The tree-house
October 14 2025
Tater climbed up into the tree-house. Barefoot, and smiling, sun-streaked hair, she happily splatted wet sand with her hands up in the little perch seven feet above the ground.
She had asked Filly to bring her “some fresh water please” and had handed her a big pink plastic bucket in which to deliver the water. Filly looked and saw sand everywhere. The “sink” for the “kitchen” had been pulled out and tossed on the ground below and the dust pan and broom were sitting untouched in the corner. It appeared that tidiness and order were not a priority for the tree-house, even though the sandbox at the base of the tree-house was supposed to have been the appropriate place for sand initially.
Pyp called before Filly could get the water for Tater and she stepped off the ladder to tend to the little one. Tater came down, looking for “more glitter” to go with the sand. Filly was glad the glitter was being played with outside instead of inside. Tater had a craft box and Filly knew it had more glitter containers in it, red, blue, green, gold, silver and other colors.
She went in the house, Tater following and located the plastic craft bin in the top shelf of the closet and opened it up to reveal crisp new containers full of the desired glitter. Tater gleefully claimed the glitter and went back out the door. Mister longingly said he wished he had a craft box. Filly asked him what would he like from the craft box and he asked for the scissors that were in the box. Filly gave him the scissors.
Mister happily took the scissors and went back to the kitchen counter where he had drawn space ships and now wanted to cut them out and play with them. Pyp was just following Filly around, bare butt with a long pajama shirt that covered her but allowing her easy access to the Blue potty chair sitting on the patio. So far the chair was empty.
Filly heard Tater calling her again. Filly answered and said “did you get the water for yourself or do you still need me to help you”. Tater answered and said, “I got the water but where are my creations?” Filly had taken Tater’s “creations” and had put them on the small wooden table that sat on the bricks under the tree house so they would not get rained on.
She told that to Tater, who scrambled back down the ladder to get them and put them high up in the tree house. Her creations were quite lovely. Tater had initially just played with mud. But then in her craft box, she had found a huge box of sidewalk chalk. She enjoyed drawing, but more than drawing she enjoyed grinding up the chalk into the sand.
She picked colors like pink and orange and blue chalk and it turned the sand a pretty color. Then she had put the sand and chalk mixture in a bowl and added water and stirred it up. She had done that a few days earlier and discovered when she dumped out the now solidified bowl of chalk sand, it had the shape of a very pretty sand moon. So then she did the process again and had added glitter. Now the sand moon shapes sparkled.
Filly had thought that Tater seemed to be enjoying just being dirty and disorderly, breaking chalk and throwing sand and water everywhere. She had a hose to spray Tater off before she came inside each time. But apparently Tater was suddenly discovering that having a beautiful creation was better than being dirty and throwing sand and water around.
She wanted to display and look at her “creations”. So Tater got a broom and the dust pan and started sweeping the tree house. She threw down the mats that lined the floor and gave Filly at least twenty five empty bottles from used glitter as well as dirty buckets and shovels to take down from the tree-house to clean it. She cleaned out the whole tree-house. She even asked Filly to spray the hose on the floor mats to clean them off.
After climbing down the steps of the ladder and bringing down all the dirt from the tree house, Tater then climbed back up and brought up her beautiful creations and put them where they would be protected.
Filly thought about C.S.Lewis and the abolition of man, and also the Chronicles of Narnia. Like these books, on her own, Tater had elevated her experience, knowing without Filly ever saying anything, that clean, and good and beautiful was “morally self evident”, because she was “human”. All humans were aware of an innate morality and its existence. Tater had initially gone down, creating a quagmire, but had eventually come back up even higher, with an expression of something creative and beautiful to demonstrate. It was an active process, this understanding of morality and its place in humanity.
Filly loved the V pattern, down and then up even higher, analogy. She had been listening to a class online of understanding C.S.Lewis by Hillsdale college, because he had been an atheist and had changed his thinking to being supportive of Christianity.
Filly appreciated how he said that when one had become a Christian, he offered congratulations and commiserations, because in order to become a Christian, one first had to recognize that one had been flawed, and then had to realize it put one at odds with a beautiful creator, and repentance had to happen…therefore sorrow usually prefaced the story of conversion, necessarily. That definitely characterized her own experience as a Christian. And she was still learning.
Tater had to realize that her beautiful creations were not able to be appreciated or even seen, in the sloppy wet mess of a tree house. Cleanliness, orderliness and beauty were qualities she had to achieve by recognizing morality on her own…with help from Filly and others of course. And because she grew tired of just playing in filth, she eventually used her skills to create something interesting and worthwhile, which motivated her to elevate other aspects of her little tree house.
Filly loved seeing this metamorphosis. She never had to tell Tater to clean up her mess. She just had to assist Tater in appreciating the beautiful, the creative, and the logic of morality in any situation, which made her want to do this on her own, because she was moral.
Randomly chosen bible verse for this day…
When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 2 “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”
Keeping with us what the Lord says to keep, is how human beings lead moral uplifted lives.
Pyp was calling. There was something in the toilet now. Something to rejoice over. “Right there” Pyp said pointing. “Yep” Filly acknowledged and then said “YAY”. The radio, seventies on seven was playing anchors away. Like “someone dropped a load”. Filly laughed.
Time to get ready for Taekwondo. More tree-house play another day.