My Rear Guard

I think my brother might be getting bored and lonely, looking for looters all alone in his deserted flooded town. His son returned to Buffalo.  All the fun of the flood has lost its sparkle.
"Oh boo hoo," he texted, "Being in a flood sux."

He says it will be a month before the house can be lived in again. I don't know if he intends to hole up there with his shotgun that whole time. He didn't text for long with me, last night. His phone is giving him problems. It keeps texting dollar signs. I thought he was making a statement about what is happening to his bank account with the destruction of his home by the flood. However, the phone has been typing those dollar signs all by itself.

So I tried to divert his attention from his woes by telling him about the new helicopter challenge in Science Olympiad. We could build a copter very similar to what we did last year, or for three times the score, we can build a "non co-axial helicopter."
I quickly researched non co-axial helicopters. The two rotors are on different motor sticks, rather than one, like last years. I didn't read much about how to accomplish our task. I was just trying to define terms.
"So, I texted John, "I think we are going to build a non coaxial helicopter."
"How will you counteract torque?"
"Dunno."
"Good plan, Missy!"
"It's all I got."
"Better get another."
"Nah, actually if they spin opposite to each other, won't that counteract torque?"
"Correct."

I discussed some other top secret design issues with him, but he only texted back one word answers. His phone was losing heart in the aftermath of the flood. And adding the costs in the aftermath of the flood. It was texting line after line of dollar signs.

I would presume people will be straggling back to the town as the water recedes, and he won't need to stay there as constantly. Power and heat will be back by Saturday, and maybe then, internet so he can use his computer.
"Living off the grid," as he put it, stinks after the first flush of novelty wears off.

Meanwhile, in between homeschooling, I have been editing Book #2. I wrote it last year, and did the stupidest thing a writer can do. With only cursory editing, I had sent it off to a few agents. As I am rereading it now, I am surprised by how many liked it. It really was not nearly ready to be seen by anyone but a vigorous revising pen. I am discovering that the more wonderful I think my writing is when I first write it...the worse it is in actuality. I think book #2 has potential, but I spent a full day yesterday, 8 hours, editing a 6 page chapter.
Well maybe 7 hours. The other hour was spent banging my head against the wall, ripping out my hair, and asking myself out loud why on earth I had sent this unedited work to agents, thus securing the likelihood of never finding a publisher for it.

I have read that one of the biggest mistakes of new authors is sending their work to agents before it is polished enough, before it is carefully edited, before it is ready. Guilty, I thought, reading and editing Book #2 and wondering how on earth I had thought it was any good. I stink, I thought wearily. I guess both John and I were feeling similarly dispirited by the long haul.

I had a dream of fighting some big and dangerous enemy, last night. I don't know who or even what it was, but it was relentless. It kept coming after me, sneaking up on me, attacking me. I knew I had no choice. I had to kill it. With a venom I had not realized I had in me, I caught it off balance on a cliff edge, and then I hurled it to the rocks below. Its head smashed against the rocks and burst. The enemy was destroyed, but I awoke in a panicked sweat. Trembling, I grabbed my bedside Bible and began to read. I don't know if the enemy crawled back up from the cliff in later dreams that night. I don't remember any other dreams.

Too much confidence is not a good thing. It makes one do idiotic things like send manuscripts off to agents when it is only in stage one revision. But loss of confidence, despair, is worse. It becomes an enemy that will kill you if you don't kill it. It's an enemy that doesn't stay dead, either. I have had this dream before. Fortunately, God warns us that there is an antidote. If we enter His house, and listen to Him, we may avoid offering the sacrifice of fools. Listen, learn, and don't be hasty. The enemy is on the prowl, but God is my rearguard.
I wonder what John dreamed about last night.

Ecclesiastes 5

 ^1]Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.  ² Do not be quick with your mouth,
   do not be hasty in your heart
   to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
   and you are on earth,
   so let your words be few.
³ A dream comes when there are many cares,
   and many words mark the speech of a fool.

Isaiah 52:

¹² But you will not leave in haste
   or go in flight;
for the LORD will go before you,
   the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

In the River

There was a dead body along the very same section of the very same river we kayaked on the very same day we were there. The body was found, reported the newspaper, by recreational kayakers.

I put the paper down. I had just returned from that part of the Catawba. I had been largely alone for the hour I kayaked upriver. Funny, as I had been paddling, thinking how quiet and peaceful it all was, how wonderfully still and isolated, it had also flashed through my mind that it would be a good place to stash a dead body.

