Saturday, October 16, 2021 (today’s lectionary)
Crawdads, black mussels and ice cream
Do not worry about how or what you are to say. The Holy Spirit will show you at each moment what you should say.
Super comfortable bed. Too comfortable, maybe too soft? All day yesterday my back was sore.
Margaret gave me pain ointment, but I kept forgetting to put it on, so I guess I’m either a glutton for punishment, or it didn’t hurt as much as I think it did. Actually, it still hurts now, but only when I move a certain way.
I can be a little lazy, obviously, in my own self-care. I think about other things. I am reading The Prophetic Imagination. I am listening to a book about General Grant and the end of the Civil War. Much of our family has gathered in Evansville to spend a day or two together, playing music, visiting our favorite giant tree at Audubon State Park, and satiating ourselves at the Grand Buffet on Green River Road. Margaret will fly out this afternoon to Austin. I’ll start driving, and finish the trip tomorrow. By that time I’ll know as much as I’ll ever know about Ulysses S. Grant. What time do I have for worrying about a pulled muscle in my shoulder?
It felt better when I swam. The outdoor pool is heated, warm, and open from 6 am till 11 pm. The water was clean and blue. The sky was blue too. Holding onto the ladder, I stretched up and down, all around. I could feel the muscles unclench. And when I got out the relaxed muscles stayed that way for a couple of hours.
Jesus said, “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.”
Sitting together at the buffet table, I asked Morgan and Jack and Aly about their plans for the future. Morgan will be 16 in March. She doesn’t really want her own car. She hopes to get to law school, and she plays saxophone in two bands. Jack’s fascination with geography and facts of every kind begins to extend into US History. At twelve, he is playing all kinds of percussion in the school band, including tympani. Those drums are bigger than he is.
Aly, who is nine, plays the trumpet and is at last taking guitar lessons, still using the guitar we gave her four years ago. It was way oversized then, now it fits just right inside her arms. She probably has vocational aspirations, but we talked more about her skateboard style.
And actually, the most interesting part of our dinner at the Chinese buffet was when the crayfish started talking to us. No one wanted to eat the crawdads except me, but they talked back to all of us. “I’m a little crawdad, red and stout. Don’t eat me, let me live! Help me, help me!”
He remembered his holy word and led them forth with joy, with shouts of joy, his chosen ones. The Lord remembers his covenant forever.
One of the cute little guys stretched out his arms above our pile of black mussel shells and shouted, “You’re killing me!” I said something about sucking out his life blood. Morgan gagged. Aly hit me. Jack groaned. None of us were very happy to hear those pleas from the crayfish. Who do they think they are?
We follow the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, our father in the sight of God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not exist. Abraham believed, hoping against hope.
We moved on to red painted bananas, cappuccino cake, pineapple and ice cream. On the dessert table I saw a vastly misplaced bowl of kimchi. That’s one of my favorites at this buffet, but I found it too late. I took a couple of bites, but it blended badly with the vanilla and chocolate ice cream. I had to ignore the sign on that particular table, which said: “Please don’t waste food!”
These days of wine, roses and crawdads are just the tip of our family joy. So much to say, so much to do. The days are just packed.
