More LIVE workshop... on the horse, 2

Sometimes things have to go wrong so they can go right.

Back then it was the cancellation of several college classes due to low enrollment, today it was a caregiver too sick to work.  At that time it meant I'd be home for at least three months, I felt relieved, I embraced those winter months.  I gave myself to the winter and to Western dreams and writing.

Today [Winter, 2008?... 9?] again with nearly a foot of snow on the ground, my sister-in-law Jackie along with Bonnie and Schuyler, have come to fill in; to care for me.  My house has been a relatively soundless place.  This is the sound of creativity, homeschooling, writing and dreaming all day long together.  The three of them are brilliant each in their own right.  That is definitely Uncle Randy's opinion.  Throughout the day only rarely do I leave my office, do we engage.  And when we do its "what do you think of this dragon, I'm adding stripes to its wings" or "listen to this quote from Lewis" or my niece, 15 shares a poem where she walks down a deep stairway into her own heart.  She turns a phrase "you are here with me in this place" or something to that effect.  I wonder if it's me she's talking about, or mom or dad, or god forbid the boyfriend.  I touch her face with my eyes.  "It's beautiful Bonnie, absolutely beautiful."

Later in the day we get pizza, I play them my favorite new music, Jill's home and we laugh our way into Friday night.  But for most of the day, the four of us settle into the silent house, into the work of creation.  Sketching landscapes, putting words onto pages, addressing the universe.  I paint a world with a gym, where I'm seated with people listening to my sermon, Schuyler slays the dragon he drafts and is off with a sword to the next dire challenge, Bonnie swims in romance and teen-longing, Jackie rides a bike with a friend, retracing another of God's faces.

We live for that time within the world's we create, four world's in one house.  I realize this not in some spiritual posture, intentional meditation but while relieving myself.  So often things will occur to me when I let my body give back what it does not desire to keep. Each of us are there in our own world, within one house.  One house on one street and then (keep the camera inching back, please) see a block, a neighborhood with houses dabbed in till outnumbered by the trees.  How many take potty breaks and rediscover the world, apprehend in a sigh of release, their own molecular dimensions, the contours of the cosmos? Keep stepping back until you're in God's lap witnessing endless worlds within worlds, limitless creation.  Only a benevolent creator can give a gift like this.  It's not a restroom, it's a sanctuary -- behold the throne of God.  It is a place to receive the gift of winter and words, the present prize of endless worlds.