Lebensdust

Setting sunlight through the front door of Clarence's boyhood home. The angle, brightness, color, and association with long summer days are indelible.

When I look around my house in the evening, I wonder how many people sat where I am sitting, watched the sun seep slowly across the floor like spilled paint, coat table legs and baseboards and motes of lebensdust suspended between creeping shadows.

Maybe they told themselves how pretty the lawn looked after mowing it the day before, or wondered why the Finkbeiners always have their curtains drawn, or it looks like rain or snow or going to be clear and dry again.

Every house I've lived in was a home to someone before me. My boyhood home dates back to WWII and was owned by a pastor when Mom and Dad bought it. His library was upstairs and became a bedroom for me and brother Tom.

Maybe they prayed for an end to the war, maybe they buried a son, or waved flags on V-E Day, and again on V-J Day, wondered Where's Korea? We just ended one for God's sake and hadn't the energy to understand Vietnam.

I've reflected like this since I was a child. Perhaps everyone does and I just happen to write about it.

c0

Clarence ends each prayer with these words:

Lord, help thou my unbelief, and be merciful to me, a sinner.

Not very original, but sincere.  

Does that count?

[2014-05-19]

c0