Don't forget to dance

No matter what time I wake up, there is a furry face with dark hungry eyes two inches from my yawning face. As soon as I show any sign of conscious life, she begins to wag her tail and perk her ears, then gallop in the direction of the food bowl. I always trudge off to the bathroom instead, clothes in hand, and when I emerge, she is still there. Still wagging, still bright eyed, still expectant.

This is how I should greet each day! I should be lunging forward into the fray with joy, with anticipation, with delight for each moment of existence I have been granted. My glee at the dawn of new opportunities, new possibilities should make me prance and twirl as I gallop delightedly to my breakfast.

I am sorry to say I don't. I don't seem to prance as often as I did when I was young. For one thing, I think there is the very real chance that prancing would lead to ripped muscles or snapped Achilles tendons in my aging body. For another, as soon as I commenced prancing, I would think of all the anti-prancing aspects of my life.

I recently heard the words of the song by the group Kinks again, "Don't forget to dance." It reminded me of how joy should define all existence. After all, God is waiting there for me just as eagerly as Honeybun each morning, but rather than demanding a feast, He is offering one.

 Don't Forget to Dance.

You look out of your window,
Into the night.
Could be rain, could be snow,
But it can't feel as cold as you're feeling inside.

And all of you friends are either married, vanished,
Or just left alone.
But that's no reason to just stop living.
That's no excuse to just give in to a sad and lonely heart.

Don't forget to dance, no, no, no,
Don't forget to smile.
Don't forget to dance, no, no, no,
Forget it for a while.

'Cause darling, darling,
I bet you danced a good one in your time.
And if this were a party
I'd really make sure the next one would be mine.
Yes, you with the broken heart.

Don't forget to dance, no, no, no,
Don't forget to smile.
Don't forget to dance, no, no, no,
Forget it for a while.

Don't forget to dance, no, no, no,
Forget it for a while.

You walk down the street
And all the young punks whistle at you.
A nice bit of old,
Just goes to show what you can achieve
with the right attitude.
As you pass them by
They whisper their remarks one to another,
And you give them the eye
Even that you know that you could be their mother.
You do the thing you love the most.
What separates you from the rest,
And what you love to do the most?
And when they ask me how you dance,
I say that you dance real close.

Don't forget to dance, no, no, no,
Don't forget to dance. 

 

Jeremiah 31:

¹² They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion;
   they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD—
the grain, the new wine and the olive oil,
   the young of the flocks and herds.
They will be like a well-watered garden,
   and they will sorrow no more.
¹³ Then young women will dance and be glad,
   young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into gladness;
   I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.

Crown of Beauty

A second book club called and asked if I would come speak to their group. My book was on their reading list! With one book club gig now under my belt, I am as close as I will likely ever be to a celebrity. I readily accepted the second invitation. These little sparks of encouragement on my path to becoming a successful author are like sunflowers on the edge of the tumbledown empty lot I pass on my bicycle. Unexpected , breath catching bursts of beauty, of hope, of life.

A cousin wrote and told me her daughter was having trouble with a teacher. The teacher didn't believe in letting strong students read above their grade level. She felt the content of such books would be too mature, incomprehensible to a 5th grader. It didn't matter to her that the child might be capable of advanced reading and thus bored of the typical 5th grade book. To further turn the screws on this torture to a gifted young mind, the teacher required that the students read a half hour every day outside school time, but they were not allowed above the prescribed reading level.
"I'm sending her to school with your book," said my cousin,"And she will see if the teacher will let her read it." (Stories like this are one of the reasons I homeschool. I understand most teachers are not like this, but oh my! How stories like this hurt my heart!)
Later, my cousin reported back.
"The teacher looked at your book and couldn't find its level in the scholastic system. She said it appeared to be a book for adults, however. Then she looked at my child and told her she seemed to be reading at an advanced level...so yes, she could read your book."
We will conquer the world, one 5th grader at a time.

