November 20, 2021
Reflections, Day 43
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California
My friend and fellow story-teller, Bob Harris, sent me a copy of his painting titled,
“Leaving God’s House?”
I spent a long time looking at the painting. There was something about that little boy that captivated me.
He was looking past his mother, perhaps at the golden ginko tree, or perhaps beyond it into a room of God’s house that only a second-grader may enter.
The little boy had sat in his second grade class a few days before. He looked out the window at a patch of trees and saw the Cherokee Indians meeting to talk, cook, and chip pieces of flint. A seven-year-old boy had walked up to the cooking fire and the youngster imagined sitting at the fire and laughing with his new friend…
Then the teacher spoke sternly, “You are daydreaming. All the time you waste daydreaming can never be found again. Pay attention.”
And the little boy lost the Indians. He lost the cooking fire and the flint knapper. He turned to the teacher as she finished her lecture on the first Americans.
After church on Sunday the boy in the painting was trying to find that camp fire.
“One day,” he thought, “One day I’ll find it.”
Bob Harris is also an author. He has written children’s trilogy titled, “Tales of a Rusty Knight.”
Bob can write good children’s books because his mind is still out there searching…
Searching.
—john schulz
Power to the Peaceful
Painting by Bob Harris
johntheplantman--Gardening 
I actually thought this was a photograph until reading your post. The colors, details and proportions are so vivid. I think the little boy is gazing at that beautiful ginkgo tree. Please check your e-mail. I received and appreciate having a copy of your book VERY MUCH!