January

Today, I'm removing Christmas decor in an attempt to put my home into some semblance of order. After all, the holidays are over. Sunday we will host a first birthday party for Baby Boy but since he is the only child in the family, I fear the party will have an adult feel to it. Of course, the theme will be "Bob the Builder". Baby Boy has a "Bob" doll here that I keep bumping in to - which causes him to proclaim, "We've got work to do!". Yes, Bob. I know that (bob just may get a 'battery-ectomy' before this day is through...).

I'm also sorting books. Just when I thought I was through, I tried to move a large suitcase, only to find it FULL of books. FULL.

Now, THGGM could find a suitcase full of books and pitch them into the dumpster without nary a tear. I found a "McDuff" book, which is about a West Highland White Terrier. If you recall, I used to have one. I cried.

After I made a new home for most of those books I began sorting the book shelves on either side of the fireplace. Again, THGGM does not have a 'thing' for books. He would not have noticed that I have Woodhouse, Trollope and a first edition Taylor Caldwell.

On the encouragement of many fellow bloggers who are decluttering, I perused my shelves for things to donate. A small stack was all I could do, and I've pulled a few things out of it already. What's left is mostly duplicates of books I love.

Can you guess how much progress I'm making sorting books? Can you guess how often I fall into a book? Nope. You are not guessing high enough. You are not even close. I assure you.

One small ratty-looking paperback that I tossed in the give-away pile was (was - because i rescued it) Joseph Bayly's "The View from a Hearse". I'm so glad I thumbed through it and decided to hang onto it until I'd copied down the John Donne poems. Then, because I am like this, I read the last page. I'll certainly be reshelving this book. The last page follows. WhenTHGGM was the elder of worship at our church many years ago, he read these words at the opening of a January worship service.

"One Saturday morning in January, I saw the mail truck stop at our mailbox up on the road.

Without thinking, except that I wanted to get the mail, I ran out of the house and up to the road in my shirtsleeves. It was bitterly cold - the temperature was below zero - there was a brisk wind from the north, and the ground was covered with more than a foot of snow.

I opened the mailbox, pulled out the mail, and was about to make a dash for the house when I saw what was on the bottom, under the letters: a Burpee seed catalog.

On the front were bright zinnias. I turned it over. On the back were huge tomatoes.

For a few moments I was oblivious to the cold, delivered from it. I leafed through the catalog, tasting corn and cucumbers, smelling roses. I saw the freshly plowed earth, smelled it, let it run through my fingers.

For those brief moments, I was living in the springtime and summer, winter past.

Then the cold penetrated to my bones and I ran back to the house.

When the door was closed behind me, and I was getting warm again, I thought how my moments at the mailbox were like our experiences as Christians.

We feel the cold, along with those who do not share our hope. The biting wind penetrates us as them.

But in our cold times, we have a seed catalog. We open it and smell the promised spring, eternal spring. And the firstfruit that settles our hope is Jesus Christ, who was raised from death and cold earth to glory eternal"

So I have a lot of books. Big deal.