After quite a hiatus, I'm back and ready to blog again. college is over, for good! After 6 years of p/t study, I have finally fulfilled all righteousness in terms of degree requirements, and, assuming I passed my last assignment and exam (and I fully expect to) it's all over bar the graduation ceremony (March 29th next year). I think I'm still walking round in a daze, on some visceral level I never thought I'd actually get this far. For those who don't know, I was a dropout from uni in my youth (at least partly to do with abuse issues)and I never quite believed that one day I'd actually make it through a course of study and get that degree. I really believe that this degree was God's idea, not mine, and I'm waiting with some anticipation to see what He wants me to do with it.
I've also changed the name of my blog; "From the Pickle jar" sounded a bit too domesticated for me. I'm still going through a belated adolescence and trying to work out who I am, but i'm sure I'm not the earth-mother type. Spend far too much time with my head in the clouds for that!
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Out of the swamp
Another from the files: the struggle for integrity, the struggle to get rid of the junk that was put on me by others, the struggle for truth in the inmost parts, the struggle to get rid of all those nauseating layers that come between me an the waiting Love of God. if I may try to redeem an analogy that's usually used in a VERY different context, trying to experience God's love with all my layers on is a little like showering in a raincoat! One tries to walk truthfully, and then finds that the untruth was a part of one's own self. (sigh)
The wild goose was the Celtic symbol of the Holy Spirit.
I have not walked in the swamplands, in the secret hidden places
Where the plants close over brackish streams,
The swarming things flicker in the shadows;
Breath catches on decay.
This is not where the wild goose flies
High in the lonely heavens, stretched to the limits of my span,
Cutting the cold, clean air
With the sorrows of the spirit.
This is the no go zone,
Spawning with a life I do not know,
Bloodsuckers, crawling things, tiny particles of nightmare,
Banned from the waking day,
They have made them a habitation,
Parasites that thrive on my discarded flesh and bone.
Here the blood throbs thickly, and swift, pale thought is difficult;
Dark deities I do not own come here to proselytise
Making demands in a gibberish to which I have no key;
I do not know what converts they have made
Amongst the disowned of myself,
Or what dark beliefs engage them.
I have no desire to roll in stinking mud,
Or betray myself for the shudder of a kiss.
I would go as the wind goes, bitter but so clean,
Scoured from the nightmare host, skeletal but singing.
In a clear, herb-scented fantasy where my gleaming bones can fly
Reduced to ethereal whispers, the safe-place of the mind.
Who was it welded this soft flesh to me,
So that there is no escape from the foetid, scorned encounter
In the undertow of the wastelands, where the angels do not go?
The wild goose was the Celtic symbol of the Holy Spirit.
I have not walked in the swamplands, in the secret hidden places
Where the plants close over brackish streams,
The swarming things flicker in the shadows;
Breath catches on decay.
This is not where the wild goose flies
High in the lonely heavens, stretched to the limits of my span,
Cutting the cold, clean air
With the sorrows of the spirit.
This is the no go zone,
Spawning with a life I do not know,
Bloodsuckers, crawling things, tiny particles of nightmare,
Banned from the waking day,
They have made them a habitation,
Parasites that thrive on my discarded flesh and bone.
Here the blood throbs thickly, and swift, pale thought is difficult;
Dark deities I do not own come here to proselytise
Making demands in a gibberish to which I have no key;
I do not know what converts they have made
Amongst the disowned of myself,
Or what dark beliefs engage them.
I have no desire to roll in stinking mud,
Or betray myself for the shudder of a kiss.
I would go as the wind goes, bitter but so clean,
Scoured from the nightmare host, skeletal but singing.
In a clear, herb-scented fantasy where my gleaming bones can fly
Reduced to ethereal whispers, the safe-place of the mind.
Who was it welded this soft flesh to me,
So that there is no escape from the foetid, scorned encounter
In the undertow of the wastelands, where the angels do not go?
Thursday, October 04, 2007
That "woman" thang again ..
