Quality and Quantity of Life

Managua was teeming with life and people and action. Roads were crowded with buses, and cars, horses and carts. And along the roadside - busy swarms of people walking, waiting for the bus, or riding bikes.

Even off the main streets, meandering through the neighborhoods, I saw life. The porches and stoops were crowded with people in their silla abuelitas - grandmother's chairs (we would call them rocking chairs). Adult and child size, these symbols of life- calming quiet sat on the porches where extended family, friends, and neighbors would gather and greet one another. Doors were open to the evening air, light shown out of the windows to illuminate the porches. Laughter and voices rang through the night.

In suburban America, our neighborhoods can seem very quiet and almost lifeless. In the north the cold of summer and the heat of winter chase us into our heated and air-conditioned homes, closed from the elements - and from others.

One Nicaraguan, who had lived in Europe for several years, talked of her happy return to Nicaragua - to the quality of life there. How do we define "quality of life?" Do we measure it by the number of cars in our garage, and square footage of our house? Or is it measured by the number of friends whom we greet each evening, or gather on our front porch? Have we forgotten how to appreciate one of the greatest gifts that God has given us, the community of the human family?
 

Quality and Quantity of Life: Devotion  |  Questions  |  Prayer

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