A Prescription for Any Day.

My beloved and I took in some R+R today, especially since she has been house-bound for the week due to a tooth-pull drama that didn't go so well. We drove the few country miles to Morpeth, our local arty-crafty village downstream. On arrival Sharyn promptly bought some medication to ease her mouthful of unremitting pain.

Although I had a sore ankle, we strolled leisurely and eyed-off oodles of 'stuff'. We absorbed a smothering array of smells, colours and textures, of domestic adornments, trip hazards and artifacts. It is amazing what people can make and what people will attempt to sell as 'feel-goods'. Morpeth is a village oozing with those things people will buy to satisfy their longings and impulses so as to decorate that wall or sideboard or corner at home. Not to be seduced by all this potential and rather expensive, dust-collecting clutter I photographed a door-lock assembly on a century-old barn, and a by-gone child's very rusty yet distinguished dinky. My wife, of course, had other ideas.

It was later that I photographed a partially anesthetized Sharyn with a gob-full of triple-layered, chocolate fudge cake lavishly garnished with fresh cream and strawberries. This was very easy for her to eat (and I am sure it was) because, she remonstrated, she did not have to chew it. And, therein is a lesson for the cafe apothecaries on the necessary effectiveness of self-administered medications of choice -- it must melt in one's mouth, taste absolutely yummy, and make one feel better in an instant. Perhaps such culinary delights should be fully subsidized on the National Health Scheme with no limit to the number of repeats. I was convinced it would repeat anyway.

Come to think of it, it is also quite amazing what people will order in cafes, what they will eat, and what others will photograph. For me, the photographic and written record of such events will serve as a refreshing prescription on some future rainy day for a pair of unnamed, decrepit old fossils all doubled-up with arthritis in their nursing-home beds, especially when the IV drip has dribbled its last. Maybe laughter is the best medicine, but sometimes it hurts to laugh when a joyously convulsing body jolts those stiff, aching and decidedly uncooperative joints.

During our meander along Morpeth's rustic, stone paving of its old-style, roofed footpaths, my aching head and crusty bones smelt the alluring call of that musty fragrance uniquely attributable to old books. This sirenic scent is much stronger and more satisfying than coffee or chocolate, or coffee with chocolate, or double-coffee with triple-chocolate and cream and strawberries. Furthermore, that old-book-smell, administered on-call, is guaranteed to distract the likes of myself, and many like me, from the unpleasantness of life's many ills, and do so for an indefinite period of time. Perhaps it can be put to good use as a cologne or, better still, infused into the air-conditioning of ambulances, nursing homes and hospitals.

And so, it was from the antiquey-bookshoppe that I came away completely satisfied, having had my ailing, historical eyeballs, hypnotically bathed by two ancient 500-ish page hand-written pharmacist's prescription ledgers, both of which now rest upon my bibliographic medicine shelf. Each of these ancient tablatures covers about a year, around 1939 and 1941, for people in this area whereabouts I live. The dusty and, quite possibly, hastily scribbled leaves lists the customer's name, location and delivery address (sometimes), the prescription as filled and its price. While the latter is gibberish to this plebe the other stuff is a shot-in-the-arm for the family historian that I am. So you will appreciate I was absolutely gob-smacked when I found my great-grandfather therein, and many other cousins of varying hues, although none were actually named Hugh.

1940 script registration for Mr. A Taylor, and others.

There they are, hundreds of people, people just like us. They lived and moved and had their being in and around this area, along with a "Mr. G Clarke's Horse" and my 72 year old great-grandfather "Mr A. Taylor, [c/-] Collard's Store". They are all being medicated for their particular ailments with the hope of a redeeming cure. These two magnificent and historic volumes are a registry of both pain and potential remedy; it is all there, implicitly and explicitly. But only a doctor or pharmacist would know what these people suffered as interpreted through these books of 'life-medicine'. We too, by our common experience, also know that they suffered; that they needed treatment for their failing physical bodies; and, that they payed a few shillings for a hoped-for cure.

It is no less the case for our spiritual bodies, too. We are broken big-time. Our pain is real, it is ever-present, and it is deadly. We need that Prescription that is beyond all other scripts, that one that will heal us once-and-for-all, beyond all measure. The Lord tells me in His manual for humanity that He wrote my script for me before the world began. Perhaps it is the same for you. So, I am eternally thankful that I have been cleansed and healed through the life-giving blood of the Lord's selfless act of self-sacrifice, in order that I might live. This same Lord calls on all of us, "to invest in His eye salve so that we might see" (Rev 3:18) and have abundant life. This will be an irresistible call to those who will believe.

Thus, we can be sure, that the Master Pharmacist and Healer has just the right prescription to make us whole and complete. We only have to ask, faithfully and expectantly, and all we need for our healing will be freely given. Our names will be written in His great Book of Life and we will walk His streets of gold. There will be no rainy-days, no more crying, nor pain, or death. There is simply no better prescription for full and complete and everlasting life. This free gift is fully guaranteed by the Anointed One, the Lord Jesus Christ, and will never need refilling.