Pickles are peacable creatures really (ok the question of whether a pickle is a creature can be discussed at some more philosophical moment) .. after all, we don't like sharp knives or any suggestion of slicing or chopping, but in spite of our general squishiness we do have principles and things we are even prepared to go to the chopping block for, even at the risk of a sandwich! And for me, one of those issues is being allowed to preach and teach as a woman. I can respect people who genuinely and thoughtfully interpret the bibledifferently, as long as they can respect the biblical validity of MY position, what wears me down and out is those simply use a couple of fairly obscure verses, without proper exegetical consideration, and without looking at the bigger picture of what the bible, and the Kingdom of God, is all about, and condemn women like me as "sinful", "unbiblical" etc for honest disagreement on this issue. sometimes it just feels liker misogynistic abuse all over again.
Anyway, the subject came up on codepoke's blog, in reference to yet another group of Christians who can overlook their differences on all sorts of divisive theological issues, but are united in their condemnation of us presumptuous women! (sigh) This is part of my response:
My own denomination (Anglican, Sydney diocese) has announced that it is a sin for a woman to preach, and a sin for a man to let her. That hurts. my own minister asks me to preach regularly, in fact the whole congregation, even people who used to be a bit iffy about women preaching, are very supportive of me, but it still hurts to have God's calling on my life called "sin". it hurts to know that my sharing from the word of God, preaching truths that none of them would disagree with, is more offensive to them than someone preaching things which in reformation times would have been regarded as a different gospel! i have heard arguments back and forth about those 2 verses of Paul's on which the entire anti-women exegesis depends, and many of the alternative interpretations make good sense to me .. surely even the most conservative should be able to concede that there is some grey area there (just like there is, say, on baptism, or church government) These days I tell people who ask that I am bypassing the endless arguments on those disputed verses, and i simply take my mandate to preach, as a woman, from Jesus having told a woman to go and tell the male disciples that he had risen from the dead! (definitely new teaching)
But I get very tired knowing that every time I step out in obedience to God I come under the condemnation of men. I have also been known to say to friends that the only qualification I lack for ordination is one of those magic Y chromosomes. Still, i know the Lord has called me along this path for His purposes, and my job is to wait on Him and do whatever comes to hand for Him. but hey, you have no idea how much the encouragements along the way mean to me ..
Am I really that threatening to men?
Anyway, the subject came up on codepoke's blog, in reference to yet another group of Christians who can overlook their differences on all sorts of divisive theological issues, but are united in their condemnation of us presumptuous women! (sigh) This is part of my response:
My own denomination (Anglican, Sydney diocese) has announced that it is a sin for a woman to preach, and a sin for a man to let her. That hurts. my own minister asks me to preach regularly, in fact the whole congregation, even people who used to be a bit iffy about women preaching, are very supportive of me, but it still hurts to have God's calling on my life called "sin". it hurts to know that my sharing from the word of God, preaching truths that none of them would disagree with, is more offensive to them than someone preaching things which in reformation times would have been regarded as a different gospel! i have heard arguments back and forth about those 2 verses of Paul's on which the entire anti-women exegesis depends, and many of the alternative interpretations make good sense to me .. surely even the most conservative should be able to concede that there is some grey area there (just like there is, say, on baptism, or church government) These days I tell people who ask that I am bypassing the endless arguments on those disputed verses, and i simply take my mandate to preach, as a woman, from Jesus having told a woman to go and tell the male disciples that he had risen from the dead! (definitely new teaching)
But I get very tired knowing that every time I step out in obedience to God I come under the condemnation of men. I have also been known to say to friends that the only qualification I lack for ordination is one of those magic Y chromosomes. Still, i know the Lord has called me along this path for His purposes, and my job is to wait on Him and do whatever comes to hand for Him. but hey, you have no idea how much the encouragements along the way mean to me ..
Am I really that threatening to men?
Friday, September 28, 2007
No one will write a poem for me ..
Hot off the press, from a germ of an idea. NO, no one has ever written me a love poem .... except God!
if anyone doesn't know, an epithalamion is a marriage poem
No one will write a poem for me.
My loves are prose who work with patient fingers
To weave a life from solid practicals.
They feel no need to sing my secret song.
No star-shine summons them, no unicorns
Leap from the hedge of fear to lead across
The tired old wastelands to the faerie place,
With moonlight on their trembling, piercing horn.
No strange birds sing in tongues of sheer delight
To break the heart. No honeyed apples fall
Laced with strange magic to enchant the sense.
For them no waterfall becomes a bridge
To the dear country where love sings in tune.
