I’m sitting on my porch.

It’s dark, but only just–the sky over the treeline still has that afterglow of the sunset fading up to a deep inky midnight blue. The crescent moon rises, poking out from behind a treetop.

I love summer evenings, when the air finally cools down but you know it’s been hot.

From this vantagepoint, I see the neon sign of an old theater glowing green and red and black and white. The theater is a church now, but it still looks like a theater. It’s a converged church, so maybe the overlap is appropriate.

There are Christmas lights in the trees of the town square, and streetlights. The motel up the hill shines a neon light as well. It says “motel.” Cars drive by, their taillights winking in the night.

So I guess it isn’t really dark after all. But the silhouette of the trees is so beautiful. Nothing is as black as trees silhouetted against the fading light.

I want to hang fairy lights out here, too. Even less dark.

The crickets chirp quickly, a record of the faded, hot day, while the gradual acceleration and deceleration of the cars paints a longer phrase over top. The sound of a small town in the summer.

One of the neon lights reflects onto the underside of the roof, a gradient of blue and red bending when the cars drive past. The glare from passing headlights reflect the shadows of trees over top, a lovely juxtaposition.

This porch reminds me that life is good. There is good in life. The creation that God made is good, it is the rest of it that is not.

Breathe the air, bathe in the sun, splash in the water, twirl in the wind.

The rest is the details, the paperwork. The tax.

But a cool summer night is forever.