Ten-Finger Exercises

Bring forth out of your treasure things new and old.

The heat is still with us, but the signs of transition to fall have begun. The pool is already cooling off too much in the evenings to be pleasant except in the heat of the day. It always happens that way, and just when I long to lie out in it at night and watch the meteor showers of August. But the apples on the trees are beginning to get their color from those cool nights.

The finches and sparrows are hogging the bird feeders like there's no tomorrow, one on every perch. They make me think of a sow with pigs. They're even on every big sunflower leaf on the strong plants they've planted themselves with their messy eating. I tried to get a picture this morning, but didn't succeed. They're intent, but not so much that they don't notice me.

Yesterday I went to a funeral--not my favorite thing to do, but necessary in my line of work. It was exceptional. The pastor wore a cowboy shirt and bolo tie and held back tears as he talked about this man he'd known for thirty years. Ted was a wheat farmer. Not a rancher: he didn't own his own land. "He belonged to an age that is gone, an age when a farmer could make a living for his family and others on a farm."

One of the lessons he learned in life, and taught by example, was not to back up, especially on a tractor or a combine, but also in life in general. This is dry land wheat country, hot and hilly, dangerous on a combine. Steer your way out instead.And if something's broken, fix it, even if you have to "hay bale" it together.

Ted was not a very vocal man, the pastor said, until he began calling square dances. Then "the light came on."

Ted had, he said, "the gift of letting people learn without his advice." Loving them, helping if they asked, but not taking over. (I've always thought I had the same gift, but wondered if anybody else would see it as a gift at all.)

The music was two old hymns that take a good voice to sing, and consequently I'd never pick them: "How Great Thou Art," and "It Is Well With My Soul." The singer, a young woman named Laura, had a wonderful, wonderful voice. I hadn't heard her before, and yet, as I walked to my car, I thought I had. So I went back and made a second trip through the line to ask if she was the Laura Williams I remembered as a teenager twenty years ago in another town. She was.

P.S. The title of this comes from the passage from Matthew 13:52. I'm not sure why it came to mind, but I think it will be the subject of another blog.