It’s never as bad as you may think it is

SOUL FOOD

“All things bright and beautiful, the Lord God made them all.”

-- Cecil F. Alexander

One recent Monday afternoon I was driving home after a morning of

errands and appointments, each felled by snafus attributed by a

half-dozen folks to Murphy’s infamous law.

I don’t actually believe in Murphy’s Law, the idea that if

anything can go wrong it will. No matter how many things go wrong,

there are still more things that could go wrong and don’t. I’m sure.

It’s a thought that usually cheers me up but on this particular

Monday afternoon, it simply didn’t.

Things I needed to pick up weren’t ready. People I needed to meet

with had forgotten, gotten sick or postponed to take a long weekend.

I’d let it all make me tense and cranky and tired.

Then I saw her. I was driving especially slowly on a street that

runs alongside an elementary school barely a block from my house. Her

head of flaxen curls caught the light and the light caught my eye.

She was a 3-year-old, maybe pushing 4. She was riding a shiny

scooter with purple handgrips and lime-green wheels down the sidewalk

parallel to the street.

With a tiny, tanned leg, she pumped the scooter forward with the

force and grace of an athlete. She pulled her foot onto the deck of

the scooter without a wobble and crouched. She lifted her chin into

the wind. Her glee shone as golden as her hair.

I felt like an angel had flown by with a 3-D postcard from God to

me. I heard myself humming.

The tall trees in the greenwood, the meadows where we play, the

rushes by the water to gather every day.

Though I don’t remember being taught the verses of Cecil F.

Alexander’s “All

Things Bright and Beautiful,” it is the first song I ever remember

singing, and I sang it often, with all my heart.

The purple-headed mountains, the river running by, the sunset and

the morning that brightens up the sky.

Here where I now live in this coastland quilt of housing, commerce

and suburban parks, greenwoods and meadows and rushes have the ring

of antediluvian things. But for much of my childhood near the eastern

and Gulf Coast they were commonplace things.

I walked through the greenwood to school. Along the wood’s

less-trodden trails I could, really, gather rushes by the water or

pollywogs in a jar. The meadow or pasture or pine stand was always

just out our back door.

I rolled in sweet clover and ran through the grass. I traced the

marshy banks of ponds and the glistening edges of streams. I sat

still for endless hours to watch the animate things that lived in the

woods, the pastures and the meadows. I picked their flowers and their

wild fruits that ripened in the summer sun.

On dreary days, these things gave me comfort. On miserable days,

they cheered me up. I received them like bountiful gifts. And I sang

my thanksgiving through the words of Alexander.

He gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell how great

is God Almighty, who has made all things well.

Like the wind in the face of that tiny girl on her scooter, they

were my golden glee. The greenwood and the meadows are no longer

outside my back door. Wildflowers are far away. Wild fruits are

scarce. But here at the edge of this vast continent the sunset and

the morning still brighten up the sky. And on a day when errands and

appointments run aground, the sea breeze and salt air are a tonic;

the crashing surf, a lullaby. All things bright and beautiful, Lord

God, thank you for them all.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].