It is quiet. There are no house finches, and the honeybees make short days of it if at all. A wasp lingers on the peppermint James planted beside the standard mint near the deck. Snakes who used the shade and the sunny little paths no longer show their tails in quick retreat.
Spiders of bulging abdomens wait. I come too close, blind to one until it scurries upward in my periphery. Imagining shards of web, I shrink back, hating their cling.
I seek orange mini tomatoes, pop two, and delight in juicy eruptions on my tongue. Before my mouth opened, I made the sign of the cross.
Thirty years ago this summer I became a Christian.
That is to say, the mercy of God blindsided me, so the faith I had more or less absorbed from my parents up to that point (having been "sanctified" til then, if you will, by their belief) became front and center, no longer avoidable: I had to make a decision. This is not, necessarily, I have no doubt, what happens to everyone. I know only my experience.
I only knew it was a yea or nay; do or die; will I carry the Ring into Mordor sort of moment. And I answered yes. Not that that makes me anything.
To some people, I imagine, I am steeped in folk religion. In fantasy. I get that, better than they might understand.
It started when I first carried my Bible on a Sunday, looking like someone clinging to a crutch, resorting to playing a role, or needing a lucky charm. For me this wasn't the situation. I desired to study the writings contained in the book I cradled -- I had nothing else of substance to carry with me. The words in the Bible fit my experience of the love of God.
How grateful I remain for their continuing, shining treasure. Like the season's final buds on our unquenchable rosebush. The writings of the people shaped and visited by God, sheaths of them. They are pure and holy.
I will wander through the garden til after the rains earnestly begin.
0 Yorumlar