Rabid Fun: Quiet Joy

Normally I rise and start work between 3 and 4a.m., courtesy of God’s blessing of prostate cancer, but Saturday morning He granted me the grace to sleep till five.

I pad out to the living room and boot the computer to begin my day’s work.

Our miniature grandfather clock ticks away minutes and chimes the hour. My fish swims back and forth in the aquarium beside my desk. Ginny’s useless bird, Fancy, preens in his cage.

Outside darkness melts into a gray dawn. Ground fog drifts outside my window obscuring view of other houses down the street. That mist dissolves into a low drizzle of rain. Were I filming a Dracula movie, this would be a perfect day to shoot.

I intended to mow the lawn today but the rain cancels that project. I feel the comfortable pleasant relief you feel when something you planned to do but really didn’t want to gets thwarted by outside circumstance.

As I thought and prayed through my morning devotions, God Almighty did not fuss at me for a change.

The news tells me that a city council in England, in a movement to be all inclusive, has made applications to drive a taxi available in Braille for blind people. Once, the church I sometimes attend initiated a campaign to be “All Inclusive” in our community. Everybody in the pool! I see a parallel between the church’s movement and the one by that city council.

But as I started to get critical in my thinking, I also pondered that invitation in the last chapter of the Bible: “The Spirit and the bride say, Come . And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely”.

Whosoever will may come.

And I pondered Mark 8:34 where Jesus said, “Whosever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”.

An exclusive all inclusiveness.

A no nonsense all inclusiveness with barbs.

But, not being a blind taxi driver, I need not concern myself over much about such things. The Lord knoweth His own.

I hear the clock radio in the bedroom beep 6a.m., Ginny’s usual wake-up time. She ignores the sound. After ten minutes, I go in and punch the button to stop the thing. She mutters a sleepy, “Thank you” and snuggles down under the covers for another couple of hours.

I answer a handful of e-mails, read blogs and news, think about work on the will of God manuscript and about the transcribing of Barbara White’s Prayer Diary.

I hear the rain on the roof falling heaver now.

Ginny wakes and comes out in her robe for coffee; her sleep-tousled white hair forms a silver halo around her face in the lamp light. She zombies awhile, sipping coffee as we discuss going out for breakfast. Decide not to.

As she started cooking, I shave, shower, and dress in tan slacks with a favorite tan wool sweater, loose enough to be comfortable, warm enough to be cozy.

In the kitchen I find her at the stove wearing her sweats. I slip my hands under her sweatshirt. She slaps my fingers away with a smile of pleasure and promise. At the sink I wash yesterday’s dishes as she fries bacon, cracks eggs, and stirrs grits.

She serves my bowl of grits so hot they could smelt iron ingots. Just right! Touch a pat of butter to those grits and it disappears into a pool of gold. Ginny fills the pepper shaker and I sprinkle a constellation of black stars on the white surface.

The Lord Jesus has granted me a morning without my hands shaking today so I can spoon my food without slopping it all over me. Thank You, Lord.

I lather jalapeno jelly on my toast. Ginny’s mother bottles this green jelly and sends me a few jars every Christmas. This morning feels more like Christmas than Christmas did.

We retired to our chairs in the living room. Ginny reads her Martha Grimes novel; I hold a musty volume of theology unopened in my lap, a book which interests me but would not keep me from drowsing off.

I run bristled cleaners through my pipes. A fresh pouch of Toasted Cavendish rests beside the steaming coffee mug at my elbow—my Saturday-morning coffee mug, the one with the Vargas girl in the red swimsuit.

An atmospheric inversion, or whatever, causes my pipe smoke to float in visibly layers a few feet below the ceiling. Wind blows outside. I hear oak branches scrape against the wall of the house. Our electric fire logs flicker.

For God only knows what reason, Ginny starts to clean out the hall closet by the bathroom. I hear her muttering to herself in the background, saying, “Why in the world are we keeping this”?

No answer needed.

A few minutes later I look over to see an alchemist at work. She’s intent on combining partially empty bottles of shampoo. I snap a photo with my new keychain camera: