This trip to the University had more in store than goodbyes to the babygirl.

To boil the sights and sounds down... to the south was the trumpeter angel, who seemed perturbed about something. Before he flew in, there was a telescope south and a microscope and friends holding them to the west. I am meditating on the fact that God would lend us friendships with one another in these days and purpose and hope to a generation so undeserving.

"definitely the peephole lies somewhere between undeserved and inconsequential"

It was Helen, up to her usual antics showing how talking and hearing people can miss the signposts toward eternity for their busy-ness...

When I looked up

in the sky for the Perseid shower, I saw clouds... I saw a fish shaped cloud on the left and the bones of the fish on the right. the star was at the nose of the fish...

Here's your hat, Where are your socks?

I see the angels working and laboring in the area of protecting and directing little children in their infancy and growth. As I work together with them, I find that my deep-seeded pains are pulled and rooted and dealt with, as I give myself to something other than self.

A game that we started together was sock play with the children. They would eat the socks off their feet and one day in March, I came in and we started to play with the socks as balls. Where are your socks? and we chased them and we played rolling the socks and giggled and found infant delight playing ball with the socks. Karadyn, who was the oldest of the group always reminds me of that game when she takes off her socks. Yesterday, this many months after our first time playing that game, Kara took her socks and started an older version of the same game and the two of us were giggling, like teenagers. She is 1 and I am 53 and we are not even close to teenagers. She took her sock and kept teasing me with it and I kept pretending to try to take it.

I remember Ruth in this conversation, who was my most difficult relationship. When baby Ben had died, she said to me "Where's your faith, Jayne?" I keep hearing her and knowing that this question is exactly what that trial was about. She was the only one brave enough to ask me that. She wasn't impressed by my sore and sour attitude in the trial. She hadn't had that experience, but she knew that Christians are supposed to look for where God is, in their sufferings. It is not a game, but it is a truth that God is hiding a part of His presence behind that dark cloud of upsetment. He doesn't seem to be there, in the darkness, but He most certainly is there. Looking back, He asks, was I there with you, in the darkness? And it does seem like a game, one day in the future, when you see what you thought God was doing and you see what God was actually doing. God was drawing you closer to Himself. You could only see the tears.

I see that in Kara's game. I see that in the delightful game we created with each other. Where's your sock? That is my sock. No, it's your sock. We laugh about that, but I still can't laugh about my baby, but I know that he is with God and one day, I will know that Ruth's question was what that trial was all about. Where is your faith? I am still searching where my faith is on that issue. The angels and the babies are looking with me for it.

"Now we see through a glass darkly..."

Whenever I see that beautiful cinematography that was part of the beginning of "the Miracle Worker"movie, years and years ago, I think of that verse in the Bible.

Now we see through a glass darkly...1 Corinthians 13:12

How many questions the story of Helen Keller evokes? Why would God allow suffering? How could a human mind overcome those huge impediments? What love that a mother has to search the world for the right instruction for her child?

God loves us, His Church more! More than Mother Keller, more than Annie Sullivan, more than America loved Helen, God loves His Church. He is guiding us and teaching us and holding us and cleaning us up.

That Is Not Fiction!

My seeing Helen everywhere I go is.

Yesterday, the starlings came to check up on me.

They were flying high above, on our way to work.

Don't you want to hear how we swooped over "Pearly Cow's" ears this morning. I said, another time, but I am much obliged at your care and staying in touch. They said they could not forget our season of conversations. People hardly get their jokes, they said.

I said the jokes are over my head, but I try to understand them anyway. We laughed all the way to work at that one...

Kary-Anne's Harpsong

6 year old Kary-Anne was a prodigy. She and her harp were inseparable. Daily, her waking hours were spent in the enjoyment and delight of practice and learning new music. This was the renaissance of Pompeii. She was among many, many young talented people who spent their hours fully attached to their instruments while their parents worked and developed culture around them.

I never saw a mighty man in any movie like the one I saw in the clouds the other day.

Whoever has cloud duty knows exactly where to put the things that they want me to see. I am not going to see the whole sky. I have sky-phobia, sometimes. New Yorkers are not used to seeing so much of the sky. I avoid looking too much at the huge sky that they have here in NC. They must have taken stock in the sky in early pilgrim days. New York has a little piece of sky and it seems our desire to paint skylines everywhere. Anything to block the sky from coming too close. We push it away and I have to resist my natural desire not to look. It is beautiful down here, though.

I thought of our great savior, who is stronger than the strong man and mighty to deliver and save, all who come to God through Him. I always think Uncle Charles is telling me that. It wasn't his style, though. He usually has sublime messages for me.