Angels rush in

When Ref was in the hospital, I went to one of the town's healing-arts shops and invested in some incense -- the perfume of prayer in so many ways.

And then there were the answers: His big sister, Dollie, and his youngest brother, Shawn. Here they are on Friday, after yeoman work by Shawn and Mr. B had restored the subfloor in the living room by working into the night on Thursday.

Dollie is a world-class hugger (as well as a law graduate from Indiana U.), and Shawn runs his own construction business in Macon, mostly building fine churches. But they came without a moment's thought when their brother needed them -- as had their other brother, Aurelius, when Ref came home after his surgery.

So here is Dollie, who's been cooking oatmeal just lumpy enough for Ref's tastes. And here is Shawn, treating our little house as if it were a church, with a master's touch for wood and measure.

Their competence, confidence, strength, skill and faith have humbled me to tears in the last few days. Ref is blessed to have them as siblings, and I am blessed to know them.

A Latin guest at the guest house next door got a whiff of the incense wafting through the dusk tonight. "¡Ai, incienso!" I heard her say on the other side of the fence. "¡Que lindo!"

Lovely indeed, the prayer's perfume. And lovelier the answers.