I sat at the computer, reading the many notes from relatives who grew up watching "School house rock." They sent links to songs which would teach Asherel the Preamble of the Constitution, as well as most educational requirements through graduate school. I didn't grow up with School House Rock. I was a little too old when it came around. However, I was feeling a little down about how unenthusiastic and busy our homeschool seems to be this year. It feels overwhelming right now. Too much to do, too little time, and too little joy. Could School House Rock infuse delight over 9th grade writing assignments, too? I started our school day with a communal prayer with Asherel, who looked at me quizzically. We both start our day with Bible reading, but separately. We usually don't start with prayer together.
"Why?" she asked.
Oh, I thought, I have not been steering this ship properly.

So while musing about all I had been doing poorly, I got a little chat message on the side of my computer screen. It was from my daughter in the next room. I don't know what we did before computers when family members had to actually move from room to room to talk to each other.

I had modified the writing/history assignment that day. My assignment was sparked by a new passion of Asherel. She has a new computer game she loves called Minecraft. She tells me that it is critical she play this game for normal social development since everyone her age plays it. In this game, she builds a city out of lego like pieces, and she has to plan and wisely apportion her "wealth" to build the city with all the essentials it needs to thrive and grow. The city has enemies, like wolves that can attack, but apparently can be tamed and become useful. I am sure this description is somewhat inaccurate, but you get the idea. Anyway, my assignment was to rewrite the Preamble and the first 5 amendments of the constitution as though it were written for the Minecraft community. She had to keep the same concepts and meaning, but use terms the Minecraftians would understand.

So, the little chat window from Asherel on the edge of my computer screen said:
"I am working on the Minecraft Constitution. Can I send you the Preamble so you can be sure I am on the right track? This is FUN!"

Fun? Out of the midst of my funk over how hard our school days had become, learning the Constitution was being described as fun.

That night as I settled down to draw my iPod picture, which I draw each day, sunflowers popped out of my hand and onto the screen. I looked at the  happy faces of the sunny flowers and wondered what had sparked sunflowers from the creative swamp.

Isaiah 61:2-4

² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
   and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
 ³ and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
   instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
   instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
   instead of a spirit of despair.

The carrot or the stick

"First one packed and back to shore gets to dole out the oreos!"
I shouted.
The groaning teens, who did not want to leave the river and return to school work suddenly shot into action. Even the nearby Great Blue Heron perked up at the mention of Oreos.

"Oreos!" cried Josh.

He began racing around the sand bar, gathering his skim board, throwing on his life jacket, and hopped in the boat.
"What's the hurry?" asked Ben, who must not have heard me.
"I want to be the oreo doler!" cried Josh, shooting off into the current.
"Oreos!" said Ben, and he jumped in his boat and raced after Josh.
Asherel was slowly and methodically settling into her kayak. She had a secret weapon though. She knew the short cut under the low pier bridges along shore.

As the three kids raced each other back to shore, and I glanced happily at my watch, I knew that this time, we would beat rush hour traffic home. There was none of the usual dragging and dawdling. Why am I so dense to forget to use the "carrot" rather than the "stick" more often? The boats were unpacked, loaded in the car, and everyone settled with hungry faces in their seat exactly by my timetable. The oreo doler, who was not told he had to be fair, was fair...to some degree. There was one extra oreo and to avoid any semblance of favoritism, he ate it.
"Cause I'm just that kind of guy," he told the group glaring at him.

It was a wonderful day, as kayaking on the Catawba always is, but I learned (again) a very important lesson. It is perhaps the lesson most critical in raising happy children. Motivate and encourage with positives. Punishment and threats just don't build joy. Yet when I am at the end of my rope, patience, and energy, I reach for the easy solution, the "or else" solution.

God, as usual, knows best. We are made aware that Hell exists, and we do not want to go there. However, the overriding message of the Bible is that God loves us, and yearns for us to love Him and be with Him. He beckons continually with the offer of sweet mercy, forgiveness, grace, and eternal joy.

And I plan to keep a bag of oreos in my kayak kit.

Ruth 2:12
¹² May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

Rocking Around the Clock

My geriatric friend Comer had told me his favorite singer was Englebert Humperdinck. Asherel and I scoured music stores and CD Warehouse for weeks, but we could not find Humperdinck CDs. We found some hits from the 50s, and some Elvis albums, and settled for that. Then right before we were to go pick up our old friends for our weekly drive and fast food fest, Asherel asked if I would like her to download Englebert from the iTunes store. There was one album.

