Down to One
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
In which the temperatures begin to rise once again…
Sometime after three o’clock that morning, a thunderstorm tore through the land. Crashing winds and rain, the blue flash of lightening.
Three hours later, Puck was on his usual morning routine, the initial purpose, to waken his parents.
“Uncle Francis says boys say ‘tough’ and girls say ‘cute’,” he said seriously, correcting himself for just having used the term ‘cute’ to describe his baby cloth.
Then to breakfast where Puck commenced prayer, and upon finding himself to have repeated a sentence, laughed a little…
“Oh, I already did that.”
He dug into his oatmeal and blueberries while loudly talking about China .
“China is way, way, way up in the clouds. A very huge island up there.”
Hot rice bread.
Burgers.
To the library in Puck’s own creation of an outfit: emerald green sandwich shirt, chocolate brown plaid shorts, yellow wellies, and carrying his lightbulb bottle. After saying hello to Mrs. Muffins, they then picked up the Redwall series for Puck, a favorite of Carrie-Bri in her 10/11 years or so.
Back home, Puck banged on the windows with his fists to square away the birds.
“I didn’t want them to eat all our veg-tables,” he told his mama seriously.
There were no vegetables.
A wasp escaped briefly indoors.
Nearing four o’clock, Joe, Francis (fresh from work), and Linnea-Irish, dropped by to pick up Puck to join Dad, Mom, and Linnea-Irish at Cuivre River for a two-night campout. Puck stocked up with his interactive map from Grandma Combs, Calvin & Hobbes (of course), his stuffed bunny from the Englishs, a tiny stuffed penguin, his leather wallet, new soccer ball, and lightbulb bottle. He was set.
Collette was strangely at home alone to her walks, thoughts, typings, and sermons. And some Bill Cosby. She missed her happy buddy after a mere two hours.
She had also miscalculated on the current supply of dental floss…
In other news…
OLeif was at his Bible study.
Very sadly, the owners at OLeif’s and Rose’s former place of employment were facing up to life in prison and fifteen years of prison, respectively.
And various parts of the world had just experienced a total lunar eclipse.
“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves – that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that “beauty born of murmuring sound” will pass into a human face; but it won’t. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”
– Clive Staples Lewis, The Weight of Glory