Thursday, January 19, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Peacock feathers
God says, “See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
We saw peacocks today, pecking at the ground just like our chickens pecked. But the peacocks had amazing endless tail feathers floating behind them. After awhile they hopped on a picnic table, and then “flew” over a fence into their own personal park.
I wanted to follow them a little closer than Jasper did. Margaret found a spot to sit and watch, while we criss-crossed goldfish ponds and peacock pastures, and waited to see if the peacocks would approach us.
Later we visited an upscale market and our friend Shannon, manager of a mattress store, who invited Jasper to kick off his shoes and explore every mattress in the place. Shannon filled an Urban Mattress balloon with helium and tied it off. We tied the balloon to Jasper’s wrist, but somehow it popped off on our way to the Central Market playground. Dark blue dot in the bright blue sky.
May all who seek you exult and be glad in you, and may those who love your salvation say ever, “The Lord be glorified.”
Last night George and I talked about his earliest memories, pre-K and kindergarten memories. He wishes he had been a little less affected by the first-born-child syndrome of arrogance and expectation. I was one of those first-borns too. Jasper is not. Miles is 6 and Jasper is 3. I wonder what they will remember when they are 35, like George.
Here’s a poem written by another grandpa:
His mind won’t remember the love they shared,
holding close, kissing fingers, smelling each other.
Nature has its ways of preparing for the inevitable.
School and after-school sports and friends,
and what excites him about life will draw him away…
as it should…
as is right for a young man blossoming.
Dear grandson, I cry now for the loss that will come,
a loss only one of us will feel to the full.
Yet I know that love doesn’t cling
but rather celebrates freedom.
So my prayer is that as much as I love you now,
you may become that free as a man.
And as my love will remain, my presence, my participation
fade away, I trust that your psyche will never forget
how we loved deep and pure
as only grandparents and grandchildren can.
                        – Clarence Heller (A Piece of Goodness, January 18, 2023)
Miles and Jasper sat in their booth at Jack-in-the-Box, eating their tiny tacos and chicken nuggets, and I watched them growing before my eyes. They will be 16 and 13 in ten years, and Miles will drive them out to Jack-in-the-Box, and they’ll have their tiny tacos and talk about their grandparents, who are 83 then, and think … next time, we’ll pick them up and bring them along. They can sit in the backseat like we used to do, only without the car seats. And we’ll have a good time with them, we’ll have a good time then.
Behold, we come. Let us do your will, O God, it is our delight, and your law is within our hearts!
(Hebrews 7-8, Psalm 40, 2 Timothy 1, Mark 3)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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