My heart, crack-lipped and croaking, sings alone.
Yet not alone, no wandering minstrel I,
No patch-bedraggled seeker of the stars
Limned with strange glamour to bedazzle fools.
I am beloved in another world
Where this whole earth, dulled, darkened and afraid,
Is a mere simile, similitude..
Therefore I walk in midst of metaphor
Seeking the harmony of offered words
In the One Word once spoken into time.
Therefore I know one love, dear lasting love,
Who writes love letters in the thunderstorm,
Skywrites with rainbows his desire for me
Drops notes with falling petals, laughs his rhymes
Across each new-thrust blade of rain-fresh grass.
And there is more: his epithalamion
Written to me in letters of shed blood
Delivered to me in this wine, this bread:
Here is my poem, my lover and my food.
if anyone doesn't know, an epithalamion is a marriage poem
No one will write a poem for me.
My loves are prose who work with patient fingers
To weave a life from solid practicals.
They feel no need to sing my secret song.
No star-shine summons them, no unicorns
Leap from the hedge of fear to lead across
The tired old wastelands to the faerie place,
With moonlight on their trembling, piercing horn.
No strange birds sing in tongues of sheer delight
To break the heart. No honeyed apples fall
Laced with strange magic to enchant the sense.
For them no waterfall becomes a bridge
To the dear country where love sings in tune.
My heart, crack-lipped and croaking, sings alone.
Yet not alone, no wandering minstrel I,
No patch-bedraggled seeker of the stars
Limned with strange glamour to bedazzle fools.
I am beloved in another world
Where this whole earth, dulled, darkened and afraid,
Is a mere simile, similitude..
Therefore I walk in midst of metaphor
Seeking the harmony of offered words
In the One Word once spoken into time.
Therefore I know one love, dear lasting love,
Who writes love letters in the thunderstorm,
Skywrites with rainbows his desire for me
Drops notes with falling petals, laughs his rhymes
Across each new-thrust blade of rain-fresh grass.
And there is more: his epithalamion
Written to me in letters of shed blood
Delivered to me in this wine, this bread:
Here is my poem, my lover and my food.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The washerwoman
Just a picture-poem I wrote some years ago in my struggles, or is it??
. THE WASHERWOMAN
The slap of water on the stones;
the blows of life against my bones.
And the long toil, each day’s drear drudgery
Labour of weariness, with no respite,
Through the winters of foul mud and the summers of too little,
when I long for the cool comfort
the caress of sweet, sweet water
To my dry throat and my barren life, and my hands forever empty.
When the rains come, they come in vain
My beds are dry with too much pain..
And nothing is ever clean, not clean enough.
The stains go down to the cloth and through my fingers
Into my heart, and no washing can ever release me.
I am a thing of filth, until my soul
Finds refuge in the water, and a bird lights on my finger,
And the old pollution sweeps away downstream.
And I shall clean a covering for my children,
And the dirt shall not pass on to another generation.
. THE WASHERWOMAN
The slap of water on the stones;
the blows of life against my bones.
And the long toil, each day’s drear drudgery
Labour of weariness, with no respite,
Through the winters of foul mud and the summers of too little,
when I long for the cool comfort
the caress of sweet, sweet water
To my dry throat and my barren life, and my hands forever empty.
When the rains come, they come in vain
My beds are dry with too much pain..
And nothing is ever clean, not clean enough.
The stains go down to the cloth and through my fingers
Into my heart, and no washing can ever release me.
I am a thing of filth, until my soul
Finds refuge in the water, and a bird lights on my finger,
And the old pollution sweeps away downstream.
And I shall clean a covering for my children,
And the dirt shall not pass on to another generation.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Critic (via Ratatouille)
Went and watched Ratatouille with my daughter this afternoon. It was the usual dose of good Pixar fun, but one thing that was said in the movie really caught my attention. I went hunting on the net, and managed to find the proper quote:
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
How often do we take on the "easy" role of being the critic of someone else's work, theology or service, rather than doing the hard yards of actually getting out there and doing what we really believe?
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
How often do we take on the "easy" role of being the critic of someone else's work, theology or service, rather than doing the hard yards of actually getting out there and doing what we really believe?
Monday, September 24, 2007
Apricots
Something different -- a short, short story I wrote some years ago
“Where’d they come from?”
