Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. – Romans 12:9-12

ORLANDO, September 17 – Central Florida, for me, is a bit of an anomaly. It is too hot, too humid, too crowded and at times a little too crazy. But at the same time this place is kind of beautiful – especially the beaches, the sky, the oak hammocks and the swamps – so I am torn.

Plus there may be a little nostalgia in terms of all those years raising our children here. Well, less nostalgia and more poignancy because the time we have them is over so quickly and we hardly get to catch our breath and then they are grown and supposed to be responsible for their own lives.

So this – Central Florida – is where three of our grandchildren live now. And Orlando is swarming with people, even more busy and unmanageable than when we moved to Tampa from Pensacola in 1996. Plus David and Beks are close to the ages our children (Andrew and Naomi) were back then.

And, no, in thinking more about it I am not feeling nostalgia at all – it’s more of a poignancy thing. Here’s the definition: “Poignancy (noun) – the quality of evoking a keenly felt sense of emotion, especially of bittersweet sadness or regret.”

It’s hard to put a finger on, but this trip has that sense about it… of regret, or that I – we – have lost something. There is so much here in Central Florida of beauty, of possibilities, of stormy skies and promising sunrises, and of excess and waste and overdevelopment and of damage that can never be undone.

I do not want to live in Florida again. And I’m not sure that I want our grandchildren to live here either: the shine, the newness, the pace of life, the buzz, the innovation… the extravagance, the excess, the poignancy, the pain and the regret.

We wish we could unring a few bells… but we also know that hope is all about tomorrow. “Rejoice in our confident hope,” Paul wrote to the Romans. “Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.”

“Hold tightly.” “Love each other with genuine affection.” “Pray” – DEREK