Comer and Evelyn were sitting on the porch of the Assisted Living Home waiting for us when we pulled in a few minutes late. I was busting with excitement.
"Have I got a surprise for you!" I exclaimed, leaping from the car. Evelyn was beaming, with a sparkling smile of recognition.
"Evelyn! You look gorgeous! It is so good to see you!" I said hugging her.
"Well," she laughed, "It is good to see you too!"
She hadn't said a single coherent sentence last visit, so it was clear that for today, the demons of Alzheimer had retreated a bit.
I even ventured to offer her a choice in our fast food take out.Often choices are too overwhelming for her, but it goes against every fiber of my being to make choices for a sentient adult.
"Fried chicken again, or burgers?"
"Chicken!" she nodded, her smile still wide and lovely.
I pushed my luck with a second question, "Breast or thigh?"
"Breast," she nodded, her eyes focusing on me like they did in the days before her disease had progressed.
"You seem really happy today," I said.
"When you're smiling," she sang.
I sang with her, to the end of the song, after which we both crumpled in laughter and I think even Asherel smiled from the front seat.
"That sure is true," said Comer, listening to the words of the song, as he got in his side of the van.

"Ready for your surprise?" I asked Comer.
He is hard of hearing, so I cranked the radio speaker to which the iPod was linked full blast. I scream at my family for doing this because as of yet, no one is hard of hearing but me, and the volume at which they listen to music is certainly felling the otolythic crystals that remain to conduct sound waves in my inner ear.
Comer smiled as the music trumpeted against his ear drum.
"Oh my, he sure can sing, can't he?"
Evelyn knew every song, as usual, and sang along. Even I knew most of them and sang the phrases I remembered.The two, as usual held hands and we collected our fried chicken and drove to the "old money" neighborhood. Comer loves looking at big houses. He never seems to tire of it. When the Englebert album ended, I told them we would try the 50s album next. It was filled with upbeat songs, like "Rock Around the Clock" which I didn't expect my old friends to know or like. However, as soon as the rocking rolling vibes filled the car, Evelyn's foot started tapping, her hands swaying, and she began singing Rock Around the Clock. I sang along and danced from the waist up in the driver's seat. The car behind me honked as I missed the change of lights, rocking with Evelyn. I saw Comer in my rear view mirror jiggling back and forth to the beat as well. Asherel was videotaping me, promising that payback was coming in the form of a movie she intended to make of me making a fool of myself.

Then when the song ended, with an evil smile, she switched on her iPod gallery of videos and the sound of me straining through Eidelweiss, playing my guitar in fits and stops and singing came over the speakers. Evelyn began laughing, but then we both sang along. When there would be long pauses as I searched for the correct chord, Evelyn chortled happily. I have never had so much fun being humiliated.

When the song ended, Comer said, "Well now, was that you playing guitar?"
"Yes," I said.
"You didn't sound bad," he said.
"Ready for TV?" I laughed.
"Well you might want a little more practice for that," he said.

We pulled back into the senior home then, and still laughing, I opened the door and helped Evelyn out.
"That was fun," I said.
"It sure was," she said, still chuckling, while I brushed the fried chicken crumbs off her shirt.

In the book of Isaiah, the rebellious people have abandoned God's way and He warns them of the punishment to come in judgement of their disobedience. I find it curious that in that time, God mentions that the young will rise up against the old.  The implicit message is of course that in the right way of things, the old should be honored, revered, loved.  But it seems that so often the old are shuttered away, ignored, and disrespected, the wealth of their wisdom and experience lost to the people who need it the most....the young.
I never come away from my time with Comer and Evelyn without a deep sense of joy and satisfaction.

"I will pick you up next Friday," I said, hugging my old, still smiling friends goodbye.
"How about if we find barbecue next time?" asked Comer.
"You got it," I said waving.

Isaiah 3

Judgment on Jerusalem and Judah

 ¹ See now, the Lord,
   the LORD Almighty,
is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah
   both supply and support:
all supplies of food and all supplies of water,
 ² the hero and the warrior,
the judge and the prophet,
   the diviner and the elder,
³ the captain of fifty and the man of rank,
   the counselor, skilled craftsman and clever enchanter.  ⁴ “I will make mere youths their officials;
   children will rule over them.”
 ⁵ People will oppress each other—
   man against man, neighbor against neighbor.
The young will rise up against the old,
   the nobody against the honored.