“Jessica.”
“What for?”
“A gift, I suppose.”
“What’s she want to go giving us gifts for, all of a sudden?”
“She grows them, you know.”
“That’s no reason to go giving them away.”
They sat, one either side of the table, and contemplated the bowl of apricots. It was a focal point of brightness in the dingy room. Once, forty years ago, this kitchen had been her pride and joy with its bright linoleum and its modern, practical, red and white formica table. But the floor had been dulled by the long defeat of years to the colour of tropical mud, and the battered table had acquired the same cheap air as a hundred sleazy cafes. The pot plants on the windowsill had withered (she never remembered to water them any more) and only one of the light bulbs was working (he had been meaning to change the other one for the last two weeks.) The Holland blinds were drawn against the heat of the afternoon sun, and the room smelt of tea that had been left brewing too long, and the beer glass that had not yet been washed up from his lunch. Surreptitiously, each leant a little closer to smell the rich sweetness of the fruit. It was the smell of memory.
“Jessie used to love apricots when she was little”
“Did she?”
“Oh, you remember, George. She used to raid the fruit bowl and the boys were always complaining because she hadn’t left any for their lunches.”
“I remember they were always complaining. Those ones would complain about anything.”
“Including their father?”
“Cheekiest kids around.”
“Not half as cheeky as the Travis kids.”
“They were terrors, those ones. Needed a man’s hand, of course.”
“Of course,” she answered, but he knew she was really laughing at him, and glared at her suspiciously.
“Then again,” she added, when she felt he had glared his fill, “Jessie wasn’t the only one in the family who loved apricots.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember Bellbird Ridge?”
He looked at her blankly for a moment, then his face creased into laughter. “You,” he said, “you and old Bob’s apricot tree! I remember something else too, ”and he shook his finger at her till a blush crept over her tired skin and she giggled, “I remember a girl who couldn’t sneak off to me in the night like we planned because she was so sick afterwards!”
The word girl brought it all back to him. She hadn’t been the only one who was sick, so to speak. While the other guys were playing the field and boasting of conquests which nobody could quite disprove, he had been sick with longing for Em Stevens, the girl from Sydney with her clear soft skin and copper hair. She had been the prettiest thing to come in their direction ever, and he still remembered the awe that had kept him tongue-tied with wonder on their wedding day, the awe that this marvellous person had actually chosen to marry him!
Forty years did hard things to a woman. The copper in her hair had changed to silver, and long years of work and weather had hardened her skin and spotted it with age. Her body had grown sturdy that had once been sapling-slender, and her beautiful eyes had taken refuge behind glasses years ago. Yet she was still quick to smile and always ready to laugh, and she still baked the best scones he had ever tasted. He found himself looking at her as if, after forty years of day in, day out familiarity, he was seeing her for the first time. She caught his eye as he looked her up and down, and he knew that she knew what he was thinking. For a moment he wanted to retreat to the safety of surliness, then, with a rush of feeling that surprised him, he decided he didn’t care.
She read his face with the same long-practised skill that she could demonstrate in interpreting a knitting pattern or a recipe, and was glad that her glasses hid the unexpected misting of her tears. Moved by a sudden impulse, she rose to her feet, proceeded to the window and tugged at the Holland blind. It shot up abruptly, and a stream of bright sunlight flowed into the room, cascading down upon the bowl of apricots. For a long, silent moment they contemplated the rich fullness of them - the swelling globules of orange gold sitting full, round and opulent in the shocking glory of the light. Dust motes danced up and down the sunbeam with the intricate, ceaseless grace of Jacob’s angels going up and down the ladder to heaven, and with the same sense of heavy purpose borne with wonderful lightness. It was as if God dwelt at both ends of the beam.
They shook their heads and looked at one another, each wondering how he or she came to be thinking of God at all when it wasn’t Sunday and they weren’t in church. There was something deeply uncomfortable and vaguely shocking about the notion of God Himself coming into their kitchen. It wasn’t His proper place. There was a tinge of fear in their eyes as they involuntarily sought each other, needing a human ally against this terrifying irregularity.
“It’s only sunlight,” he said, deliberately dismissive.
