The glory of everything
October 16, 2009
The other night we finished reading "Charlotte's Web". Sigh... Of course the whole book is a masterpiece but I felt I could linger forever on this second last paragraph:
Mr. Zuckerman took fine care of Wilbur all the rest of his days, and the pig was often visited by friends and admirers, for nobody ever forgot the year of his triumph and the miracle of the web. Life in the barn was very good - night and day, winter and summer, spring and fall, dull days and bright days. It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure and the glory of everything (emphasis mine).
Doesn't that passage just fill you up? I read that and I feel content. And I feel blessed to have a place so like Wilbur's barn, a Maine farm no less, to escape to with my children and experience "the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats (I've never seen any!), the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure and glory of everything."
Earlier this week I went one morning all by myself to the farm to watch the sun rise. Leaving the house when the sky was the still the color of ink, and dawn just a sliver of pale blue beyond the trees. I want to take more sunrise and sunset shots but my house in the middle of the city is not the place to do that! I need to get out, up high where I can see. So I did my best to stay warm on the second floor of the barn, listened to the rooster crow and watched the sheep and turkeys meander from their slumber.
And I wondered and reveled in the glory of everything.
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