Sufficient unto itself

Sometimes in between ripping out your hair, you just gotta smile. Amy is still in the hospital and still on heavy duty drugs for pain, though being weaned from them. But Matt got an awesome job offer for a summer internship. First year law students have a very hard time getting paid internships. He was willing to do one for free.  He still isn't certain about all the specifics and how it will work, and especially will his soon to be wife be able to join him in the Florida job til he returns to law school in August. But right now, it sure feels like a gift hand delivered by God. Every time I opened my eyes in the night I whispered, "Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou....."

He did get one other offer but I won't share too many of the details on that in case there are hit men out looking for him. Not only was that one unpaid, but he would be required to carry a sealed envelope back and forth between DC and Tehran. They cautioned there were certain risks involved in this law internship, one of which was wearing a belt that detonated when he pushed a little red button, blowing him and the "sensitive" contents of the envelope to smithereens.
"I am not sure this is the kind of position I am hoping for," said Matt.
"Son, beggars cannot be choosers," said the lawyer, pushing the arrest warrant to the side of his desk unobtrusively.
Matt hemmed and hawed over that one, so i am really grateful this second one seems to be coming through for him.

Holly, who with her incredible attorney friend Bertha was a huge help in linking Matt with the sane and reputable lawyer, and I were discussing how very hard it is for young adults to get started in life. We remembered how idealistic we were in our young twenties. I crossed the country to start grad school in California in a beaten up old car wth a grand total of $200. I had no money for tuition,  which would be due in a month, and no idea how I was going to get it. But I had a head filled with hopes and dreams and fluff.....and somehow, it all worked out.

Face it, if we were born with the list of all we would have to overcome before we returned to dust, most of us would crawl right back in the womb. It is one of God's greatest gifts that He keeps the next day veiled. The one comfort Solomon discovered is that the day is sufficient unto itself. Enjoy the gifts God gives you for this moment. It might be the only one you have this side of eternity. Smile whenever the urge seizes you. Tomorrow could be filled with frowns.

Hebrews 3:13

¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

With you always

I thought the old couple in the back seat were eating their roastbeef and slurping their milkshakes, mindless of the discussion between Asherel and me.
"Where did the music go?" I asked her.
"My battery died. Why don't you have a CD player in this car anyway? And a better radio?"
"I don't know," I sighed, "We are in it all the time. It would be nice to have one. Maybe you should mention this to Dad. After all, Mother's Day is coming up...."

Evelyn burst our laughing in the back seat.
"Oh, you heard me conniving for a Mother's Day gift, did you Evelyn?" I said, glancing in the mirror.
"Yes," she chuckled.
"Did you ever plot ways to get a Mother's Day gift?"
"Oh yes!" she said.
"Hey Comer, did you always get her the gift she hinted after?"
"Hinted or told me, she got everything she wanted. She and my daughter both. Whatever they wanted they got."
"Did they appreciate it?"
"Probably not," he said, squeezing Evelyn's hand.
"You're a good man, Comer," I said.
"He is a good man," agreed Evelyn.
"Well I'm just glad I had the money," continued Comer, "The day I got out of the army, I had a $100 bucks."
"But that was a lot of money back then, right?"
"Yea, but I blew it all before the next morning."
"On what!?"
"Oh you know, wine, women, and song."
"Did you know Evelyn yet?"
"Oh no, I didn't meet her for another 3 years."
"Good thing, Evelyn, you might not have liked him then."
"You're right about that. I think I did about the fastest turn-around of anyone in history. I walked out of there without a penny in my pocket to my brother's house, got a job, and worked my way up."
He started the first office of a small brokerage/insurance firm in the city and after expanding 3 times, he was well on his way to becoming a millionaire.