She was not so easily convinced. Her eyes lingered on the shaft of sun, and the dancing dust, and the apricots glowing quietly in the full splendour of the light. Her eyes softened, and she felt the welling prickle of tears. She knew he would see her crying as a weakness in her argument, but she was too moved by wonder to care. The tears could do what they liked. She thought of trees, and the mysterious way they drew life from the very stuff of earth, how the sap carried the mystery from the deep place of the roots, up though the trunk to the tips of the branches, where it burgeoned forth as fruit. She thought of the sun, nothing but a ball of burning gases, or so she had been taught, yet somehow the thing that all living and being depended on. It seemed to her then that nothing was mere or only, that just beyond their tight brick walls and their carefully pulled down blinds, the whole universe pulsed with terrible life, waiting to break in upon them the moment their defences should falter. Why should her kitchen be immune?
“It’s the glory of God,” she amazed herself by saying.
He wanted to laugh at her, to mock all such fancies as absurdity, but when he focussed his eyes on this blazing wonder in their midst, he couldn’t do it. “I am no stranger to miracles,” he thought, with a sudden surge of awe. He thought back across the long years of his marriage to his wedding night, to their first kiss (under the willows down by Jimmy’s creek), to the time when he had first taken her tentative hand in his and, after an agonising second, had felt her soft fingers trusting curl around his own. He was such a plain, ordinary guy, and all these years she had stayed by his side and given to him and kept on giving! They had never been rich, but they had always had enough for the glad things of life, the birthday cakes and children’s treats and something to share with the neighbours when times were hard. It suddenly seemed to him a crime that he had lived all these years amongst such bounty and never been thankful.
He became aware of his old gardening hat which he hadn’t bothered to remove when he came into the kitchen. Such courtesies had slipped from his life a long time ago. Now it seemed horribly out of place, and he tugged it from his head with an impatient gesture, and bowed his head. Would Em laugh?
She did not laugh, merely smiled softly to herself in wonder. She reached across the table and took his hand. Their eyes met and held across the apricots. “Yes,” he said, “the glory of God has come down to our kitchen.”
Simultaneously they reached out, picked up an apricot and each handed it to the other. A phrase from a lifetime of church going flitted across her memory and she repeated it aloud, “From His mercy have we all received.”
“Where’d they come from?”
“Jessica.”
“What for?”
“A gift, I suppose.”
“What’s she want to go giving us gifts for, all of a sudden?”
“She grows them, you know.”
“That’s no reason to go giving them away.”
They sat, one either side of the table, and contemplated the bowl of apricots. It was a focal point of brightness in the dingy room. Once, forty years ago, this kitchen had been her pride and joy with its bright linoleum and its modern, practical, red and white formica table. But the floor had been dulled by the long defeat of years to the colour of tropical mud, and the battered table had acquired the same cheap air as a hundred sleazy cafes. The pot plants on the windowsill had withered (she never remembered to water them any more) and only one of the light bulbs was working (he had been meaning to change the other one for the last two weeks.) The Holland blinds were drawn against the heat of the afternoon sun, and the room smelt of tea that had been left brewing too long, and the beer glass that had not yet been washed up from his lunch. Surreptitiously, each leant a little closer to smell the rich sweetness of the fruit. It was the smell of memory.
“Jessie used to love apricots when she was little”
“Did she?”
“Oh, you remember, George. She used to raid the fruit bowl and the boys were always complaining because she hadn’t left any for their lunches.”
“I remember they were always complaining. Those ones would complain about anything.”
“Including their father?”
“Cheekiest kids around.”
“Not half as cheeky as the Travis kids.”
“They were terrors, those ones. Needed a man’s hand, of course.”
“Of course,” she answered, but he knew she was really laughing at him, and glared at her suspiciously.
“Then again,” she added, when she felt he had glared his fill, “Jessie wasn’t the only one in the family who loved apricots.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember Bellbird Ridge?”
He looked at her blankly for a moment, then his face creased into laughter. “You,” he said, “you and old Bob’s apricot tree! I remember something else too, ”and he shook his finger at her till a blush crept over her tired skin and she giggled, “I remember a girl who couldn’t sneak off to me in the night like we planned because she was so sick afterwards!”
