Saturday morning, so the porch got swept: back of the house to the front door, front door to the steps, steps out to the street. Then a bucket of warm water with lemon, a handful of salt and a splash of Florida Water for the steps and the doorframe. Psalm 23 the whole way through, twice. Grandmama always said never sweep after dark or you'll sweep your luck out with the dust. I'm fifty-eight years old and still not brave enough to test it.
Vigils at 4:15. Psalm 63: 'my soul thirsts for you.' My soul mostly thirsted for coffee. I offered Him both, and I think He took them.
My sister's boy starts his electrician apprenticeship Monday, and she called and asked me to put a light up for him. First thing she's asked me for since Mama's house. So tonight I dressed a white candle with a little olive oil, set it in a saucer of sand on the kitchen table, and read Psalm 37 over it. 'Fret not thyself.' He frets. He gets that from me. Grandmama taught me you don't pray at the Lord like you're ordering at a drive-through. You pray alongside the work. That boy finished his course at the tech college, passed the aptitude test on the second go, and has his new boots lined up by the door already. My job is the rest of it. Candle's burning down now. I don't leave the room while it's lit, never have. Front porch swept, Florida Water on my hands, and a full heart.
At the Office this morning we had Psalm 88, the darkest one in the whole psalter. It doesn't even end in hope. The last line is 'darkness is my closest friend.' And I felt wonderful. Good sleep, sunny morning, the bread came out well. Singing it felt almost dishonest. Afterward I asked our novice master about it. He said: 'You aren't praying it for yourself today. Somewhere right now someone is living that psalm and can't pray at all. You're lending them your voice.' I've thought about little else since. Every psalm I don't feel is someone else's psalm. I just have to show up and sing it for them.
Our niece Tanya drove up to Atlanta for nursing school this week, her first time living away from home. Before she left I sent her off the way my uncle sent me: an old silver Mercury dime in her left shoe, the 91st Psalm read over her on the front porch, and a little red flannel bag in the glovebox with salt, a bay leaf and a picture of her grandmama. She asked if the dime actually does anything. I told her it reminds her she's got people praying behind her. That's what it does. She texted me last night: "Made it. Shoe's uncomfortable." Good. Means she's still wearing it.
Went up to the hospital this week to sit with Harold, who sang bass beside me in the choir for thirty years. He's had a hard fall and a harder week. He can't sing right now, so I told him I'd do the praying for both of us. Psalm 121, the one his mother used to say: 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.' He mouthed along the whole way. When I got to 'the Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in,' he squeezed my hand so hard I thought I'd need a doctor myself. Folks ask how a deacon can also be a rootworker. Same answer every time: it's all the Psalms, it's all the Lord, and it's all love for the people in front of you.
My sister and I haven't been right since Mama's house was sold. Too many words at the closing table. We're talking again, but stiff, like two people who learned each other out of a book. So I set a honey jar. I told her I was doing it and she laughed and said "go on then, do your thing," which is the most she's said to me in weeks. Our two names on brown paper, written crosswise, folded toward me, pressed down into a small jar of honey with a cinnamon stick and a few dried rose petals. I read Psalm 133 over it: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is..." Every Sunday I burn a little white chime candle on the lid, set in my cast-iron skillet on the stove where I can watch it till it's done. Three Sundays in. Yesterday she called to ask for Mama's cornbread recipe. Slow is how honey works.
You’ve reached the edge of the sky.