Peaches and staying home

We spend a lot of time away from home, sometimes with our children and sometimes without, and for now this feels like the vocation to which we are called. There are tolls to frequent travel, however: laundry that never gets put away; household projects that go unfulfilled; a fridge that remains hollow. We've become pretty skilled at planning our perishable groceries around trips, which often means we have lots of crackers and tins of tuna yet little produce.

• Related: Tomatoes and love

Recently we had a wonderful, multi-week stretch at our own house—long enough to buy fresh peaches. Honestly, they smelled so incredible at the grocery that I may have bought some even if I had been en route to the airport. But we were not en route to the airport, and so there was a glorious opportunity to fill a whole bag with peaches and bring them home to stay.

Every day for a week, we enjoyed our peaches. We had had time to choose the best ones, allow them to ripen just so on the counter, and slurp up their sweet nectar. My favorite way to enjoy them is pictured above: a perfect peach sliced over vanilla ice cream and dusted with cinnamon. Every bite felt like a gift from creation and Creator.

I will always advocate for going somewhere, anywhere really, because travel refreshes our senses and allows us to encounter God through our embodied nature in new ways. But we should never abandon those gifts that ripen only by staying home: life itself, precious and sweet.

P.S. Peaches are a classic Southern harvest, and yes, Louisiana does celebrate a peach festival and yes, it does include a parade. Meanwhile, I'm eyeing this peach-exclusive cookbook (100 recipes!) and this narrative one. Also: adorable peach wall decals for a nursery or kitchen; faux peach stems to bundle in a ceramic jar; and stunning peach table linens.

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