In Love with the Creator

by John C. Westervelt

     On the day after New Year’s Day a year ago, the afternoon forecast was for fifty degrees.  Asbury preschool would not begin for several days, so I was home alone.  The bright sun beckoned me to join her outside.  My black jacket and lined cap felt good in the cool, crisp air.

     Forty-three years ago, Nelda and I asked architect Wesley Crone to draw plans for the house we planned to build.  The back of the fireplace is a part of one wall of the utility room.  I built a lattice in the shape of two diamonds with three inch long and one inch in diameter pegs on the corners of the diamonds to be mounted on the utility room brick wall.  The lower pegs held the children’s jackets, and the higher ones were for Nelda and me.

     Twenty-five years ago, I bought a jacket for working in the yard and garage.  I chose black to hide dirt from when I was working under the hood of the car or turning over the soil for next year’s garden.  Today, any time I step out the door to the garage in cold weather, I stop by the utility room to slip on my black jacket and a cap.

     On this day early in January, I went to the west side of my house.  Bricks lined up in several rows make a terrace for vinca minor covering the gently sloping ground on the side of the house.  The bricks, lying on their side, are buried half way in the ground.  A half dozen bricks were out of place.

     Sitting on my garden stool with my trowel, I dug a hole for an errant brick.  As I dug in the moist soil, I caught the aroma of the earth itself, and I was reminded of the wonders of God’s creation.  My black jacket absorbed the rays of the sun making me feel toasty warm.

     I love my grandfather Gideon, who died before I was born, for moving his family in wagons from Missouri to warmer Oklahoma when my dad was a boy.  I’m in love with God for his design of fusion on the sun, which warms me with the same energy that makes all of life possible on earth.

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