I had collected my old friends from their new Senior Care facility. The memories of the old place, being apart in separate buildings, poor Evelyn crying every time he sadly walked away to return to his place were already receding. They were sitting together on the lovely lobby couch, holding hands, both dressed elegantly. When Evelyn saw me, I could tell by the bright smile and joyful reaching out to me that she knew me. It almost seemed like in this new place, Alzheimer was retreating.
She stood up quickly, none of the shuffling painfulness of a week ago evident, and walked quickly to the car.
"You're leaving me in the dust, Mother!" called Comer.
We had driven to Lake Wylie, with a stop first at Arbys for the roast beef they'd been longing for.
On the way, Comer told me he had been needing a switch for his lamp, and a small hammer. I stopped at Lowes Building Supplies, leaving Evelyn in the car with Asherel.

"You stay here with Asherel," I urged her, "Will that be ok?"
"Oh yes," she said, smiling at Asherel.

As we drove home after meandering along the lake shore, Evelyn said, "This is such an interesting city, all these parts."
I knew enough about Alzheimers and Evelyn's echo-ing of words to know that word retrieval was sometimes impossible. She may know at times what she wants to say, but often the crumbles in her brain won't let her travel to the place where words come easily. This alert and spontaneous sentence was a little victory.

When I returned our old friends to the home, there were none of those torturous bouts of weeping that broke both my and Comer's heart. Evelyn and Comer went to his room, where they would spend the day together.
"I'm so happy to have this little hammer!" said Comer, holding up the Lowes bag.
"You watch him, Evelyn," I said, ""Don't let him knock the wall over."
"I won't," she said, laughing.

I took her hands and said, "We can go wherever you want next week, do anything you like, see anything you would like to see. What would you like to see?"
Without pause she said, "Asherel!"
"Ok," I said hugging her and Comer, "Then I will bring Asherel."

Later when I told Asherel what Evelyn had said, she mused, "But I didn't do anything. I just sat here."
That sometimes is all it takes. Just being there alongside a fellow traveler. As I left Comer and Evelyn together in his new room, hers just down the hall, I knew that was something this sweet old couple knew deeply in their souls.

Psalm 73:23

 ²³ Yet I am always with you;
   you hold me by my right hand.

Success is fun

Like a zillion times before, Asherel stepped to the middle of the gym floor, held her helicopter with the tightly wound rubber band aloft and released it. But this time was not to be like all the other times when it fluttered to the ground with wobbly despair. This time it lifted to the tall gym ceiling, both rotors spinning, beautifully balanced. We began to be hopeful as thirty seconds went by and it was still scraping the ceiling, then a minute, then a minute thirty.... then two minutes....then three minutes. Then it stopped spinning and it was still on the ceiling. Its point had stuck into the ceiling tile. The kids shot it down with rubber bands and we tried again.

This time it flew for a minute and forty seconds. We were contenders. We put the helicopter away jubilantly. Short of a disaster, we should not embarrass ourselves at the Science Olympiad competition... and suddenly Asherel is talking about what they will do next year. A little success goes a long way towards motivation.

I will admit that I have had a philosophical conundrum throughout this year. I have heard more times than I would like to recount, "It has to be fun." I like fun as much as the next guy, but I have always countered with, "It is fun to do your best. There is a time and place for silliness, for goofing off, but that is not why I am volunteering my time to coach. Success is fun, believe me."

I think the joy on my helicopter teams' faces indicates they are beginning to understand fun.

I think most times 'fun' is equated with mindless, relaxing, ultimately meaningless endeavors. I don't think hard work, failure, repeated trials, frustration, despair is usually associated with 'fun'. But when the fruit of all those rough moments is victory.... suddenly looking back on it all, you realize that was fun, and you missed it.

I know I bring a pretty serious type A mindset to endeavors. I never enjoyed the silliness of fellow students growing up, just didn't get it. I am still not a big fan of silly. But I am wired for whatever neurotic reason to always try to do my best. And sad to say, that is what I expect of those around me. I am not the ideal coach by a long shot. I find it hard to motivate slackers. I just don't really relate to that mind set, and frankly, it makes me mad. But the science team needed coaches and so they were stuck with what they could scrounge up. Every time we finish a practice, I find myself praying, chastising myself for not being gentler, kinder, quieter. Maybe I just don't really understand fun.

As we left the gym, Asherel turned to me with a huge smile on her face, "THAT was fun," she said.

Psalm 20:5

⁵ May we shout for joy over your victory
   and lift up our banners in the name of our God.
   May the LORD grant all your requests.

