A swing represents contentment to me. As a child on our farm in Ohio, summer afternoons would find me flat on my stomach on the porch swing, reading to my heart’s content.

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But part of my contentment depended on the swing to keep  swinging. That’s what a swing is for. To keep it going, I had to  put one foot on the floor, make it go as fast as I could, then relax a few minutes till I had to do it again. My contentment required effort.

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 Alas, contentment, like a swing, sometimes seems to slow down or even come to a full stop.

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What do we have to do to keep it going?