborhood as she had with Skip for many years before.

But, as always happens when enough time passes, the years of her life here on earth came to an end.  And both rocking chairs were stilled and empty.

C.S. Lewis suggested, in The Last Battle from The Chronicles of Narnia, that the things here on earth are merely a shadow of what will be in heaven.  I don’t in any way give doctrinal weight to his words, but it leads me to consider the meaning of the New Earth mentioned along with the New Heaven in Revelation 21:1.  And momentarily, for me to see the image in my mind’s eye.

Jesus told His followers in John 14: 2-3 that in His Father’s house, there were many houses (mansions, if you prefer the King James) and that He was going there to prepare a place for us.  It’s not clear if the houses have already been built, or if they have yet to be completed.

But my friend, Skip, was a builder for a number of his years on earth.  And, knowing him, he may have had a suggestion or two for his and Patty’s place up there.  I wonder if those suggestions included a covered deck with rockers in which they can sit and enjoy the music and sounds of worship for all of eternity.

Almost as when they lived here, next to the music-filled house in which I now reside.  For all of the last seventy-five years, piano and brass, viola and flute music has wafted across the grass-covered, maple and oak-shaded ground between this house and theirs.  There is no way they sat on that deck and didn’t hear that music (not all of it heavenly).

If his request for the deck and rockers was honored, perhaps the two of them sit once more listening and watching.

And, I’m a little jealous.  What a joyous day that will be, when we get to make music in praise of our astonishing Creator up there together!

And perhaps, simply to sit and drink it all in, on the back porch of our house He built for us.

I made the observation, as I prepared to lead that old hymn, Amazing Grace, at the service Patty’s family had to honor her, that they’re not really getting a head-start on us.

Mr Newton understood the math.

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright-shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.”

It’ll be our turn soon enough.

We were honored to receive the gift of those rocking chairs to sit on our front porch a day ago.  They’ve already received the stamp of approval from our youngest grandson.  Others may approve in time, as well.

I think we can spend an hour or two loving our neighbors there.

And maybe even humming a verse or two of some lovely old hymns.

Forever is still in front of us.

But we can rest at times on the way there.

 

“This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this…. Come further up, come further in!” (from The Last Battle in The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis)

 

“The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.” (Proverbs 10:7, KJV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2026. All Rights Reserved.