Family in Feast and Feria

After posting yesterday on the blessing of extra towels...and before my extra towels were even put away I find myself ankle deep in water--AGAIN! The third day with a flood related incident! This one is the biggest this week. Our washer drains into a utility tub, and a towel blocked the drain and...well, it's too gruesome to describe. Let's just summarize and say it's wet, wet, wet in my basement.

The thoughts that run through your head while you're trying to soak up gallons of water: Try to remain calm; Offer it up (that's my mother's voice, for sure); Meditate on symbolisms of water, like Baptism, Noah's Ark. But the most pervasive thoughts: Do I have enough towels? Will this be the last time this week? Is God preparing me for a Flood or something?

Memories flood (sorry!) my mind...how the house I lived in Houston as a young girl for 6 years would flood at every rain. And I really mean flood. The stress of cleanup and the lingering smell of wet carpet is not a fond memory.

I do have a favorite memory about stomping on wet spills on the carpet. We used to sing "Alouette" but my younger brother one day asked why were we singing about "jumping on the wet"? He though the words to the song were "On the wet-ta, jumping on the wet-ta, on the wet-ta, jumping on the wet." So now when I am stomping on towels, those are the words to the song I hear.

All the thoughts on water did bring to mind a phrase, "O ye Seas and Floods, bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all forever." This is from the Canticle from Daniel, Song of the Three Holy Children, in Latin, Benedicite Omnia Opera. When I looked in my Breviary, the word "flood" was no where mentioned in that translation. So why am I thinking FLOOD? Why did that word and prayer pop into my mind?

And of course the answer is that it's from a picture book I'm remembering. Pauline Baynes (illustrator of Chronicles of Narnia) has a wonderful book called The Song of the Three Holy Children. It's out-of-print, but I easily found a copy. The illustrations are vibrant, reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts. The translation is from the Book of Common Prayer, so the text is a bit awkward to modern day. But my son and I love it.

And it's so nice to have words and beautiful illustration of a Canticle fill your mind while stomping on towels.

O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord:
praise him, and magnify him for ever.