Gumballs?
Monday, May 28, 2007
That morning, Puck began actually smiling at his bookshelf. He was only a hair shy of giggling at it when Collette turned around and caught him in the act. He then immediately dropped the smile and instead raised his eyebrow.
His hands when clenched, were beginning to look like little half-pies. The fellow had some big paws, as Mom would say.
Being almost fussy that morning, Collette held him under his arms and let him do pirouettes on her lap to Red Hot Chili Peppers while she finished her work on the computer that morning.
Meanwhile, Dad, Mom, and the kids were heading out to Cuivre River for four days of camping. Although the first night Mom would be out with Grandma Combs; she would be driving Grandma to her GI the next morning. And Joe hooked up with the George family, Wallace, and Curly, for a day at Mark Twain Lake up north.
Collette thought about a Petra-like nomads land that day and some droning Medieval music from beyond the early evening desert sun.
She was also reminded of the time, when she was very little, that she had been playing with Mom’s shadowbox of miniatures. She had always loved tiny things. And on this particular evening, she had just pulled out a gum ball machine; the base was metal, painted red, and the globe was real glass filled with multi-colored seed beads. Somehow, she managed to break the globe; but she didn’t remember the exact act. Repressed memory, no doubt. But she did remember that she had broken the glass to eat the “gum balls”. At some point, Mom and Dad entered her room and saw the broken glass and beads on the carpet, with Collette picking out the little beads from the carpet.
It wasn’t long later that Collette found herself in the emergency room with a weighted covering over her body, a bright light above her, and several masked hospital attendants and Dad standing around her as she lay on the table. X-rays commenced. The diagnosis came back clear – she had not swallowed any glass, as they had originally feared. Maybe that was the day Collette had become a picky eater. Could it be that she had scared herself out of trying new foods after her failed attempt with the gumball beads?
Come afternoon, the thunder crashed as OLeif taught Puck how to play chess on-line before the three of them ran errands in the heat of the day.
Collette fanned Puck with a wedding invitation while OLeif ran into QT for sodas. Puck’s wisps of reddish hair fluttered in the breeze as he made his Puck face – flattened chin, mouth set in a wide closed half-smile, cheeks puffed out, eyebrows concentrated.
Inside the fuel station, OLeif overheard two firefighters talking to each other.
“I’ve decided that it’s too hot to fight fires today,” the one said.
“What?”
“I’ve lost five pounds today.”
Back at home, OLeif whirled into the room with Puck.
“Let’s attack Mom!”
“Body slam!” OLeif spoke for Puck. “I got you now, Mamma! I’m gonna eat your face!” Puck flew through the air in Oleif’s arms. “Vanquished!”
“Good show buddy! High five!” OLeif congratulated him. “You totally got Mom. She wasn’t even expecting it.”
OLeif pulled out a new apple and a jar of peanut butter.
“Can I have some peanut butter, Mommy?” OLeif asked through Puck.
“… Satan keeps people from seeing ‘the light of the gospel’… by preventing spiritual perception. The words of the gospel are heard. The facts are comprehended. But there is no ‘light’… blinded persons consider the facts of the gospel but see no compelling spiritual beauty, no treasure, nothing supremely precious. They see facts. They may even agree that the historical facts are true. Satan surely does. But they do not have ‘true sense of the divine excellency of the things revealed in the Word of God, and a conviction of the truth and reality of them thence arising.’”
– God is the Gospel, John Piper, p.62