July's Joy Provocations

Day 1 is 3 gifts I love:  water, adventure, my boys

Knox is petting a brown-banded bamboo shark

Day 2 is 3 gifts I've read:  

 1.  the power of language and beauty

from Crow by Ted Hughes the poem 

"Crow Goes Hunting"

Crow

Decided to try words.

He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack--

Clear-eyed, resounding, well-trained,

With strong teeth.

You could not find a better bred lot.

He pointed out the hare and away went the words

Resounding.

Crow is Crow without fail, but what is a hare?

It converted itself to a concrete bunker.

The words circled protesting, resounding,

Crow turned the words into bombs--they blasted the bunker.

The bits of bunker flew up--a flock of starlings

Crow turned the words into shotguns, they shot down the starlings.

The falling starlings turned to a cloudburst.

Crow turned the words into a reservoir, collecting the water.

The water turned into an earthquake, swallowing the reservoir.

The earthquake turned into a hare and leaped for the hill

having eaten Crow's words.

Crow gazed after the bounding hare

Speechless with admiration. 

2.  God's word revealing His character

 Psalm 136 and its refrain "for his steadfast love endures forever"

3.  Good literature

 I'm reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot.  Prince Myshkin, who Dostoyevsky wrote in his journals would be a type of Christ, is the idiot, obviously not in the sense we use the word now, more like innocent, a completely good person.  And in chapter 6, the Prince is explaining why he had never been in love because he had always been around children while he was receiving "the cure."  On page 69, the prince's statement:  "Through children the soul is healed" puts in my mind Christ surrounded by children saying, "Let them come to me; do not hinder them."  A good thought the week before VBS.

  Day 3 is 3 gifts in family, faith, and freedom:  from my family--the gift of feeling loved and helping to work out my sanctification (my Benny-boy with his "What can I doooooooo?), from my faith--the love of brothers and sisters in Christ who I know really are praying for me as I am for them (our family swimming at the church members' pool), and freedom reminds me of the pet fish, Freedom, I had once and the excitement of my boys as they set up their home yesterday (Turbo, Gordon, and Precious)

Day 4 is 3 gifts red, white, and blue:  my tea pot, D's favorite shirt, and my favorite summertime necklace crafted by my beautiful, talented, smart, fun, and kind sis-in-law, Mary Sawyer