like a watered garden

Recent reading: Leslie Jonath's Postmark Paris: A Story in Stamps. Charming and deceptively light -- it reminds me of Debi Gliori's No Matter What, in that there's the kid-level face-value narrative, but also an adult-level sub-layer in the illustrations and between-the-lines. For instance, opposite a reproduction of Georges Seurat's Le Noeud noir, the ten-year-old narrator says:

Once when we vacationed in the Dordogne, my mother went for a walk in the woods. Later, she came back crying and ran into my father's arms. She'd found an old cemetery, she said, and had stopped in front of a weedy, forgotten grave. When she looked at the tombstone, she was shocked to read her own name there.

After she told us the story, she stopped crying, and then started to laugh. My father held her for a long time. I didn't know what she found so funny.

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I was lay leader and hymn leader at my church on New Year's Day. One of the readings was adapted from Isaiah 58:

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

The theme of the month is Justice. (Each month, the services are designed to explore and honor the theme in question.) Later this month, we will be ordaining a woman stationed at Fort Campbell who will become an army chaplain. I am very much looking forward to that service.

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Given the ongoing bout of bronchitis, my voice wasn't in good form Sunday morning, but it was functional, and that was enough. That's pretty much my m.o. for this week. I'm steaming my face frequently over pots of hot water/cider/soup, and that seems to be helping as well.