The staff at my dental clinic hum, “Crown her with many crowns,” whenever they see me coming. I swear it. My mouth’s childhood pastime of accumulating massive amalgam fillings has evolved into a more mature collection of root canals and crowns.

I got crowned again recently. I took notes. “Are you okay?” the dentist asks.

I’m frozen to my eyeballs, flat on my back, and fixated on the blank ceiling. He’s holding a drill, and intends to use at high speeds in a dark space uncomfortably close to my brain. Beside him, neatly arranged on a paper-lined steel tray, are hooks, tweezers, prods, pries, and myriad other threatening metal objects—all destined for forceful use in my open, rubber-dammed mouth.

Never been better.

The dentist drills awhile, then turns me over to his assistant. “Are you comfortable? Is this pillow okay?” she asks. I grunt. She picks up a sharp tool and proceeds. I feel the pressure of her hand, but no pain. Thank you, Jesus.

She probes a bit, then shoves hard on something unyielding. I hear a click and feel my rubber dam slipping. Broken fragments of my clove-flavoured temporary filling shoot through the crack into the back of my throat. I try clearing it. My gurgles sound like that of a strangling victim.

I am, in fact, choking. I try to indicate such by a conservative flailing. The technician pauses, then picks up another metal object on a long hose.

“Would you like a rinse?”

I answer with my usual rubber-dam eloquence. “Uhhnna burugtlle!”

She hands me a tissue, removes the dam, and aims the metal water spigot at the back of my throat. But she suctions the water back up before it reaches the chips. I swallow them.

They build crowns in-house at my dental clinic. The technician designs mine on the computer near my chair. A three-dimensional image of my tooth rotates on the monitor. She manipulates it with the concentration of an artist. Then she gets up, leaves, and returns immediately with another technician.

Colour samples in hand, they hover over my personal crater. “M1, or M2? What’d'ya think?”

“Hmm, the teeth look a little more grey back there, so maybe we should go with M2. M1 is a little too yellow….”

I’m paying for this by the minute. I can imagine what I please. I fantasize that I’m royalty, and the technicians, my wardrobe mistresses.

An hour later, I walk out, my new (more-gray-than-yellow) crown nicely cemented in place.

Christian scriptures speak of a different kind of crowns—God-given, heaven-presented rewards for God-lovers, who, during their lives, allowed his benevolent directorship in remarkable ways.

But unlike my dental fixture, their owners won’t keep those crowns. They’ll use them to “crown with many crowns” the one who deserves them most: God’s son, Jesus Christ. Because sharing heaven with the Lord of all, who loves and makes them royal by adoption, will be reward enough.

And no rubber dams. I can’t wait.

The wrapped-up-in-peace business started on one of my Friday afternoons with our grandbeans. After lunch, two-year-old Dinah Jane seemed tired and cranky. During a colouring session, she wanted to keep all the crayons. “No, honey,” I told her. “Your brother and sister need to colour too.”

 She opened her mouth.

 A skinned cat can’t holler half so well as Chick Pea. I knew what was coming. “Darlin’,” I said, when the cat was about half-skinned. “That’s a pretty heavy feeling you’re carrying. Would you like Nana to wrap you in some peace?”

 “Yes. I would,” she sobbed, arms already outstretched.

 Swaddling her small form in a couch throw, I carried her into my office, shut the door behind us and sat down in my chair. Swiveling it back and forth, I began humming.

 “Jesus loves me, this I know…”

 Her crying got a tad softer. “ Someone’s cryin’ Lord…Kumbyah…” likely came next. I can’t remember. But after a few more songs, and a prayer for God to help the little one in my arms find her way back to a peaceful spirit—as he has so often done for me—her crying stopped.

 Minutes later, a smiling Chick Pea skipped out the office door. In the living room, she scooped up her baby doll. “Do you need to be wapped in some peace?” she asked, tumbling it about in a smaller blanket. Picking it up, and plunking down on a footstool, she began rocking. Above her siblings’ chatter, I heard her pure voice. ….“Jesus loves me, this I know….”

 Months later, the Beans and I took a long walk together, and landed at the playground a block behind their house. Dinah, who’d trudged the entire way without complaint, perched gratefully on a swing beside her older siblings. They soared, but as I pushed her, she shouted, as though suddenly alarmed. “Nana! Stop ya pushin! Ah need to be wapped in some peace!”

