Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love… – Ecclesiastes 9:7-9

Saturday evening, after dinner, Rebekah and I went out to a party celebrating the engagement of two young people. Because this is Tarboro, and because we live downtown, we simply stepped off our front porch and walked.

It had been a hot day, and the evening was still torrid, but there was the slightest of breezes and we were absolutely not in a hurry.

Up St. James Street, past the Presbyterian Church, then the Methodist church, a little ways along Saint Andrew then cutting through the town square before another half block along Main Street and there we were, “Taps on Main.”

Fun people, good conversation, great party food, a fine local IPA, then there we go, sauntering back through the town while the sunset lights up the sky in a myriad of colors just for us.

I like walking with Rebekah, holding hands, feeling the relaxed tempo of a town that’s not in a hurry because it already knows where it is.

And I know where we are, too. We are together.

So thanks, George and Bonnie, for inviting us to be a part of your daughter’s celebration. And congratulations, Sara and Michael. May your engagement lead to a beautiful life together, full with the kind of moments Rebekah and I experience all the time.

Because this good life is too rich to rush through headlong when, instead, you can saunter off into the sunset, at your own speed, enjoying the ultimate luxury of simply being together.

“Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do… Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love…” – Ecclesiastes 9

Peace, always – DEREK