All of Life's a Stage

While sitting with Walter waiting for intermission when the patrons would hopefully stream out with pockets full of donations for Hollow Creek Farm, the actors would rush out of the dressing room and watch the monitor near us of the ongoing play. As their cue arrived, the manager would open the door to the theater and I would watch them scurry through the door, and then see them on the monitor as they hit the stage. They would practice dance steps silently as they kept their eyes on the monitor, last minute prep for their big moment.

"You pay close attention," I told Walter, "This is the way life works. You spend a lot of time watching, a lot of time waiting, a lot of time preparing, and you get your chance. Sometimes it is just a few moments on the stage so you have to be ready to give it your all."

His head wobbled on his wiggly body and he climbed into my lap.

So we were at the theater all weekend and came away with a grand total of $18 in donations for the wonderful farm that saved Walter and so many other great animals. This is a little discouraging, but I guess we don't know the full repercussion of our time. Maybe all those people who took flyers about Hollow Creek Farm will decide they want to adopt one of the wonderful dogs. Maybe they went home and wrote a big fat check. I know Walter gave it his wobbly all.

I ammended my speech to Walter, "That time on the stage..... It is not all there is. All that stuff we were watching going on behind the stage.... that is most of it. That's the part we have to value more, because sometimes it is all we get."

Walter lay his big head on my lap and closed his eyes.

The event brought to my mind the passage in the Bible when Peter is on the mountain top with Jesus, and Moses and Elijah appear. Peter is obviously overwhelmed. He is in the presence of the biggest spiritual heroes of all time, and he is seeing them with his own eyes. So he does what all of us wish we could do. He wants to build tents so they can all camp out there and he can hang on to that joyful experience a little longer.He is like the kid at the end of the beach vacation, on the verge of returning to school...."But I don't want to go home!"

 Jesus instead leads him back down the mountain. I am sure as they plod back to the valley, He tells him, in a kindly way, "Peter you are a fruitcake. You can't hang out on the mountaintop, though the view is indeed great and the experiences pretty amazing up there. Hope you enjoyed it, but get back in the real world of the valley and toil and trouble. It may not seem like it can compare, but you will discover it is what gives the mountain meaning. Without a valley, there is no mountain."

So, we may not see the whole picture; we may not have hit our big moment on the stage yet; we may just be squirming on the valley floor for a while, or in Walter's case, wobbling. But we are honing our skills, and when the mountain is ready for us, we will be ready for the mountain.

Psalm 18:29
By my God I can leap over a wall.

2 Timothy 1:7
God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power
and of love and of self-discipline.