This body appeared to be there because it wanted to be. The corpse had been involved in a hit and run accident earlier in the day, and had been seen leaving the scene of the crime. Of course, at that point it had not yet been a corpse. An autopsy would be performed to determine cause of death,but my guess was the conscience of the man had gotten a hold of him,and he could not live with what he had done. Who knows what other demons were torturing his soul that made him throw himself in the river, the place of refuge where I go not to die, but to live!

I had gone to the river all alone, unable to entice my family to go with me. I am working on getting the e-book ready for publication as a paperback, and also working on my next book. I needed a break. So I blasted songs from my new Rodgers and Hammerstein collection on my portable CD and sang along as I drove to the river.

Once I was out of earshot of the few kayakers I saw on the river (were they the ones that discovered the corpse?), I began to sing. Softly at first, furtively glancing around to make sure that no one but the crows were listening and then began belting out such classics as "Can't help lovin that man of mine," and "We kiss in the shadows". I glided along, feeling my mood rise with each dip of the oar. I could almost see Asherel rolling her eyes and wincing as I screeched to the high notes. I saw a bald eagle fly right over me, and no one told me, "That's not a bald eagle; it's too small."

Once home, refreshed and re-spirited, I thought about the poor corpse. Nothing is ever so bad that it is worth sullying the waters of such a beautiful river with something so tragic as a suicide. There is always the potential for change, the chance for redemption, the promise of tomorrow. It is the message of the Gospel- we are all broken, we are all headed for destruction, but it doesn't have to be the end of the story. Our loving God is waiting at the end of the river, and He is probably even singing along quietly with us.

Isaiah 66:12 NIV

For this is what the Lord says:
"I will extend peace to her like a river,
and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream;

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On the Rocks

It seems like a preponderance of loved ones are currently on the injured list. Our beloved agility mentor Polly has a badly broken wrist. She broke it the day we were to take her kayaking, before we showed up, I might add. Another friend is due any day to go in for a double mastectomy. And then poor dear sister Amy is back in the hospital with the second flare up of her pancreas in two weeks and on day 4 of no food. She advanced from being allowed just ice chips, to ice chips and water yesterday. That is her Memorial Day feast and she is not happy about it. And always there are our old friends in the Nursing home, who are waiting for a break in the ever present thunderstorms so I can take them to a "real steak restaurant." (We are scheduled for Thursday.0 I lay in bed last night thinking over all the aging, hurting, injured loved ones in my life and said out loud, "Help."

I feel guilty admitting I had a nice day kayaking with Arvo and Asherel and friend Josh on a lake I had never visited before. Oh sure, we got yelled at by the lake police, but it was not for a felony. They did speak harshly to us as though it were, however. We did the unthinkable crime of swimming in the lake. Yes, hardened criminals that we were, we actually dipped into the water on the 90 degree day. Good thing our government is so well funded that they can catch criminals like us. I think that alone should persuade congress to raise the debt ceiling. If 40 % of government services were cut back should they not raise the debt ceiling, who will apprehend the children swimming in the county lakes? Later we saw those same clever police pulling over a boat. They actually had red flashing lights on their police boat and moored themselves to the offending family of holiday boaters. I was not sure what the family had done, but I think they had been suspected of plotting to swim in the lake.

We kayaked to the middle of the lake where there was a picturesque cluster of large rocks. They were more picturesque from a distance, because up close it was clear that the rocks were used as the Latta Lake Goose Latrine. However, it was quite stunning, those big rocks sticking up in the  middle of the smooth blue water. We discovered as we kayaked that throughout this apparently shallow lake,  rocks lurked just below the surface. As I was in my inflatable kayak, I had to pay close attention, since a sharp rock could slice through my kayak.

This lake is just like life! It is very very beautiful from a distance. Serene even, surrounded by peaceful forests, quietly lapping water against pristine shores, rocks jutting in perfect composition to the whole delightful panorama. But then when you get down to the nitty gritty, to the actual navigating across that bucolic scene, you hit submerged rocks, goose poop, and are not allowed the relief of the cool waters.
Life is never smooth and never easy for long.

The apostle Paul was shipwrecked on rocks once. His fellow shipmates wanted to try to escape on lifeboats, or kill the prisoners the boat was carrying to justice, or save the heavy load of food . Most were succumbing to despair. But Paul told them not a single one would be lost to the sea and the rocks if they would just trust in his God. He urged them to cut away the lifeboats, throw the food overboard, and stay with the ship. In the end, everyone made it safely to shore. The rocks indeed splintered the ship, but it became the planks by which those who couldn't swim made it to the beach.

