My writing desk is surrounded by joy.
There’s the latest drawing by my granddaughter depicting her conception of her picture being taken by her mother, whose outstretched cell phone captures both their biggest-grin faces, and both – accurately drawn – with lots of hair.
“And that’s you grandpa,” she said, pointing to the stick figure to the right, her arm in the drawing reaching out to my leg.
I do have more hair than that – she didn’t in fact give me any – but what is correctly pictured, and very much her joy, is to grab onto my leg and be dragged about the kitchen floor when I am in search of my breakfast.
Around about are the books that bring me comfort, help and hope following the death of my wife now almost a year ago.
The picture of the stars, vast and innumerable, brightening the night sky, conveys the simple two-word message, “Look Up” which causes me to do just that.
Above are some Volkswagen bug memorabilia given as gifts, mementos, of the little green ‘chariot’ that carried my wife and me down so many memory lanes over so many years into the wonderful world we discovered on our many adventures together.
Interestingly, “look up” is actually what is intended, Barnes says in his commentary on Psalm 42:1, of the picture drawn by the Psalmist David of the deer “panting” after water.
The setting is a parched and barren land, but the deer has joyfully found, where it has thus quenched its thirst, a brook where flows cool, clear water.
To “pant,” Barnes declares, “properly means to rise; to ascend; to long for.
“To look up.”
To look up to the author, and restorer, of life, and love.
