Possumblog

Another Birthday

Yeah, hard to believe—two posts in two days! Not that I’ve taken up blogging again, because I haven’t, but sometimes events warrant an update of an almost bloggish sort.

Got home from church last night (through a blinding thunderstorm, I might add), got the kids unloaded, got myself dressed in work clothes (at 9:00 p.m., I might add) and set to work fixing MY STUPID TIRE.

The other day I came out of the parking deck here at work and rolled over a high curb with the side of the tire and BANG-wheeeeeessssssshhhhhhhhhh. Big gash in the sidewall. The sidewall of a tire that I’d just bought a few months back after the “old” tire had suffered similar sidewall damaged by the hand of a certain wife of mine.

And this newest tire, only about a week old?

Seems it had gotten a nail in it while Reba was driving home.

At least not in the sidewall.

So, I got my pliers and my rubber cement and my rasp and my hook and my plug strips and my spotlight and backed the van into the garage (because it was still pouring rain outside) and set to work. The nail didn’t actually seem too deep. Probably could have left it alone, but because I’m a moron, I went ahead and pulled it and set to work making the tiny hole bigger with the rasp and had a heck of a time since it’s a BRAND NEW TIRE but finally got a hole big enough for the hook to go in and managed to tear up one of the sticky strips without actually plugging the giant new leak I’d made. Second time was the charm, though. Cleaned up the tools, pulled the van back outside and got the compressor out and proceeded to replace the air I’d let out (while standing in the rain, I might add.)

Got the pressure up to normal, unplugged, pulled the van in the right way into the garage, got out and went inside the house, got my work clothes back off, noticed Reba in Rebecca’s room on her bed talking, thought everyone should be in the bed, told Boy to get in the bed, and then Catherine, got my sleeping clothes on, decided to check my e-mail, sat there and vegetated and watched the news.

Reba finally came through the bedroom, and pointed to my left arm, “You’ve got black stuff on you.” Sure enough, I’d not been nearly as fastidious as I’d thought and had a smear of black road grime all over my left arm. Well, crap.

And then, “Rebecca wants to get baptized.”

WHOA—that came outta nowhere! But explains the confab there in Middle Girl’s room. Rebecca has been thinking about this for a while now, and she’d finally gotten to the point where she felt compelled to make that decision.

SO, we asked her if she wanted anyone to be there, and she figured it would be okay if the preacher and the youth minister were there, but that was it. Those calls were made, got Jonathan and Catherine out of bed and redressed, and it was back out into the rain and back across the county to the church building.

I had the same rush of emotion and found myself thinking the same thoughts as the time (almost exactly three years ago) that I’d had when I baptized Oldest, and found myself expressing similar sentiments to Rebecca once we were both down in the water (which we’ve now gotten hooked up to a filter system, I might add).

It is still quite a powerful thing to me—the idea of the new birth; not physical, but spiritual. I remember when she came squalling into the world, and what a fine big red baby she was and thinking how there could be no greater feeling. But there is, and it is the idea that when I lifted her back up out of that water, sputtering and snorting, the parent-child relationship had been supplemented by a greater one of being brother and sister in service together to our Creator.

She got her wet clothes off and changed, and we all had a short prayer together, headed back home, and got into bed sometime after 11:30.

And slept well.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at July 10, 2008 09:41 AM