I was so surprised to see, during the births of my children, how beautiful was the cord that fed them during their first nine months. It was the color, I suppose, of Caucasian human skin when bloodless - alabaster. I thought then that I had never seen and would never see that color again, since I was already into my thirties when I had married their mother, and sticking around until grandkids showed up would test my physiology - and willpower over gluttony.
Well, I did see it again. You see it when somebody dies, and I was present when a living saint I had loved for decades gave up her earthly shell to go Home for her reward. Man, there it was - the color, I guess, that we will always be if not for the blood and its oxygenated hemoglobin coursing through our veins.
I had known that leaves only show their true colors when they die, when the life-giving stuff is gone with the loss of sunlight on trees that must conserve their water after being so very free with it all summer long. So it is with us, that after practically swimming in oxygen for the whole of our summer of 120 years or less, we mark our end with its absence and recall that placenta which started us off on our splendid, brief journey here.
Can we say that the human soul marks its arrival here with this color, the hue of desert dust, and salutes it again as it passes into painless, youthful Eternity?
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Steve,
You asked the question, what does all hat no cattle mean? In Texas there are a lot of people who wear Cowboy hats, but have never been within a country mile of cattle. True ranchers and cowboys can spot them a mile away, and will often say: "That boy is all hat and no cattle." It means, that guy wants to look like a cowboy, but he is not one. In reference to Dr. P, et al @ SWBTS, he wants to be a cowboy, but he doesn't know cattle. It's all for show.
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