Nate, Descendant of Yorick

Since she works at a gallery and has some time on her hands, my daughter, Claye, has been toying with the idea of giving art lessons. No sooner did Turtle hear this than he decided to become her first pupil. Well, he is colorblind, so being reluctant to plunge into oil or acrylics, he began with sketching and drawing faces. For several weeks he's been working on technique, but Claye is not the most complimentary of daughters. She insists that he's looking at the picture and then drawing from preconceived ideas and not what he is actually seeing. So, in order to make him feel the underlying structure of the human face, she ordered a prop for him on eBay. It arrived in fine form, rattling about in the box with a page of paper attached to the jaw that had one word on it:  "Nate". 
I have to say that seeing his grin on the kitchen bar or in the drawing room takes a little getting used to.

Free!

Free--a short, funny-looking little foundation of a word to carry such a sky-scraper of meaning.
It means I can leave my house at night, look up without fear of walls or guns or bombarding voices, and smile under Orion's feet. I can openly attend church, call a meeting in my home, stand in the park and give a speech, walk into the courthouse with my grandchildren and show them the place where the jury sits, and the box for open witness. I write these words in my living room, then post them fearlessly to be read by a woman in Australia and a man in Scandinavia and lots of folks in the USA. Nobody comes knocking with a warrant.
Because I'm free.

But even if...tomorrow should bring those dreaded chains I've never felt around my feet, if the world should crash around me with bullhorns spouting insane, obnoxious propaganda and threats that muffle all my songs, I would still be free.
For I carry inside a different freedom--freedom from fear and faith for the future.  I do not suffer from condemnation by the One who matters. I've been forgiven. I'm loved by the Maker of the universe.
So I'm really free.

Someday I will stand up there just next to the bold Orion--immortal, invulnerable--free!