The week is here

"To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul."* — Psalm 25:1

Monday morning and the week is here and I know what day is coming and I am not going to talk about it yet.

The list was the usual. Edna. Dan. Hannah. The boy. The woman at church whose name I still do not know and whose face I would know in any room. Biscuit, who does not need prayer and gets it anyway. The children in the class. Pastor Holloway. Henry, which I added last month and have not taken off.

I said the list and sat in the minute after and the house was quiet and the coffee was hot and Biscuit was on the rug in the living room and Junebug was in the window and the clock on the wall said six-fifteen, which is when the clock says six-fifteen every morning, and I do not know why that steadiness helps but it does.

The psalmist says I lift up my soul and I think that is the right verb. You do not throw your soul or push it or send it. You lift it. The way you lift a thing that has weight but is not heavy. The way you lift a child onto your hip — it costs you something and you do it anyway and the cost is not the point.

Wednesday is Earl's birthday. He would have been eighty. I am not going to write about it today. I am going to write about it Wednesday.

Lord, the week is here. I am lifting.