rein, rein, gueux eveille

gomme a gaine, en horreur, taie.

"Queen, Queen, arouse the rabble

Who use their girdles, horrors, as pillow slips."

It looks to be another long day of rain. The corner of that hedge cutting into the gray sky makes me think about maybe gazing at the brick wall of the church instead. But probably not. Those bricks seem to go on for miles and miles and miles. Told Matt yesterday it's what I imagine a prison wall might look like. "Not with that cross," he said. But really, doesn't that make it worse? I mean, when Paul said he was a 'prisoner for the sake of the gospel' he wasn't speaking figuratively or metaphorically, he really was one. And here I am, a free person, luxuriating in my opulent bed, merely looking at a gray sky and a rather plain hedge and wall. Were it not for the cross, looming over me, reminding me that I am suppose to be chained to the gospel, I could just mutter to myself, but now I have to feel guilty about the muttering.

Anyway, we won't be able to go out, if it rains. I don't think Paul, for all his chains, was ever cooped up in a house with six children nagging him to check their math and tell them what a meteor is. And no prospect of making them run laps around the yard, or dig for more rocks, or cut back the fading tulips.

We will just sit inside and wallow in piles of clean laundry that have been washed in our own house in a washing machine that works quietly and reliably--a free machine, I might add, an Incredible and lovely gift from incredible and lovely friends. And we will be grateful that Matt doesn't automatically have surgery coming for his hand. Hopefully it will be something like gentle therapy and anti-inflammatory somethings. And we will try to replicate the amazing miracle of yesterday wherein we finished school by noon (!!!!!) and had the rest of the day to play and scrub the kitchen floor.

For the last two weeks we have returned to our long lost custom of saying Morning Prayer over breakfast. Is it possible that that might have had some effect on our ability to get through the day in a more reasonable manner? "What! Prayer?" as some might say, "Has it come to that?" I will try to thank God, all day, and count things together for joy, especially that cross done so solidly in brick. And maybe the rain will go away, loosing us from this tiny prison of our tiny minds.