Turning to face the sun

Daily dose of Lucas County: 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010, at the marsh. Sunny, cool, white clouds in full sail --- so beautiful it almost hurts.

Sunflowers really do that, you know --- but it would require more patience than either you or I have to watch the process. September is sunflower month here --- and I can’t get enough. Just want to walk and look then sit and look some more. And that’s what I did this late this afternoon after, of all things, a nap.

Up before 5 fussing --- about the surprise reception we were planning after church for our resident seminarian, fussing about the fact it had been too wet Saturday to do what I wanted to do about the altar flowers, fussing about the fact I’d picked up a computer virus while Google Imaging something silly Saturday evening, “plain,” I think --- just to see what turned up. Fussing, fussing, fussing.

Went to church and kept fussing about the same stuff, plus this was a Sunday we did not have an organist, so the vicar did double duty on opening and closing hymns and I trotted back to the organ to help out with a few pitches and chords on other stuff (E. Power Biggs I’m not, so I fussed about that, too). Sermon was great (Lazarus and the rich man), but it took the closing hymn, “God of grace and God of glory,” words by Harry Emerson Fosdick set to that wonderful Welsh tune “Cwm Rhondda,” by John Hughes, to shake all that fussing out.

The reception was wonderful, the flowers looked fine, my friends at SecureIT disposed of the virus in no time flat --- and then the nap. But things still weren’t quite right.

It took the walk and the sunflowers to get me back on track, turned to face the sun again.