A SPRINGTIME WALK AROUND THE CRESCENT...


A SPRINGTIME WALK AROUND THE CRESCENT…
I live in an apartment.  Like everyone else, I have waited longingly for spring, seemingly so late in arriving this year.  My apartment faces the north-east, with a restful view of the gardens, mature trees and woods.  I get the morning sun until about 11:30 am, and so tend to rush out to soak in it on my balcony in the early morning.  In the afternoon, I have been drawn by the warmth of the sun and the blossoming trees to go out the front door of our building and walk in either direction around our street, which is a crescent, and on the larger street adjoined to it, and the nearby plaza occasionally.
              One thing I have learned through being vehicleless these last few years is that on a bus or in a car you can miss everything.  On my first walk I almost tripped over a sidewalk crack, but suddenly saw and smelled some lovely wild roses.  I have also learned that someone else’s apple tree is also mine, since I can reach up to enjoy that springtime aroma, so nostalgic for me, from our childhood orchard with its mature apple trees, its fruit turned into apple cider using our tractor and cider press attachment.
              On my first walk this year around the crescent, I used a walker, a leftover from my ligament injury last year.  Then I tried using a cane, just for balance, and because of my vision.  One day I dropped the cane on my walk on the main street. A boy who looked to be about eight years old, coming from the opposite direction, stopped and asked:
              “May I get that for you?”
I said yes and thanked him as he politely picked up my cane and continued on his way.  What a beautiful child, so well brought up, and giving me great hope for tomorrow.  I pray for his salvation, and the opportunity to bring the glorious Gospel to the children of this generation.  It’s their and our only hope.
              On my latest walk, I turned up the shady evergreen-lined path towards our back door.  Sitting on the paved path was the biggest, fattest bullfrog of a pine cone you ever saw.  I picked it up in wonderment at its beauty and design.  Shaped like a Christmas tree, it brought back memories of painting pine cones at Christmas time, probably not well, but bringing my brother and me creative satisfaction, encouraged always by our mother.  Turning the cone upside down, I saw the intricacy of the artistic arrangement of its brown discs-surely a study for the homeschoolers of geometry and art – and above all, of its Creator’s and ours’ great knowledge and wisdom.  Looking down from the top of the cone, I remembered my mother’s teaching me about three and five being the artistic numbers for arranging flowers in a vase.   There was one split spike at the top, then three “petals” (sorry, I don’t know the correct term), then under that five, then they became uneven but branched out in greater numbers.  I delightedly placed the pine cone (was it placed there by angels for me to discover?) on my coffee table to add its natural beauty to my African bowl filled with stones and shells from my life’s adventures.
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.  (Psalm 19: 1-3 KJV).

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