Second Chances

I held my hand up for silence and my team leaned in closer.
"Now listen carefully," I advised, "I am not sure I fully understand this, in fact I am pretty sure I don't, but I think it is important and I think it will directly affect our rotor design."
"OK," said Ben eagerly, "Read it."
"The area of low pressure created at the wingtips creates vortices."
"What are those?"
"Turbulence, swirling wind. Can you imagine what vortices off our airfoil tip might produce?" I asked.
Of course they did- drag and stall, the enemies.
"So, listen up team, aeronautic engineers design the wing so that the lift is distributed across the wing span with the lift greatest at the wing root and least at the wing tip- this is called washout, thus reducing the lift induced drag.  So team, what do we need to do with our airfoil design to achieve washout?"

For a moment, both team members looked befuddled, and then like the sun suddenly pulling clear of the horizon, Ben's face lit up.
"I get it !" he cried, with delight, "We twist our wing so the angle of attack is greater at the wing root than at the tip!!! I understand!!!"
"Brilliant, Watson," I smiled settling back to smoke my celebratory, imaginary cigar.

When I was a teenager, I met a young man, the 5 year old child of one of my dad's coworkers. He was brilliant, a verified genius. We went to dinner with him, and I was entranced. I thought at the time I would never want kids, but if I had one, I thought back then, I wanted a child with that kind of mind- that zest and love for learning. Those who know me would know it is not bragging, but just stating a fact that my oldest son was all of that and more. Genius has its host of very difficult issues, but the delight and instant gobbling of hard concepts was always pure joy for me to watch and at times to guide, and while he was very young, even teach. He has been gone many years now, college then his own business far away in Boston, and I cannot express how deeply I feel his absence and how desperately I miss him.  My other two kids are brilliant in their own right and wonderful and I cannot say enough about how blessed I am to have all of them.

But something about Ben struck me at that moment as so reminiscent of Anders- that almost eerie and instant grasp of very difficult concepts, and the presence of pure joy in learning. It is a rare and breathtaking quality. I almost cried.

I had fought having to teach the helicopter event. I knew nothing about aerodynamics, and would not consider myself particularly scientific. Since then, I have had a crash course in flight, and right now can throw out words like angle of incidence, angle of attack, chord, camber, Bernoulli's principle, and washout with wild abandon, and even more amazingly, understanding. It is very hard and really stretching me, but I am enjoying it. I cannot believe it, but I am! And while I may not understand the workings of God, I have an inkling that He sent me Ben to fill a void that sometimes is so painful I cannot give it words.

A mom last night was chatting with me, and said, "So you have kids that have graduated?"
"Two of them," I said.
"How was it," she asked, glancing at her oldest, a 16 year old,"When that first one left?"
"It broke my heart," I said, "But we survived. It will be hard, but you will get through it. We all do. And there are some advantages..... the food bills go down."

I could have gone on, about how sometimes they come back with wonderful, beautiful daughter in laws for me, and maybe someday grandchildren to spoil, but I stopped there. I didn't think of Ben til later, and realized that God doesn't mean for me to extend my reach only as far as my own genes have scattered. His preparation for me included a season of Anders, but the harvest He intends may be much greater than what I supposed it would be.  It is funny how joy springs out of nowhere sometimes.

Deuteronomy 16:15 (New International Version)

¹⁵ For seven days celebrate the Feast to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.

And a Bark to Sail Her By

Asherel believes God made dogs for 2 main purposes- 1. to dress up in humiliating outfits, including sunhats and bathing suits when children outgrow playing with dolls, 2. to alleviate the boredom of paddling kayaks.

Thus the two main purposes of dogs were satisfied in her eyes yesterday. Honeybun got to wear her new life jacket, though Asherel was disappointed I did not allow "doggles" (dog swim goggles) or dog flippers for her feet. She also got her first ride on a kayak, and did remarkably well. Of course, the entire kayak ride was spent shoveling food into Honeybun's greedy mouth so that she probably never noticed that she was no longer on dry land.

I cannot tell you how many times I have to tell Asherel , "She is a DOG not a TOY." I am glad Honeybun brings so much joy to my daughter, but I am unconvinced the joy is mutual. Honeybun acquiesces more willingly than Lucky however, who was on the kayak for about 5 seconds before figuring out this is not what dogs were made to do, and jumped off swimming as fast as he could for shore towing Asherel behind him.

