A Fox Across the Street

On sitting still long enough to see what's actually there

Saturday afternoon. Spring break. The house was quiet for once. I’d spent the morning on projects — sanding, painting, the kind of physical work that empties your head in a good way. By late afternoon I was tired out, and instead of finding one more thing to do, I sat down on the front porch.

That’s when I saw the fox. Just across the street, moving through a neighbor’s yard like it belonged there. Unhurried. Alert but not anxious. It paused, looked around, and kept going.

My only thought afterward: “Just kind of cool and a little unusual.”

That’s all it was. No deep spiritual lesson emerged. No sermon illustration crystallized. A fox crossed a street and I happened to be sitting still enough to notice.

But I’ve been thinking about it since, because most of my days don’t include that kind of noticing. Most of my days are full enough that a fox could cross every street in McPherson and I’d miss every one. The schedule moves from morning to evening with barely a gap — meetings, pastoral care, sermon prep, errands, evening activities. The margins where something unexpected might catch your attention don’t exist unless you build them.

I didn’t build that margin on purpose. I was just tired and sat down. But the sitting is what made the seeing possible.

There’s a line in Psalm 46 that gets quoted a lot: “Be still, and know that I am God.” We usually hear it as a command about faith — trust God, stop striving. But maybe it’s also just practical advice about attention. Be still, and you’ll notice things. Be still, and the world will show you something it’s been doing all along while you were too busy to look.

I don’t know what the fox was doing in our neighborhood. I don’t know where it went. But I know I saw it, and I know why: because for once, I was sitting on the porch with nothing in my hands and nowhere to be.

That seems worth protecting.