With a six month old baby in my sister’s home there is a natural rhythm to life- eat, clean up, play together, sleep.  The whole house falls into this rhythm and I find it a satisfactory way to live.  When the baby goes down the house is quieted, calm.  We adults move quietly and in hushed tones, taking up quiet activities.  When the baby is awake we do our work around the house- checking in with smiles and coos as she is in her swing or playing on the floor.  Then we stop and get down on the floor to play with her or do a dance while she giggles. 

I am learning the rhythm of my sister’s household and finding my place in it.  I love the activity in the house while we play and work.  And I love the calm that comes over the house as the baby and sun go down and my sister and brother- in-law sit on the porch quietly talking over their days.  There is an eagerness in my brother-in-law.  He rushes home from his work at the church and jumps into work here at the house.  There is much to attend to with the baby and the yard and the house and the dog.  Yet he does it joyfully, grateful for the life and things he has been granted.  He seems to have a healthy boundary with ministry that I find myself jealous of.  He knows when to come home.  I do not.  It is easy for me to tell myself that if I had this baby and this house, I would know when to come home too.  But I think it is more than that.  It is more than other responsibilities and different types of work.  He has an inner peace that tells him when to sit on the porch with his wife and drink a cup of tea. 

As I take this before the Lord, this desire for an “inner bell” to go off and send me home, I see the Lord showing me my community- my neighbors and family.  I do have much to come home to.  There are kids on my street to play with.  There are neighbors with whom to visit.  There is trash and graffiti to be cleaned up.  There are people and house projects to call me home each evening, people and work that are life giving to me.  People and projects that I have been neglecting.