Sunday, August 31, 2003

Home

Storybook fingernail moon, larger than life over an orange horizon at dusk. Blackened hills; the electric hum of a thousand crickets and tinyfrogs; the smell of mown hay in otherwise-clean air. Murmurs in the darkness. Fluttering wings on porchlights.

Silent stairs. Darkened hallways, familiar slanted eaves-walls. Tinydog hiding in the crook at the back of her bent knees on the futon couch. Bare feet against rough carpet. Softlit corners.

The past receding, fading into that same horizon like the setting sun. The future shelved, hidden from the self. The present soft and gentle, yet heavy, a thick down comforter. It no longer matters how I got here -- this blog is no travelogue, and shouldn't be. What matters is that I'm here.


God – if you’re here, too, despite the skepticism of those (like me) who grasp desperately at logic all their lives – I know I don’t thank you enough, or think of you much when I am not in need; don’t keep your commandments; don’t praise your name:

I cursed you this morning when the car battery was dead after three weeks in my parent’s driveway;

I called for you too late when my daughter fell off the top of the luggage cart;

I cried for you in despair driving away from the dorm, looking ahead into the days before me, trying to figure out how to be in three places at once for the next nine months, and none of them in my own apartment, on the carpet with my daughter, at the table with my wife.

But here, in the peace of this home, my daughter and wife, my dog and cat, my silence, I remember you, perhaps not quite too late: Thanks, God, for this fleeting moment, and for those other moments; thank you for those moments you will bring. It is more than I deserve; It will have to be enough; It is enough: Thank you, O God, for these blessings before me; it is the home, the peace, I have always wanted…but did not know how to build on my own.

posted by boyhowdy | 9:11 PM |

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