Raccoons vs. Blackbirds

Hours and hours of work were about to be released from her hand. Would it fly? It was totally her design and crafted with many fingers almost glued permanently together. The moment of truth had come. If it didn't fly, it was back to the drawing board. We all held our breath, stopwatch in hand; video camera poised.
"What is its name?" I asked.
"Rocky Raccoon!" she called. Hmmmm.... a land mammal.... was that the best name for a machine that should fly?

She held her hand up after winding the helicopter rubber motor (this is a fancy word for excruciatingly expensive rubber band). With a deep sigh, she opened her hand.

The helicopter shuddered, its rotor spun..... and it plopped on the ground. The rotor sputtered and the helicopter hopped and skipped sideways on the gym floor. Flight time: .9 seconds- the speed of gravity's pull on a falling object from that height.....

Asherel smiled bravely and said, "Really?"

The helicopter flopped around. Ben peered at it.
"You put the rotors on counterclockwise! That means we wound the motor the wrong way!"
That meant the poor rotors were pushing the air up, driving the helicopter down.
"We just have to remember to wind it the opposite way," said Ben, "I don't know why you make things so difficult!"
"I like to be unique," said Asherel.

So they rewound the rubber motor, this time in the correct direction. Again Asherel stood in the middle of the gym, sighed deeply, murmured, "I'm scared..... ok, 3-2-1......" and opened her hand.
The helicopter's blades spun slowly, gracefully, smoothly. There was no telltale wobble of an unbalanced copter. It rose gently through the air, straight in its slow motion rising hover. And the point she had put on the top of the rotor kept it from crashing against the ceiling and falling. It stayed there 10, 20, ....30 seconds! Then drifted slowly down. A 40 second flight from a craft designed by Luddites that knew nothing about flight taught by someone who knew maybe less!

I thought of how sometimes all the elements of success are in place- hard work, excellence in execution or design, attention to details, care and effort..... and we still fail!  I wonder how many times we then stomp on our "helicopters"- whatever form they may take in our life, and never realize that all we had to do was change the direction of our motor, of that which powers and guides us upward. I have to stretch a little on this one, but bear with me.... I think I may stumble upon an important concept of living victoriously.

I have noticed almost unfailingly that when Asherel and I begin our homeschool day with prayer, Bible study, and a cheerful adherence to the rules and respect of each other, it goes well. Our "motors" are wound properly putting God and then mutual respect before selfishness.  It doesn't happen as often as I would like- it doesn't take much to gum up the motor, put snags in our rubber bands, or even snap us. Even the small acts of irritability, disobedience, laziness, or disrespect sometimes grind our day to a disappointing halt and we are dialing the number of the Public School Enrollment department. (Or at least threatening it....)

We are not alone, of course. We are all human, subject to the same dismal set of defeating sins. Consider, for example, the great Bible giant, Paul- the co-author of most of the New Testament books.  He tells us he tried repeatedly to wipe out the Christians, working with conviction, sincerity, zeal.....Finally Jesus appeared to him and said, "Paul, why do you wear yourself out kicking against the goad....you are winding your helicopter backwards, dude!"

Or think of Haggai the prophet who tells Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, "Have you noticed that you spend a lot of time planting and harvesting but not reaping and your money is going in a wallet that has a giant hole in it? You are winding your helicopter backwards, Zubby!"

Or Saul, the King with the potential and assets to become truly great, who ends up being completely defeated and ousted because he is forever, putting his interests before God's. Ultimately, despite enormous gifts of personality and talent, he crash lands with a motor that was, yep, wound backwards.

Sometimes even when we wind the motor correctly, the helicopter doesn't fly. There are always factors we have not considered. But I think perhaps the very first thing we should do when we encounter failure is ask ourselves if we started off in the right direction- winding our way upwards towards God instead of downward towards the way of the world.

"Can I change its name?" asked Asherel, " I want to call it Blackbird."
Ah...now I think we are heading the right way......

Haggai 1: 5-6
 ⁵ Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. ⁶ You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

All the Right Reasons

I love divine appointments ; the wonderful people God brings to me in this often tumultuous river of life that give islands of refuge and delight.

As Asherel was walking the course for her last run of the weekend AKC trial, I took Honeybun out to walk and sniff and do whatever business a highly untrained but willing Agility Dog should do. I was in a bit of a daze as the very early morning, and noisy Independence Weekend evenings had taken their toll on my consciousness. We almost bumped into another handler, probably equally dazed, walking his dog.

He asked me what kind of dog Honeybun was.
"She's a Carolina Dog," I explained.
"I don't want to appear stupid," he said, "But what is that?"
"It is not recognized by AKC," I told him, "But it is a breed recognized by the UKC and the American Rare Breed Assoc. (ARBA)."
"Really!" he exclaimed, "My dog is an ARBA breed too!"
I glanced down at his dog, which in my hazy fog of fatigue I had not paid much attention to til then.
It was the sheepdog I wrote about yesterday- the wonderful happy fuzzball that had captured the hearts of the audience as he good-naturedly and slowly trotted around the agility course!
I told the owner how much we enjoyed watching his dog and how I had written about him in my daily blog. He asked me to send him the link and I took his contact information, then had to scurry back inside to hand Honeybun back to Asherel for her class.

When I got home, I sent the man my blog link.
Within minutes I received a reply.
The Polish Sheepdog ( I think that was his rare breed) was 13 years old. He was obviously past his prime for agility contests, and was not likely to win many more awards. But the owner and dog both loved the agility trials, and the people they had met and befriended over the years. He told me many friends had kindly and gently counseled him to retire his sheepdog and get a puppy for agility.... but he just didn't want to deprive his sweet faithful old dog of this pastime that they both so enjoyed. My blog post had come at a hard time for them and been a little bit of encouragement.

I read the letter, and of course cried. How often we hold back words of affirmation, encouragement, or praise that might steady a faltering step? With all the hard core competition and even back biting politics and acrimony that seems to accompany every competitive endeavor, it is so easy to lose sight of what really matters.... friendships, laughter, intrinsic love of the activity. Over the weekend I heard many stories about severed relationships, jealousies, back-biting.... all the ugly things that happen when people gather. To see that lovely dog and his wonderful master do agility together for all the right reasons helped me remember the need to keep it all in perspective.

I have a potholder that I think I got from my mom. I am not quite sure how I got it and it may not have even been from her, but it says, "It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice."
I used to scoff at it, thinking it was just the rallying cry of those incompetents unable to achieve much. I figured it was the sour grapes mantra of people who could never hope to be important. I repent in ashes and dust now for such a despicable attitude, but that is how I felt.

The older I get the more I realize that being important is much easier than being nice.... and how I long for nice! The world clamors after so many things that in the end mean nothing.
So I leave the wonderful agility weekend with a warm and happy oasis in my soul, the memory of a man and his dog who run around a ring and jump for the sheer joy of being together among friends.

Ruth 3: 10-11
¹⁰ "The LORD bless you, my daughter," he replied. "This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. ¹¹ And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character.