Of course there is a lesson here. There always is. God is lurking in every blade of grass waiting to teach us if we take the time to notice. We are all made for a purpose. We may try to force ourselves to conform to a purpose we were never intended to conform to, and we may even find some success in those endeavors. But I think that there are some things we were never intended to do, and we insist on doing them anyway. (Don't worry Asherel, I think HB maybe did really like kayaking, and she is an unusual dog in that perhaps that is the purpose God intended for her....). I think one of the two hardest questions in life relate to this. What is our purpose and how do we know it when we find it? The second question is how do I know it is God speaking and not my own voice?

I don't know the answer for sure to either, but I will take a stab at a thought or two. I think joy accompanies discovery of a true purpose. Not just a transient happiness, but a deep abiding joy that seeps into every pore, a contentment, a sense of fitness and rightness. And I think God's voice is detected in its persistence. I think we can drown out His voice til we no longer hear it, but I think if we are earnestly seeking to hear, He will persist til we understand it is Him speaking.

And sometimes His purpose is as unexpected and incongruous as a dog paddling a kayak.

Psalm 138:8 (New International Version)

⁸ The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your love, O LORD, endures forever—
do not abandon the works of your hands.

Frozen Manna

I can barely walk today. That is because yesterday we got that promised blizzard, the winter storm to beat all winter storms, the harbinger of the dreaded melting of the glaciers and annihilation of all polar bears. We got a full one and one quarter inches of fresh powder. Charlotte ground to a standstill. Every event was canceled including church. For the Bible Belt to cancel church, you know the storm is of epic proportions. I arose in the morning and pulled aside the blinds- SNOW!!! Real honest to goodness frozen manna from heaven waiting for me to go frolic and taste the goodness and beauty of God's icing on the streets.
I quickly downed breakfast, and gathered the cross country ski equipment, that is thirty years old and only gets called into service once a year here in Charlotte. In places that are used to snow, like NY where I hail from, the twenty inches that drop every hour are immediately dispatched, but here in Charlotte, the one snow plow that serves the entire southeast was busy in Concord which got a death defying 5 inches, so we were sure to have snow covered streets til at least April or the first thaw....tomorrow. So I opened the door, slapped on my skis, and the world was my groomed trail! I skied joyously down the white street. The downhills became Olympic mountains, the speed bumps my moguls. I passed many children who stopped building snowmen to point at me, and say, "Look Mama! An alien!"
Many adults called out, "You're not from around here, are you?"
It was clear that no one in Charlotte had ever seen a cross country skier.
I headed to the open wilderness, the sidewalks along the busy thoroughfare. Few cars were out as one inch of snow is not to be trifled with, unless it is for an emergency situation like a Starbucks Latte. Now while much of my writing is intended to be humorous and somewhat exaggerated, I am telling the truth when I say that this was the singular best day of ski conditions I had ever encountered. God had sent a cystal layer of pellets as a base, and then soft powder, but just one inch. So my skis could not ever hit the damaging pavement, but slid across the icy pellets and were cushioned by the soft powder. It was the finest groomed ski trail and I raced along the sidewalks. I made for the golf course, the one where only the people who have cheated on their taxes can possibly afford. Normally, the guard at the iron gate there takes one look at me and slams the door shut as it is clear people of my station in life are not allowed. But the guard house was unmanned, as no one but the snow bunnies were out that morn, so I whisked onto the forbidden grounds. I skied last winter in the Washington mountains, and I can tell you, that golf course was just as gorgeous with the added benefit of no pumas stalking me. I sailed up and down huge hills and deftly negotiated sand traps with ease. The whole country was blanketed in untrammeled white, and I was alone, lost in the wilderness of an elite golf course.

I knew I had skied too far and would pay dearly for it by the next morning, but it didn't matter. If I must be crippled by excess, let it be an excess of joy. I skied 18 holes, and sadly turned homeward.

And today, I can barely walk. Did you know that there are muscles in your ear lobes? There must be, because even there, I ache. But it is a pain from feasting on the pure goodness of God's world, a satiating moment of beauty and pure whiteness in the often grey stumbles of life.

Psalm 51:7
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.