I know that to engage with Hebe requires thought on my part. She is easily surprised and when I come into the room she may say, I hate grandmother, which her mother translates into oh, you surprised me by coming in the room when I wasn’t expecting you. Knowing this, I was wondering this morning how I could say good-bye to her in the least painful way for her. So far my best method is to come into the room and tell a story so interesting that she hangs on every word and quietly listens for the next sentence to drop. This is a high order.
This morning I told her that when Catherine was a little girl (my hook, for I might say something interesting about her mother) I used to tell her stories while she ate, and so I was going to share one of those stories now. And without a breath I did Daniel of the Old Testament coming to the king’s court, eating healthy food, becoming favoured, refusing to bow and worship the king and then the exciting part – walking in the fiery furnace.
She was quiet and even interested when I shared my family secret, passed down from my dad and now I was passing it down to her: how to remember the names of Daniel’s friends, Mesak, Shadrak and Abednego.
My dad taught me to remember with my shack, your shack and a bungalow.
I hope she shares that trick with her own grandchildren when they are little like she is.
And then I got out of the kitchen, knowing to get going when the getting is good.
Arta
ah, sweet story reminding me of the fiery furnace!
ReplyDeleteI did not know how much detail I should get into about the fire. And I haven't read the actual story for some time, so though I could bring up the name of Meshak, Shadrak and Abednego, plus remember the name of Daniel and know that he had some friends -- I was pretty well on the outskirts of the real Bible story and more on the curve of creative fable telling.
ReplyDeleteJust one more thing while I am here -- about Bible stories. While I was at Sunday School in Montreal, I learned that this year's study at Sunday School is going to be about the Old Testament: my favourite book of all of the Mormon scriptures. However the Sunday School teacher is not looking forward to this year and that set of scriptures, saying that of all of the standard works, this is the ugly step sister to her.
ReplyDeleteWhat!
My favourite set of stories. Women everywhere. Drama. Intrige. Murder. I took one of the pamphlets that she was passing around that gives a summary of what will happen in each weeks lesson. That is when I could see that the scriptures we are using are not O.T. The readings are mostly from Moses for the first few weeks. Well, that might make the teacher happier, but not me!