Cool shadows, hot sun, red clay and other good things

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

There are good things.

I've probably been looking a little harder for them lately.

Take the photo on the right.  No, I am not claiming that a shrine should be set up in my den, at the foot of the sofa, based on the cross that appeared on my wall. I would have to really clean up the rest of the house if folks wanted to come in to await an apparition or visitation.   But as I sat on the sofa on a sad quiet morning last week the first rays of dawn projected this spiritual PowerPoint on my wall.   If my windows were a little cleaner, the image would have been clearer. But that's a different sermon.

The cross on the wall was just the shadow of the window pane as the sun rose. It happens almost every sunny morning on some wall in my house.

But that doesn't matter.  That morning I looked up and saw it, and however it happened, it reminded me of goodness and love and hope, and made me wonder whether a cross appearing above a painting of my guitar had any prophetic wallop.  It was a good thing for me.  A very good thing.

Barney was my dad's dog, an old, big, blind, black lab that rarely left my dad's side, spending most of his later years stretched out on the rug in the den beside Dad's recliner or by Dad's bed.  Barney had a cancerous eye which was spreading to the socket, and after taking him to the vet last week, we decided, since Dad had gone on, it would be okay to put Barney out of his earthly misery so that he could once again take his appropriate place with Dad.  A few weeks before Dad died, he told me he wanted Barney to be buried up on the hill behind his house.  I did not plan the day so well, so I found myself digging a grave for Barney at about 2:30 p.m. on a bright, sunny, July afternoon.  I had to leave for Tuscaloosa at 3:30.

Did I mention Barney was a big dog?   As I dug in I rediscovered a few things.  I had forgotten the purity of the red clay just under the thin layer of top soil in the yard above dad's house.  There were no rocks, no insects or worms, just solid, bright red clay that became smooth and shiny at the stroke of a shovel.   I remember seeing it when I was very, very young and the foundation of the house I am now living in was being dug. I remember crawling in and among it and am grateful now that my siblings thought more of me than Joseph of Hebrew Testament's siblings thought  of him, leaving him in the pit.  On the other hand, if I had an amazing technicolor dreamcoat it probably was a hand me down from one or more of them.   I remember the distinct smell of the clay, and how the redness would get on everything, which made me think of little league baseball, because baseball fields around these parts always had a high red clay content, which quickly turned white uniforms orange, which made me think of Benjamin and his widely acclaimed laundry prowess.  The bright, smooth, pure clay made me want to give pottery making a whirl, thinking I could create a pot and let it bake all in the same place. Did I say it was a hot day?  I was in a hurry.

Which made me rediscover just how much I could sweat if I needed to.  And how good water can taste when one's body really needs it.  I guess I haven't been working hard enough lately.  Anyway, the grave got dug and Barney was given a proper place and proper respect with a bouquet of black eyed Susans poked in the soil at his head.  I don't know that Barney was partial to any flower at all, but they grew close to where he lived most of his life, so I imagine he would have liked it.

This morning I had to make a house call around ten o'clock. It was a sad visit made necessary by a cruel illness suffered by a client. I did not have time to finish this post before I left for the appointment, so I just took it easy.  As I was thinking about what to write, thinking about my client, thinking about Dad, and Barney, and hearing in the background the continuous coverage of the Aurora tragedy, my cell phone vibrated.  I had received a text message.

It was from Rick.  He, Lynn and Sarah are with a bunch of Lesterines (members of Lester Memorial UMC, downtown Oneonta, services at 8:30, 9:02, and 11:00 every Sunday morning)  doing some mission work in the Philippines.   He said that they were among serious misery and chaos and so he was thinking of me.  Rick has a way with words.

But then he said, among the misery and chaos, he sees the face of God in the smiles of the children.

And it occurred to me that I have seen God in smiling faces thousands of times during the past month.

Which happens everyday somewhere in my life.  It's just that this morning, a text message from the other side of the world from a clumsy fingered operator, made me look up and see.

And that is a good thing. A very good thing for which I am thankful.

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