The word girl brought it all back to him. She hadn’t been the only one who was sick, so to speak. While the other guys were playing the field and boasting of conquests which nobody could quite disprove, he had been sick with longing for Em Stevens, the girl from Sydney with her clear soft skin and copper hair. She had been the prettiest thing to come in their direction ever, and he still remembered the awe that had kept him tongue-tied with wonder on their wedding day, the awe that this marvellous person had actually chosen to marry him!
Forty years did hard things to a woman. The copper in her hair had changed to silver, and long years of work and weather had hardened her skin and spotted it with age. Her body had grown sturdy that had once been sapling-slender, and her beautiful eyes had taken refuge behind glasses years ago. Yet she was still quick to smile and always ready to laugh, and she still baked the best scones he had ever tasted. He found himself looking at her as if, after forty years of day in, day out familiarity, he was seeing her for the first time. She caught his eye as he looked her up and down, and he knew that she knew what he was thinking. For a moment he wanted to retreat to the safety of surliness, then, with a rush of feeling that surprised him, he decided he didn’t care.
She read his face with the same long-practised skill that she could demonstrate in interpreting a knitting pattern or a recipe, and was glad that her glasses hid the unexpected misting of her tears. Moved by a sudden impulse, she rose to her feet, proceeded to the window and tugged at the Holland blind. It shot up abruptly, and a stream of bright sunlight flowed into the room, cascading down upon the bowl of apricots. For a long, silent moment they contemplated the rich fullness of them - the swelling globules of orange gold sitting full, round and opulent in the shocking glory of the light. Dust motes danced up and down the sunbeam with the intricate, ceaseless grace of Jacob’s angels going up and down the ladder to heaven, and with the same sense of heavy purpose borne with wonderful lightness. It was as if God dwelt at both ends of the beam.
They shook their heads and looked at one another, each wondering how he or she came to be thinking of God at all when it wasn’t Sunday and they weren’t in church. There was something deeply uncomfortable and vaguely shocking about the notion of God Himself coming into their kitchen. It wasn’t His proper place. There was a tinge of fear in their eyes as they involuntarily sought each other, needing a human ally against this terrifying irregularity.
“It’s only sunlight,” he said, deliberately dismissive.
She was not so easily convinced. Her eyes lingered on the shaft of sun, and the dancing dust, and the apricots glowing quietly in the full splendour of the light. Her eyes softened, and she felt the welling prickle of tears. She knew he would see her crying as a weakness in her argument, but she was too moved by wonder to care. The tears could do what they liked. She thought of trees, and the mysterious way they drew life from the very stuff of earth, how the sap carried the mystery from the deep place of the roots, up though the trunk to the tips of the branches, where it burgeoned forth as fruit. She thought of the sun, nothing but a ball of burning gases, or so she had been taught, yet somehow the thing that all living and being depended on. It seemed to her then that nothing was mere or only, that just beyond their tight brick walls and their carefully pulled down blinds, the whole universe pulsed with terrible life, waiting to break in upon them the moment their defences should falter. Why should her kitchen be immune?
“It’s the glory of God,” she amazed herself by saying.
He wanted to laugh at her, to mock all such fancies as absurdity, but when he focussed his eyes on this blazing wonder in their midst, he couldn’t do it. “I am no stranger to miracles,” he thought, with a sudden surge of awe. He thought back across the long years of his marriage to his wedding night, to their first kiss (under the willows down by Jimmy’s creek), to the time when he had first taken her tentative hand in his and, after an agonising second, had felt her soft fingers trusting curl around his own. He was such a plain, ordinary guy, and all these years she had stayed by his side and given to him and kept on giving! They had never been rich, but they had always had enough for the glad things of life, the birthday cakes and children’s treats and something to share with the neighbours when times were hard. It suddenly seemed to him a crime that he had lived all these years amongst such bounty and never been thankful.
He became aware of his old gardening hat which he hadn’t bothered to remove when he came into the kitchen. Such courtesies had slipped from his life a long time ago. Now it seemed horribly out of place, and he tugged it from his head with an impatient gesture, and bowed his head. Would Em laugh?
She did not laugh, merely smiled softly to herself in wonder. She reached across the table and took his hand. Their eyes met and held across the apricots. “Yes,” he said, “the glory of God has come down to our kitchen.”
Simultaneously they reached out, picked up an apricot and each handed it to the other. A phrase from a lifetime of church going flitted across her memory and she repeated it aloud, “From His mercy have we all received.”
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