Caleb's Moment

Caleb’s Moment                                            3-14-2013

By John W. Vander Velden

 

By the time the sky’s first light appeared, Caleb had finished the milking.  Days started early on the Audensen Farm.   Each day, Sundays as well, had work waiting…work that demanded more hours than daylight provided.  Only summer’s longer days minimized the need for the kerosene lantern, Caleb now carried back to the house.

The young farmer paused …paused just a moment.  Drawing morning’s first air, with its freshness deep into his lungs, Caleb examined the world around him, the new day, dew fresh, the air crystalline clear.  How seldom did Caleb Audensen take the time…to just see…to feel the life that surrounded him.  There was always too much to do!  Caleb set the lantern at his feet…drew another deep breath.  The scent of fresh baking mixed with curing hay filled his nostrils.  A moment…just a few minutes torn out of another hectic day.  A brief time to absorb the wonders all about him.  The morning star yet hung, bright and defiant in the brightening eastern sky.  The sweet notes of a Robin declared the new day’s beginning.  The soft low of Elsie, a reminder of tasks yet incomplete.  But Caleb would take a moment…only a moment… a moment to see…to feel…a moment to savor life….  He would take this brief time…his own time…Calebs moment.

(224 Words)

 

The Hourglass

The Hourglass                         9-19-2013

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Have you watched the sand as it slowly slides through an hourglass?  Each grain of sand significant, as it, one by one, flows through the narrow portion that connects the glass that holds the sand above with the part that holds the sand that has fallen.  An hourglass measures the passing of time…a small sliver of eternity.

Perhaps many find the object fascinating because they see more than sand sliding through from one end to the other.  They see themselves!  For the sand that has come to its rest could represent their past.  The Sand waiting to fall, their future.  It is in the narrows…where the grains line up one by one…the now.

Here in the narrows, we look up and see futures possibilities…dreams yet before us.  Below, we see past successes and failures as well. But it is in the now we live and breathe…In the now we must face the challenges, those expected and those unforeseen…In the now we tread forward toward the future and all it holds.  We must not allow ourselves to be stopped up, by the past.  We must not race so headlong toward tomorrow, that we spill our life wistfully on what has not yet arrived.  No, we must live in the narrows.  Each moment a precious gift, moving from the future we do not know, to the past that are our memories.

None know the number of grains that yet wait their turn through the narrows.  Those whose “year count” has grown, understand that the sand above is not infinite.  Yet now is not the time to worry about what could have been.  For as long as the sand flows…as long as each grain comes to the narrows…we have grand opportunities.  Each grain matters…each grain, a story of its own…Life is meant to be lived! 

(312 Words)   

Little Green Apples

Little Green Apples                                   

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Often we overlook the obvious, certain that joy eludes as we seek things.  How can we find contentment without the newest phone…the largest TV our wall can carry…a fancy car…or a classy house?  We gather comfort from things.  Yes, we need things, but the endless pursuit of things does not provide long term happiness.

What are we missing?  For as we chase after all the things, we overlook the obvious.  God made little green apples, gave us a baby’s smile, sweetened strawberries, taught the robin to herald the new day, planted the wildflowers, painted the sunset, and tailored the cardinal’s crimson feathers.  Each day we take for granted the magnificence of our world.  Each day we hustle onward chasing so many things, we miss the great clouds as they float across a brilliant sky of blue, miss the sun’s sparkle in a dewy spider’s web, miss the sound of children’s laughter as they run beneath the sprinkler, miss the scent of a world washed by a summer’s rain.  The things un-purchasable.  In truth we miss the things that matter most.

For God made little green apples, and all the wondrous things, our marvelous world contains…and God gave us love…And the rest…the other things…are only fluff!

(210 Words)