"Ker-Sploosh"

"A time to scatter stones...." Ecclesiastes 3:5

Scattering stones makes me think of grandson Matthew Johnson's composition entitled "Ker-sploosh." I treasure it. I think he was in about the fifth or sixth grade when he wrote it. It shows that Matthew has a great gift of writing expressively. My daughter Lauri Johnson printed it up and had it framed for me. It still hangs on a wall in my study. Here is his composition:

"Ker-sploosh!" That's not an uncommon sound down by the creek at my grandpa's house. 

"I've got a bigger one!" I would say to grandpa.

"Ker-sploosh!" In it goes. Sometimes the bigger ones would get us wet. 

Almost every time I would go to grandpa's house, we would go down to the the creek and throw stones in it. Sometimes we would aim for the little "skeeters" that scurried around on the surface of the water.

Grandpa is an average grandpa. His hair is balding and gray. He is always smiling, which puts little wrinkles in his face, just like the creek is kind of a wrinkle in the forest.

Although mainly shallow, there are a few places where it is more than a foot deep, especially after a heavy rain. 

The bank of the creek is sand and stones on one side. There are large stones and small, jagged, and round stones. Bugs live under some of them. A black, 3-foot high cliff with many masses of tree roots makes up the other bank.

The creek is surrounded by a forest. The forest smells like rotting wood, along with other forest smells.

There are always birds chirping. Occasionally, we would hear a woodpecker.

The trickle of the creek, however, is always there, just like God's love for us.

Being with my grandpa helped me appreciate the wonder of God's creation: the birds, the trees, and the animals. I love my grandpa, and he loves me, just like we love God and He loves us. God put many different and wonderful sounds in my grandpa's forest, but one that I will surely not forget is "Ker-sploosh!"