 Thinking the Bobcat making big noise at the other end of the park had frightened her, and amused that she remembered our time in my office, I picked her up. Wrapping my sweater around her, I sat on the swing instead. This time I recited some short scriptures that speak of God bringing peace to his children.

 Her head flopped and her arm dropped. I carried her then. She didn’t wake till we got home. She wasn’t afraid after all. Just tired.

 I’m a simple Christ-follower. Unapologetically, I believe this: One day, when life around me is in full swing, when I’ve walked my mile, I’ll feel a strange and sudden weariness. I may not be able to voice it, but God will hear my spirit’s cry. “Jesus, I need to be wrapped in some peace!”

 The Prince of Peace will pick me up. Let my head flop on his shoulder. Then he’ll carry me. And when I wake, I’ll be home. 

 I also believe this: If you know him, he’ll do the same for you.

For two decades two relics have hung around our yards and gardens. They’ve followed us to three different homes. A skull, white as chalk, porous as fine sponge, and a single deer horn.

The horn doesn’t get much notice, but the skull raises curiosity. “Uh…what’s up with that?” guests have stuttered.

 “Oh, that’s my last boss,” I sometimes say, ignoring their sucked-in breath and moving on to something else.

 Truthfully, the skull—cow, with no horns—entered our lives long ago, during a year I’ll never forget.

 After an exhausting four-year posting in a highly stressful church, the Preacher badly needed a change. On the night he came home upchucking the bile of an acrimonious board meeting, I told him enough was enough. Even our two children felt the stress.

 We decided to become country people. Moved our family to a rented home overlooking the breathtaking Beaver Valley. We got two goats, three rabbits, and pulled the kids out of school to teach them ourselves.

 The Preacher took a lower stress job and learned to drive tractor. He was so used up, I didn’t think he would ever pastor again.

 Pastureland backed our home for miles, field upon field separated by long rock walls and distinct lines of bush and trees. With no grazing livestock in the pastures, the children, then ages nine and eleven, sampled an intoxicating freedom. That first summer and fall, before snows sheathed the fields, they roamed endlessly, as I once had on the fir-tipped end of a quiet Pacific inlet.

 They’d already explored the first tree line, they told me one morning. And the second. “Mom,” they said, eyes shining, “today we’re goin’ to the THIRD tree line!”

 Grabbing a snack, they set out for adventure, but returned shortly, reports of their explorations tumbling from their lips. “Come back with us,” they begged. I laced on my runners, and we set out, our irascible red cocker prancing ahead.

 Ten minutes later, we arrived at a cool forested grove, cathedral-like in its solitude. A weathered shack stood off to one side, a forgotten hunters’ cabin, perhaps. Maybe the remnant of a first homestead. But I had no doubt that cattle once huddled there, taking shelter from the withering heat and extreme cold common in that area.

  The children found the skull and horn in that grove. When we left Beaver Valley a year later, they came along, reminders of a remarkable, healing year. Like the prophet Ezekiel’s vision, our withered and disconnected spiritual bones had knit together again. So had our family. God had renewed us for service.

 Burned out? Got a deep-down feeling that God is nudging you into something new? Get away, before you come apart. Find a quiet place. Listen hard. And pray long. Then follow God out. But bring back something to remind you, even if it’s just an old bone.

 Hum this awhile, if you remember it…”Sunflower, good mornin’. You sure do make it like a sunny day. Sunflower, fair warnin’. I’m gonna love you if you come my way.” Neil Diamond wrote that song back in the seventies, though folk singer Glenn Campbell made it famous.

Mr. Diamond may have had a girl in mind when he composed that tune, but maybe not. Perhaps a field of giant sunflowers inspired him, or a collection of smaller ones like those that grow along my city’s meridians every summer. The ones that make me smile each time I pass.

Sunflowers inspired Walt Whitman too. “Keep your face always toward sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you,” he wrote.

Long before Walt, Neil or Glenn, ancient Greeks told a sunflower myth. The myth inspired a fairy tale that goes something like this…

The lovely Clytie lived under the sea. She had long flowing fair hair and wore green seaweed robes. She cultivated an underground garden and grotto and raised sea turtles and sea horses for pets.

