Delight - Lorrie

Delight's wardrobe spans the light spectrum for her moods range from pensive pleasure on grey, misty days to exuberant turquoise and gold dances at the seashore. Perceptive and alert to the moment, she sees details that others often miss - she is quick to share them with her companions. She loves being outdoors and sees nature as a showcase for God's creativity.

People love being in the same room as Delight for her positive outlook is contagious. But she has learned the pleasures of solitude and the need for time to feed her soul. Her energy level sometimes scares people for they think they will never keep up with her activities. Sometimes it seems as though Delight is everywhere at once, so dazzling that it's hard to watch her. At other times, she appears smaller and quieter, yet no less radiant.

Delight is willing to take risks and try new things - tasting an exotic fruit, tying her scarf differently, or giving a handmade card to a street person. Her collections are eclectic - words, smooth rocks, old books, model trains and recipes. She is learning to let things go rather than cling to objects and experiences out of fear of loss. She finds that God provides an unending supply of beauty in her life, that she will always have something on which to focus.

Although Delight can disappear for long stretches of time, leaving people to wonder when she'll be back, she tends to stick around most when people notice and coddle her a bit. She's not as reliable as Joy, her cousin.


NOTE: Several (like 15) years ago I read a book called The Qualities, in which character traits were personalized. A couple of weeks ago I was reading Psalm 37 and thinking about the verbs portrayed there - delight, trust, do good, etc. The thought popped into my head - what would Delight look like if she were a person - how would she act? The above sketch is taken from my journal that day. And then that writing caused an entire village of qualities to populate my mind. What a fun exercise!

Playing Scrabble - Bonnie Way

The first move is mine. The tiles on my tray are IMQAUOR. If I had an S, I could spell MARQUIS. If I had an E, I could spell MARQUE. The first would be worth gloating over for weeks; to have used all seven letters, on a first move, with a Q in the word too… that would get me enough points to perhaps, just this once, beat my husband. But since I do not have that S, I can only dream about it, while I play just MAR in the middle of the board.

Scrabble is about knowing words, many words, uncommon words. Sometimes, I learn words that I never knew were words. For example, my husband played ZA and insisted it was in the dictionary. If you’ve never heard of it either, I’ll spare you the trouble of going to look it up. Apparently “za” is short for pizza. I’m not sure where exactly that slang is used, but today, I am having za for lunch.

It’s an addictive game, really. I never played it before I started dating my husband. I come from a family where word games were abhorred. My dad is an engineer. My two brothers like reading but are better with their hands. I love reading, writing, words. I could beat them badly at Boggle, Taboo, Balderdash, Upwords, or any other word game we had around the house. So I was relegated to playing with my best friend or with other friends on the rare occasions that we dug out a board game.

My husband grew up playing Scrabble because it was his mom’s favourite game. He’s very good at seeing patterns and playing with his options, rearranging words until he can figure out how to get the most points out of them. After a couple of years of playing with – and losing to – him, I am learning his strategies. However, every time I play what I think is a brilliant, fantastic, high-scoring word, he is still able to play a better word on his next turn. I can’t win.

His sister is a math teacher who plays mathematically. She can calculate the score of an entire word in her head faster than I can figure out what a Q on a double letter score is worth. It’s about putting the words together to form the biggest number – not for the points, but for the numerical fun of it. And so she studies the board, calculating and recalculating, while we wait and study our own letters and wonder what she will play.

I play for the words, the fun of unscrambling the letters on my tray into something that makes sense and then finding the place on the board where they will fit. My husband plays for the words, too, but he comes up with the most uncommon words. Having a linguistics degree helps him, because with that understanding of word formation he comes up with even more uncommon words. SOOTINGS is probably his record word so far. You’re wondering how I let him get away with it. Well, you can argue with him when he explains that soot is a word as is foot, and if you can have a footing then you can footings so why not sootings.

For his birthday just before we got married, I went in search of a Scrabble board. Now you can get travel size Scrabble boards and the deluxe Scrabble board, which spins around so that every player has a fair view of the game and comes with a bag to hold the letters so you don’t have to buy a bottle of Crown Royal as well. After much debate I went with the simple, traditional board. Then the question was – to buy the Scrabble dictionary or not to buy it. We usually used his mom’s old Webster’s dictionary, which, while it had an ample selection of archaic words, is a little short on the more modern words. The Scrabble dictionary, however, has the added advantage of including words that would be only used in Scrabble. Like za.

Just the Right Word - Marcia Lee Laycock

I’m one of those people who loves words. Sometimes I’ll say a word in my mind over and over just because I enjoy the sound of it. So each day I open my e-mail with the tantalizing anticipation of receiving a new word from dictionary.com. The other day it was actually an expression rather than one word, and it was French, our second language here in Canada. It’s an intriguing phrase that relates directly to writers – “mot juste” – literally, word just or just word.

The meaning given was “a word or phrase that exactly fits the case, as in - The poet's concern for the mot juste nearly always makes his prose a thing of interest and beauty.”

Mot juste. I began to wonder, if I had to find a mot juste for God, what would it be? I quickly realized it would be a difficult task, perhaps an unending task. He has, of course, described Himself and perhaps that is where we should start. He gave himself many names – to Abraham he was El Shaddai, God Almighty, and El Olam, the God who has no beginning and no end. To Moses he was Yahweh, The LORD, “the God of your fathers.” (Exodus 3:14). David called him Yahweh Tsebaoth, the Lord of Hosts when he faced Goliath. When he built the temple, Solomon called him “Hashem,” The Name, and rejoiced that God had promised His Name would reside there and receive the prayers of the people. To Jeremiah He was Miqueh Yisrael, the Hope of Israel. In the New Testament Jesus offended the religious rulers by telling them to call God by the familiar, Abba, Father or Daddy.

Finding just one word for God is, indeed, an impossible task. His character is so vast, His essence so rich and deep that there could not be one word that would describe all of Him. But, as He Himself has shown us, in all circumstances there is a mot juste for God and that word will always make Him a God of interest and beauty. His character is multifaceted and His ways infinitely complex yet He constantly reveals Himself to us through His creation, His people and His word.
Perhaps His most dear name, to those of us this side of the cross, is simply Jesus, the One who saves. That is a mot juste that we can use and rely on and praise.

“Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord have never forsaken those who seek you.” (Psalm 9:10).

Marcia Laycock is the winner of the Best New Canadian Christian Author Award, 2006, for her novel, One Smooth Stone. Visit her website – www.vinemarc.com

Missing Mom • Elsie Montgomery

She was just here
soft eyes misted in a book
laughing at the words

We rise, she needs help with her walker
“This is my daughter, Elsie”
as annoyed bones move
slowly to the lunch tables

She cannot visit now
time to eat, mouth is full
“Come back next week”
“I love you, Mom”

You were just here soft
grey curls and clean blouse
ready to explore the edges
of lost memories,
tell of your morning
shampoo and bath

You were just here, but I
came back too soon
on Sunday not Wednesday
they called, “We are so sorry”

Too late to give you
warm hugs
or spin a story
or paint your nails

You were just here
how can you be gone?
Missing you, Mom
You were just here.

I wrote this poem in 2002, shortly after my mother died. Reading it again reminds me how much I miss her, so I changed the title to reflect that aching nostalgia. Elsie Montgomery (PS. Sorry this post is late. My reminder got buried under a dinner engagement.)