|
Truth be told both Alfred and Pippa
were moping because Mother had gone away.
Alfred sat back in his chair with his elbows resting on the arms of his
chair and his hands slightly raised in front of him with the tips of his
fingers touching. He looked down. “Oh, no!” he said aloud. He was actually twiddling his thumbs.
He thought to himself, “I really
don’t do ‘alone’ very well. ‘ It’s not good for a man to be alone’, and it is
certainly not good for me to be alone either.”
He reached down under the table and gave Pippa the last piece of
Cheshire Cheese, took up his tray and headed for the kitchen.
Alfred had a long standing habit of
rising before Mother and generally treasured a time of solitude at the
beginning of the day. In the last few
months he had begun to read from the Book of Psalms along with a reading from
the Old Testament or an Epistle, and always a reading from the four Gospels.
That was all well and good but
Alfred was not a recluse and he needed company, particularly Mother’s company
even more than he needed those early morning times of solitude. He went into his study, picked up the phone
and dialed the number for Horace Whittington.
It rang and rang and rang, and in the end he put the phone down, sat
down in his Churchill Barcalounger, turned on his Samsung UNF3000 television
and idly scrolled down through the selection of available programming.
He frowned, “No matter how
excellent the TV, it is still the same old programming.” He finally settled on a PBS program on Royal
Palaces. He watched for a few minutes,
then turned it off again. It only made
him think of Mother. Just the kind of
program she loved. He called Pippa and
ambled back out into the quiet of the garden.
It was there that a very unusual
thing began to happen. He felt a
presence, not just any presence, but the Presence of Him who had died for him
and rose again. The night sky with its myriad of stars shone brightly in the
garden. The garden seemed packed quite
full with love as Love Himself came and filled the very place where Alfred and
Pippa stood together. Love in all His
warmth and freshness came filling the very air that Alfred breathed; and as he
breathed, that Love above all other loves, entered in. It was
strong hands upon his shoulders. He was
enfolded, loved, calmed.
He thought of that line from the
Book of Psalms, “You strengthen me more and more; you enfold and comfort me.”[ii] It was good, very good! But he still missed Mother. Thank goodness she would be back tomorrow
afternoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment