Living Up to our Names

When Lucky was going on day three of no "waste disposal" and day 6 of very little eating, we decided we better bring him back to the vet. However, our regular vet had cost $300 just for the xray. (We knew they would want a follow up xray). And that would be the cost if they did nothing else except tell us our dog was about to explode. If we wanted them to do anything about it, it would easily be another $1000. We had already had that immense joy once, and had not really been chomping at the bit to repeat it. So we decided it was worth it to trek the 45 minutes into the country to the vet that our favorite rescue farm, Hollow Creek Farm, raves about. Not only are they priced in a way such that even people who do not peddle cocaine for a living can afford them, but they are really excellent vets, we were assured. So we packed our unhappy dog in the van, and headed to Palmetto Veterinary in McConnell, SC.

Who could not love a vet who towers around 6'5 or so, and is named, "Dr. Love"? And this kind-hearted giant was really only about 35 minutes from Charlotte. A 35 minute drive was definitely worth a vet that costs a third of what we are paying in Charlotte. The office is in the middle of a rolling country road, that is designated a scenic byway. It was just gorgeous, and worth the drive for the lovely scenery alone. Lucky even looked a little perkier, watching the cows, and horses, and lovely hills slip by. The office itself is a charming red building nestled in wide open fields. I brought my poor old dog in and was greeted by a sweet receptionist, and two customers who all exchanged stories about their dogs swallowing near fatal bones.
"My dog was 14 years old," said the lady, "And a bone got wedged in between his teeth and the top of his mouth. He couldn't close his mouth! WE couldn't get it out. Finally he got his paw up there and shoved and wrenched it out. You should have seen the blood!"
Oh my. So sorry to have missed that, I thought, leading Lucky back to his exam room.

Dr. Love came in, blocking all sunlight that might have tried to stream over his head. It just may be that I was sitting down, but he struck me as larger than life, at least taller than most life. I don't think he even looked at me, or acknowledged me. He went straight for my dog, and palpated his tummy.
I like this vet, I thought. Not only do I love someone named Dr. Love, but I loved the no nonsense focus on the object of my visit. I didn't need small talk- I needed my dog fixed. I handed him the old xrays and notes from our last vet visit, the one that had sent us home scraping the piggy bank for lost change.
"We need to do an xray," he said, "But it will be MUCH cheaper than the one you already had done." He whisked Lucky away.
When he came back the second time, he smiled and said, "I think he will be fine. Come on back and I will show you the xray."
I followed him to his computer screen in a back room. Lucky's guts were displayed on the screen.
"See, the air bubble that was here on the first xray is gone now."
(I presumed that was a good thing)
"His lower intestine looks normal now, just filled with feces. He just needs to get eating again to push that along. I'll prescribe some stomach soothing medication, and give you some special food."
ohoh. The last vet gave us special food, too. $30 of special food that Lucky spits out.
"Most dogs really love this stuff," Dr. Love assured me.

After paying about a fourth of what we paid at the Charlotte vet, we headed home. The view was even more beautiful. When I got home, I gave Lucky the stomach soother and the special food. He ate every bite, and licked the bowl.

Palmetto Vet on McConnell highway, SC, folks. If you live anywhere near them, and think dog ownership shouldn't cost more than owning a home, they are your kind of place. And Dr. Love lives up to his name.

I wondered if he was destined to be a compassionate health care provider with that name, or if he felt he had to try to live up to his name. It would be a terrible atrocity if Dr. Love had decided to go into a career of professional assassin instead of soothing a hurting dog's stomach. My name means Victory. And Lucky's name means...lucky. I pray we all fulfill our appointed destiny.

Psalm 18: 49-50
Therefore I will praise you, Lord, among the nations;
I will sing the praises of your name. He gives his king great victories;
he shows unfailing love to his anointed,



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Silver Linings

I left BJs, the wholesale shopping club, and loaded my groceries from the cart into the big silver lined bags that I had bought a few weeks ago. BJs does not bag your groceries, so you either have to make a thousand trips from your car to your kitchen to unload, or after 4 years of shopping at BJs, you come to the startling conclusion that you should buy some of those "green" shopping bags and keep them in the car. As I was loading the bags, a woman stopped and told me, "Good for you!"
Good for me? I was being cheered and I had no idea why.
"You know, in California, it will soon be law - no more plastic bags at grocery stores. They take 50 million years to decompose, you know. And you will have to pay ten cents a bag for paper ones. You are very smart buying those big reusable bags. Good for the environment and good for you!" She smiled at me.
"Well...thank you," I said.
She walked away and another woman approached me just as I was about to wheel the cart back to the cart corral.
"Are you done with that? I will take it for you," said the woman.
"Oh...sure. Thank you." (Strange day at the grocery store!)
"Does it work well?" she asked.
"Yes, it sure does," I said.
"Cause you never know," she said, taking my cart, "Some of them are just awful."
"This one was fantastic," I assured her, happy to have test-driven it for her.
She smiled happily and waved as she pushed the cart away.

I often go seeking praise, but rarely does it just plop in my lap. It wasn't exactly what I would have considered day-making encouragement, but it was better than nothing. Without even trying, I had been lauded as environmentally conscious, and an excellent judge of grocery carts. Like my "green bags", there had been an unexpected silver lining in the tedious duty of grocery shopping.

Encouragement often takes such little time, requires such little effort, but can loom so large in the heart of the one who receives it. I am always impressed by strangers who take time to offer small words of encouragement, those little bits of sadness-sponges.

As the lady with my cart started to roll off, I called after her, "I hope you enjoy the cart I have prepared for you! Drive it well!"

Romans 15: 4-5
For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had






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A Glass of Wine in a Yacht with a View

It is amazing what passing a bone through your gut successfully will do to your outlook on life. Lucky actually followed me to the food bowl, wagged his tail and perked his ears. It is the first conclusive sign he will survive that I have seen since last Thursday when he swallowed the bone. He despises the healthy food the vet made us buy ($30 worth of yuck in Lucky's mind), but if I mix defatted chicken broth (homemade with the help of a skinny chicken), and bits of turkey in with the yuck food, he eats it. Poor Honeybun continues to hover nearby, wondering why the big dog keeps getting all these luscious perks that she is denied. I throw her pieces every now and then so she doesn't feel left out, but remind her, "Honeybun, just be grateful it was he and not you that swallowed that impassable bone. Be thankful for your good health and stop wanting what others have."

That is called, "Coveting". Honeybun is not alone in coveting. My sister sent a picture of a friend on the back of a plush yacht, with her legs up on cushioned seats, Seattle in the background, lovely blue waves lapping at the sky, and to top it all off, a glass of wine in her hand. I began to covet. And I mean covet big time. I wanted a yacht, the view, and the wine. Suddenly, my shady lawn with towering oak trees didn't look quite as lovely, quite as idyllic. My most favorite recliner didn't feel so luxurious.

Coveting is one of the surest ways to build dissatisfaction in life. To long for what you don't have, instead of noticing all you do have, is the absolute best way to lose what you do have and end up with something worse. Our society is largely based on coveting. Every commercial taps into the coveting gene we all possess. And at the root of coveting is competition. If she has the glass of wine in a yacht with a view, then she is better than me, and I want to be better than her, so I want the glass of wine in a yacht with a view. And the basis of competition is pride. If she has all those things, I should have all those things because I deserve them and am worthy of them. And the basis of pride is separation from God. If God really loved me and was who He claims to be, He would see I deserve a glass of wine in a yacht with a view. But since He has not given me a glass of wine in a yacht with a view, He must not be God.

And pretty soon, we are spending our life swirling after something we can't have or don't have, raising a path of dust in our wake rather than a legacy of faith. Sometimes it takes something quite devastating to bring us back to our senses, back to our knees. Sometimes a beloved dog almost dying reminds us how fleeting life is and how important it is just to be grateful for every breath we take.

"Since when did I become a beloved dog?" Lucky asks me, since he knows I have at times referred to him as the stupid dog.
"Since we almost lost you," I said, scritching his neck.

Hebrews 12: 28
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,




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What Goes in, Must Come Out

Poor Lucky. The X-rays showed an obstruction near the end of his large intestine, probably the rib bone that we thought was going to be a special treat. I know bones can splinter or get lodged, but I just always figured dogs have eaten bones for thousands of years. I didn't take the concern seriously. However, our dogs, should he survive this, will never eat another bone.

After the X-rays and a barrage of other tests (read: bankruptcy), they determined all else was fine and gave him a doggy enema. It didn't work...until Arvo was checking out. Then all ***&&&5%%%$$$$@@#@!!*** came loose and I will let it suffice to say that the vet aides earned their salary cleaning up after him. However, the vet feels that parts of the bone still need to come out. She seemed to feel confident that it would. She sent Arvo home with meds, special food, and instructions.

Since it was Asherel's birthday, and we didn't want her special day totally marred by the sad situation with Lucky and his most unlucky bowel, I took Asherel horseback riding. It was a perfect day, and we meandered through a shady forest by my favorite kayaking lake. They put Asherel on a big old horse, a clydesdale type, who tried to eat a branch that then smacked Asherel in the face. I was on a sweet horse, Maggie, who is very good when you are on her back, but likes to bite you when you are on the ground. She was pleasant to ride however. (Having not ridden in about three years, every muscle in my inner thighs are protesting right now.) Still, it was so worth it. Asherel, who loves horses, came to pet my horse, and Maggie instantly put back her ears and made nipping motions.
"Don't come near!" I warned poor Asherel, "She bites."
One thing Maggie has going for her is that she doesn't hide what's inside of her. She lets all her cantankerous stuffing right out there. This is a good policy, as Lucky would attest.

My experience has been that if you try to hold ugly stuff in, it finds a way to come out. Pain and hurt can only be contained for so long. They eventually find expression, often as explosive anger. And when things that should come out, *don't*, like Lucky's gut blocking bone, bad things happen. A friend recently asked me, "So what do you do with all that awful hurt inside?"