Despite the struggle of lifting the kayak back on the car, sweating to strap it down securely, packing up the multitude of necessary equipment for an outing on the lake, and having had a few anxious moments with the lake patrol and the lake rocks......I would still do it again. Hopefully tomorrow.

A few hours after we dropped Josh back home, I got an email from his mom. She told me Josh said he had a fantastic time, and by the way, there might be snails in the car, and I might want to go check.
Snails?
I sent Asherel out to the car and she returned with a warm bottle of cooked snails.
"I think they are dead," she said.

To all my beloved ones crashing against the rocks of life today, I just want to lift a prayer for you- don't abandon the ship, and be thankful you are not snails.

 Acts 27: 29-32, 42-44
²⁹ Fearing that we would be dashed against the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight. ³⁰ In an attempt to escape from the ship, the sailors let the lifeboat down into the sea, pretending they were going to lower some anchors from the bow. ³¹ Then Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.” ³² So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the lifeboat and let it drift away. ⁴² The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners to prevent any of them from swimming away and escaping. ⁴³ But the centurion wanted to spare Paul’s life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. ⁴⁴ The rest were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land safely.

Shadows

It is fitting that as the long cold days of winter stretch on, we pause to honor a large ground dwelling member of the squirrel family who gorges on food in the fall til his eyeballs barely show beneath the rolls of adipose tissue. He does so with the express and God-sent purpose of sleeping through all those icy days, until some more intelligent being drags him from his toasty den, holds him up blinking in the sun, and declares that since he casts a shadow, winter will go on 6 more weeks.Usually the ground hog does not even get a bite of the celebration cake before being shoved back in his hole til next year.

It is feast or famine for the ground hog. Approximately 9 months of gorging and then 3 months of living off his fat. I imagine his mood corresponds to this life-style. I'll bet a wooden woodchuck that during the food engulfing stage, he is on a manic high. The world looks sunny whether it is or not, because a full stomach can work wonders for one's squirrely disposition.  But did you ever wonder why Punxsutawny Phil looks so grumpy on the day named in his honor? He's hungry! He hasn't eaten for three months. Think how you feel after missing a cup of coffee!

Yesterday, Asherel and I read about a similar sudden shift, a famine to feast adulation. In Acts 28, Paul has just been shipwrecked on the island of Malta, when he is bitten by a viper. The people there proclaim him to be a demon or a criminal at least who is now getting what he deserves and they sit near to watch him swell up and die. But instead, nothing happens, and so they "change their minds and decide he is a god."

It just strikes me as fickle. On one hand he must be a demon....nope, I guess he is a god. Shadow: must be 6 weeks left of winter. No shadow: must be spring is just around the corner! Lots of good things happening- God loves me. Bad things happening- God hates me. We are such an either/or kind of species. At least I am. I know I tend to fall off the bell curve a little more often than others, but still.....

What is the modulator, the smoother, the evener, the way to remain on an even keel despite feast or famine, shadow or no shadow, good or bad circumstances? Is God there or is He dead? How do we know? How do we live as though He is when everything screams at us that He isn't, when we don't see Him after an already long and bitter stretch of frozen hope?

I think He always casts a shadow. We may not see Him in the flesh, not yet, not anymore....but we can see the shadow of His presence. There are too many examples to name, but every word of encouragement, every "coincidence" that gives us pause, every outpouring of love, every blessing of our lungs inhaling another breath, every inexplicable answer to prayer, or persistent sense of Hope against impossible situations.... those are all shadows of God I think.

Paul was shipwrecked on Malta, which means "refuge". That is the shadow the Bible describes God as eternally casting. He is our refuge. We are always in the "shadow of His wings". I think it is one of the great ironies in the Bible that on an island named Refuge, the inhabitants don't yet know the source of their refuge. They scurry from perceptions of demon to God because they don't understand that one basic tenet of existence, the one steadying factor, the one thing that keeps us from vacillating wildly from delight to despair. We are standing right now in the shadow of His wings, in His island of refuge.

Another irony is that in the shadow of His wings, we see light. If we have breath, I believe it is He who sends it. And when we no longer have even that, we are carried instantly to His side where we will no longer be in His shadow, but in His presence.

Happy Ground Hog day- may we all find refuge in the Shadow that is the only true shelter from the storm. And in the shadow, may you see light.

Psalm 36:
 ⁵ Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens,
   your faithfulness to the skies.
⁶ Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
   your justice like the great deep.
   You, LORD, preserve both people and animals.
⁷ How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
   People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house;
   you give them drink from your river of delights.
⁹ For with you is the fountain of life;
   in your light we see light.