words well written

reading Gilead, these most recent moments between Christmas and now, has been like eating fine Belgian milk chocolate. writing to be held between two fingers, carefully broken off and savored, swallowed, the taste and texture lingering on tongue and tooth. a melting, flowing, expanding, gentle kind of pleasure. tempted to gorge on it, inhale it, except that i know it and i would be diminished somehow, if i did.

a Whitman's sampler from my reading this afternoon, perhaps to whet your appetite (the book is written in the voice of aging/dying man (a retiring small town pastor) who has a younger wife, and an especially young son, to whom this epistle/memoir of sorts is written; a letter to be read when he has passed, when his son is a grown man):

"You and Tobias are hopping around in the sprinkler. The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to sunshine. That does occur in nature, but it is rare...Well, but you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water."
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"Each morning I'm like Adam waking up in Eden, amazed at the cleverness of my hands and at the briliance pouring into my mind through my eyes--old hands, old eyes, old mind, a very diminished Adam altogether, and still it is just remarkable. What of me will I still have? Well, this old body has been a pretty good companion. Like Balaam's ass, it's seen the angel I haven't seen yet, and it's lying down in the path."
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"If you remember me at all, you may find me explained a little by what I am telling you...As you read this, I hope you will understand that when I speak of the long night that preceeded these days of my hapiness, I do not remember grief and loneliness so much as I do peace and comfort--grief, but never without comfort; loneliness, but never without peace. Almost never. "
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"I have said at least once a week my whole adult life that there is an absolute disjunction between our Father's love and our deserving. Still, when I see this same disjunction between human parents and children, it always irritates me a little. (I know you will be and I hope you are an excellent man, and I will love you absolutely if you are not.)"

finger lickin' good, to use an entirely unworthy expression.

first and second (updated...)

first basketball game of the season for our church league team later this morning. we finished third in the "warm up" fall season (no playoffs in the fall season, so i think of it as a warm up for the "real" season that is the winter/spring season). still have lingering injuries to my left knee and right ankle, but nothing severe enough to keep me off the court (i hope!). in my more rational moments, i'm thinking maybe "lingering" is just par for the course for any aches and pains at this stage of my athletics life...but i keep hope alive that with enough conditioning and time without further injuries, i'll be playing like a 22 year old again any day now. our team is hoping that we'll play better this season too, now that we've had some time to gel with the new players that joined last season.

*update* nice effort today - we won by 15 or 20, in a pretty physical contest. sure is a fun group of guys to play with, and lots of support from our families. not that any of our "fans" actually watch the game, but they sure seem to have a good time together.

second saturday outreach this afternoon. we'd been thinking about shoveling snow for driveways in need, but the snowfall looks pretty spotty, so it'll probably be bathrooms getting the love today.

*update* tacobell, kfc, citgo, arby's, and mickey d's were our targets today, and all graciously allowed us to tackle their toilets. Rich, Connor, Arnie, and David (all restroom rookies, i think) did the Master proud, serving with good humor and enthusiasm. funny, the employees at the places with the grungiest bathrooms (don't worry, we won't name names) had the biggest smiles on their faces when we were done. reminded me of Jesus' famous mission statement: "it's not the righteous who need a doctor, but the sick..."