One day Clytie heard a mermaid singing about a great golden light high above the water. Pining to see it, she climbed into her turtle carriage for a ride and fell asleep to its gentle rocking. Without guidance, the turtles floated upwards, eventually crashing the carriage on the rocks at the water’s edge. Clytie waded ashore. Seeing the sun, she found the sight so glorious, she couldn’t look away. For in its centre she noticed a great King, gazing back at her with love and longing.

For days, Clytie remained above water. Her attraction to the sun became a deep love. Its passion consumed her.

One day, as she leaned over the water, she noticed, to her amazement, that her long hair had become a blaze of yellow flower petals. Her seaweed robes had transformed into heart-shaped leaves that fluttered about her slender form. Her tiny feet had grown roots, planted deeply into the soil.

Clytie never returned to her home below the water’s surface. She had become like the one she loved and worshiped. For the rest of history, she and her children would adore the sun, closely following its majestic arc across the sky.

Clytie’s story reflects a biblical teaching—we become like the things we worship. People preoccupied with nastiness become nasty. A passion for excellence develops excellence, and a passion for God the King leads to a bright reflection of his Son, Jesus Christ.

But even tall and bright flowers take risks when they stand alone.

I planted a line of sunflowers below my kitchen window last spring, well spaced. In a big wind, with nothing nearby to lean on, the tallest blew over. Seeing the leggy plant broken on the ground, the Preacher noted, “I think sunflowers were meant to be planted close enough to support each other.

Son-followers, good mornin’. Son-followers, fair warnin’. Shadows and big winds a’ comin’. Keep your face to the Son—and stand close together.

(For those who just need to hear the song…have at it here!)

I heard voices yesterday. Get out and walk, said my muscles. Get some fresh air, screamed my lungs. Summer’s almost done, whispered my soul—get out and enjoy it. I put them off all day. Things to do. Places to go. People to see.

Towards evening I noticed the sky. Azure. Puffy clouds shifting at the whim of a gentle wind. The kind of sky small children behind school desks are likely painting this week. Additions to the perennial “My vacation…” series.

At dusk the Lord of that sky beckoned. A Holy Spirit breeze brushed my spirit. Come, Kathleen.

So I pedaled down a country road last evening, somewhat reluctantly. My ancient narrow-tired bicycle travels poorly on gravel.

 We rode a few miles, that cycle and I. Wobbled long among the pebbles. Off to the side, my shadow went first—woman on bike, sailing over wildflowers and hay, bobbed hair askew. The shadow didn’t reflect my smile, but I felt it stretching. The rest of me agreed.

Good for us, said my muscles. Much better now, breathed my lungs. Ah…sweet summer, stay awhile, echoed my soul.

Driving under the influence of a country road is a heady thing. I pedaled past ponds and farmhouses. Half-grown wheat and barley, white-blonde and nearly harvest-ready. I pedaled until the sun blazed like a live coal on the hearth of the sky. Until the clouds embered and the embers darkened.

I talked to God all down that road, wondering why I’d waited so long to share this soul-retreat with the one who’d made it all, and me too.

The blonde-maned pony nearly unseated me. Lead rope dangling, it charged out of the ditch near the end of a farmhouse lane. Dashing barely ahead, it stopped and glared. Dared me to pass.

I suspected that I’d spooked the animal; that it had been waiting for its rider when I’d rudely interrupted its grazing. Bicycles don’t roll by there often.

Not wishing to be held responsible for a runaway horse, I stopped, dismounted, and walked forward, talking softly. The creature tolerated that—until I bent to pick up its rope. Pivoting fast, it turned its rear toward me, snorted, and began kicking air. I got the message and left the rope alone. 

A young woman came out of the house right then. She called, her authoritative voice slicing through the quiet countryside. The pony whinnied an immediate response and galloped back down the lane. The girl hopped onto its bare back. I watched them disappear between white outbuildings, heading for pasture beyond, then turned and wove toward home myself.

Today, I ponder the voices that call us all. The ones we listen to and the ones we don’t. Especially the one that can help us make sense of them all. The God we people of Christian faith often say we listen to—but even oftener, ignore. Our owner’s voice.

Seems to me, that horse has lessons to teach. Like children, we–I–need to return to learning.