| Dear Readers:
I’ve been pondering daisies.
The roads here are a wild riot of daisies, stretching in solid
walls for half a mile and more on both sides -- short daisies, tall
many-branched daisies, and tiny white daisies bunched like puffs of
smoke. All among theme are tall purple tufted flowers, stalky yellow
and blue flowers, and little furry cornflowers or bachelor’s button.
All this springs from the dead, dry dust of summer.
I kept remembering something G.K.
Chesterton had written in Orthodoxy, and Rev. Steve Wilkins
helped me find it.
"The sun rises every morning. I do not
rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but
to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might
be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of
rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a
rush of life.
"The thing I mean can be seen, for
instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they
specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess,
not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality,
because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want
things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and
the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For
grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But
perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible
that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every
evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic
necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes
every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It
may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have
sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The
repetition in nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a
theatrical encore."
I wish I had space to explain to you
how well these words capture the bright thought that has so long
haunted my mind like a friendly, homespun ghost. On one hand the
labors of our life can seem pointless and burdensome. Most modern
writers view life and humanity as a ghastly repetition of the
pointless – another child is born, only to rear more like him and
die.
What they miss is that the
journey, the repeated journey, universally alike but
perpetually unique, delights the heart of God, who never tires of
making daisies -- and men. In our frenzied striving we long for the
Great Hit, the Excitement, the Stimulation, and we miss all along
the tireless mystery of the mercy shown us in the sacramental
procession of our days. Ahh, kiss the ones you love, and sing
in your heart for the work given you this day, and bless your
Creator!
OUTSMARTED AGAIN
Once again I outsmarted myself. A few
days after I had put up a barrel of rice to soak for the pigs, I was
working at home. Zachie walked in dressed only in his drawers.
"What’s wrong?" I asked.
"I’ve been feeding the pigs," was his
disgusted remark. I failed to follow up. I should have.
A couple of days later it fell my lot
one afternoon to feed the pigs. About 30 yards from their pasture I
noticed an indescribable smell. "Whew!" I thought, "we’ve gotta
enlarge the pig pasture." Then I opened the rice barrel.
You’ve heard the phrase, "The smell
took off the top of your head," but that really doesn’t do it
justice. This was a stench so bad, so fetid, that merely living in
the same county with it was pure pain.
Duty overrode distaste, and I scooped
out a bucket of rice and juice. The pigs had tuned up into an
oinking mob. I poured this disgusting froth into their trough, and
pandemonium – panswinery? – broke out. They loved it.
Observing that some of the liquid had
gotten on my hand, I beat a hasty retreat to the house and scrubbed
my hands – twice. One sniff proved it my efforts bootless. I
hastened back home to the Shoe, stripped off my clothes, and jumped
in the shower. I took a fingernail brush and scrubbed my hands foamy
– twice. Foolishly assuming the job done, I climbed out of
the shower and sniffed my hands.
Might as well not have washed them.
The dead don’t smell that bad. Mercy! It took twelve
hours for the stench to vanish. And I had another, oh, say,
35 gallons of that stuff to feed the pigs.
IDER
The whole family trekked to Ider,
Alabama over Labor Day to the Draft Horse Show & Mule Pull. The
picture shows Mercy (16), Johnny Ray Bain, and Liberty, with Wallace
Bedford Bain peeking out of his stroller. The show was great. If
there’s any similar event in your own neighborhood, don’t miss
it.
Enjoy the fall!
Franklin
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