Wrong kind of drift!

Today I’m a lazy-river-drifter. More ground-zero, if you get my drift. I did enter my novel in a 1st Novel contest.

For the past week or so, I’ve read more than I’ve written. About January I set a goal to write a new poem each week. Friday I actually completed, well, started and completed, an Easter poem entitled “At the Tomb.” I’d like to share it, but I think contests want unpublished works. And they consider a blog posting as publication.

I’ve read the latest Clive Cussler novels, The Wrecker and Silent Seas. Both are on the Times top sellers. If you enjoy fast-paced adventure novels, try Cussler.

Yesterday I finally bought a book I’d been eying for a month - If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus by Philip Gulley. He’s a Quaker and quite laid-back. Also not nearly as fundamentalist as many people I know.

If you’ve been enjoying my postings, spread the word. If you have some compositions you’d like to share, include them in a comment.

Since I heard some favorable responses to “Never Again,” I’ll include another vignette in this post.

Tomorrow I’ll delve into reading poetry. Unless you’re a poet and your feet show it -- they’re Longfellows, poems don’t have to rhyme. I need to find some inspiration for this week's poem.

WHAT’S THAT AGAIN?

I don’t need Art Linkletter to tell me kids say the darnedest things. My own kids taught me that. For example, when I’m the only adult in the house with my five year old David and the telephone rings, I know to yell, “DO NOT ANSWER THAT PHONE! JUST LET IT RING!” The reason I learned that is David once told some caller--who, so far as I know, never called back--what I was doing.

Not only do kids say the darnedest things, they ask some really good questions. As a teacher, I think kids ought to be encouraged to ask questions. As a parent, I think they ought to learn self-control.

Now I can handle things like “Where does the sun go at night?” And I can even handle those with answers I don’t know, such as, “Daddy, why are carrots yellow and peas green?” I just use a side-stepping technique like, “Maria, don’t talk with food in your mouth.”

But you know, kids also ask questions that have no answers. Questions that not only leave me confused, but also wondering how I can explain to the child that there is no way to give an answer. I just have to sit there looking dumb.

One morning when Maria was in the first grade and David was four, the three of us were sitting at the bar eating our oatmeal. Maria on my right, David on my left.

“Daddy,” Maria said, setting her spoon down and leaning over on my arm, “do you want to hear me count to one hundred by fives?”

“I sure do, Baby,” I told her as I took a sip of my orange juice. “Let me hear you.”

“Five, ten, fifteen, twenty,” she went, sing-songy and sure of herself all the way to one hundred without a miss. “Wasn’t that good!” she asked, looking at me with beaming brown eyes.

“That was just great!” I told her with true pride, and I gave her a hug and a kiss.

David, who had stopped eating as soon as Maria began to count, hung on my left arm watching Maria with total concentration. Then, as I was about to resume my breakfast with a big slug of coffee, David tugged my sleeve and asked, “Daddy, can you count to four by five’s?”

I froze! My coffee cup stopped motionless halfway to my mouth while my mind spun in a rapid-search mode. I came up with nothing and quit. After a moment, I regained control and turned to David, setting my coffee down, “No, Buddy-boy, I can’t.”

“OK,” he said and went back to his oatmeal.

All that day I wanted to tell everyone I saw how David had stumped me. And slowly, as I told and retold the story, I realized I had the answer to one of my questions: “Can I ask God something He can’t answer?” If I had God’s intellect and wisdom, then He could answer anything I asked. But I have finite knowledge; so to Him, some of my questions are just like David’s “Can you count to four by fives?”

For some odd reason, I also feel that when I ask God one of my unanswerable questions, He wants to call to one of His angels, “Guess what that Andrew just asked me.” I think God really likes to hear my voice.