The vet gave Lucky an enema. He probably needs more, in my opinion. We need "spiritual enemas" too. Something that drains all the awful feelings, thoughts, hurts, pains, and poisons of existence out of us. I think we do have such a thing, though it is not labeled as such. When we accept the gift of Jesus' atoning death for our sins, all that ugly inner filth is ripped away. We are instantaneously forgiven, washed clean, and ready to embark on new life. Unfortunately, life continues to beat down on most of us, and so God gives us ongoing treatments- prayer, His word, His presence, His comfort. If we keep eating the bones of the world, all the immoral garbage that is luring us from God, they are going to keep getting stuck, and need powerful work to extricate. I am finding the more I walk this earth, the more I understand, it is best not to eat bones in the first place.

Psalm 51: 8-12
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (Psalm 51:8-12 NIV)





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If Only....

Asherel turns 15 years old today, and Lucky turned 10 yesterday. Asherel seems to be the picture of health. Poor old Lucky hasn't eaten in three days and is moping and lethargic. We take him to the vet this morning. I don't feel good about his behavior...I have never seen him like this, though he has had hunger strikes before. There is celebration all around us, cars filling driveways of highschool graduates and college graduates. Birthday gifts on the counter. Summer is just around the corner. Trees are green and lush. If only Lucky felt better....
There is always an "if only...", isn't there?
I tried to entice him to his food by putting steak in the middle of his bowl. He sniffed it, drank some water, and walked listlessly away. Honeybun hovered a few feet away. She looked pointedly at me and I know she was telling me, "DO NOT let that go to waste. If he doesn't want it, I know someone who does!"
So the day is a picture of what most of life is- a balance of celebration and despair, delight and worry, gain and loss, joy and sadness. Yesterday, I ran into a friend who opens her home to foster rescue dogs. She just had one of her rescue dogs die, and that very day got a call to take in a new rather demanding dog with "issues."
"It was just what I needed," she told me, "That is how I cope with sadness, move right into a new challenge."
I think that is a good attitude. There will always be an "if only" in life. It makes sense to look at all the promises and hopeful birthdays and new beginnings and dwell on them instead.
Acts 3: 19-21
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.
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Success on the Journey

I got caught in torrential rain and had to change my clothes twice yesterday. The first time, I had taken my senior friends Comer and Evelyn to lunch. I hadn't seen Evelyn in a long time as she had been failing both physically and mentally to the degree that Comer was concerned taking her out would be pointless, and difficult. However, I begged him, and he relented. I arrived to not find them waiting as usual, eager and perched in the lobby. I went to Comer's room. Evelyn sat quietly in the sitting area, but Comer was frantically ransacking his closet.
"I can't find my wallet!" he said. So we both ransacked his room for an hour while Evelyn sat silently watching. Every so often, I would glance at her and smile, and say, "Hungry?"
"Yes, hungry," she would mumble, and smile back.
Finally, an hour later, Comer said, "Perhaps we better do lunch another time. I am just sick about this."
I looked up the number of his credit card company so he could call about it being stolen, when he pulled out a shirt from his closet, draped over a pair of pants.
"I didn't check these pants since they were covered."
I felt the pocket, and smiled.
"Evelyn! Ready for lunch?!"
So I drove them to my kayak lake and we watched the baby geese chase a toddler.
We ate our fried chicken and looked out on the lovely lake.
"It is very peaceful here," said Comer.
"Yes," I agreed.
And then when we drove home, the skies opened forth and reenacted the story of Noah and the flood. I pulled back into the nursing home drive, where a kind nurse's aid appeared with an umbrella. So Comer and Evelyn stayed somewhat dry, but I was drenched getting them out of the car.
After all that sitting, I dearly longed for a walk. I changed clothes when I got home and checked the skies. Blue and sunny again. I headed out with the dog for a walk. Halfway out, Noah Part 2 came and the second half of the flood. Honeybun and I walked home with the rain lashing little potholes in our skin.

But this morning, it is not raining. In one hour, I take Asherel to the long awaited SAT 2 test that she has worked like a dog towards all year. And then our school year is over and summer begins. The rains will stop and the season of singing will be here.
That is why one should never give up. One day can bring lost wallets and downpours, but the next can bring hope and the promise of summer. If you think of it, please say a little prayer for my girl this morning....

Genesis 24: 56
But he said to them, "Do not detain me, now that the Lord has granted success to my journey. Send me on my way so I may go to my master."



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An Oasis

I took a friend to my favorite little kayak lake yesterday. She said what I feel every time I go to that little lake, "It is so peaceful here." I often have the lake all to myself. It is a quiet lake, and on my flat water, stable kayak, nothing could happen so I never am afraid to be there alone.
"Except," another friend said, "What if a bad man with a gun comes?"
Well, I suppose that could happen, but why would a bad man with a gun bother coming out to the peaceful lake? The bad man with a gun will go where money, drugs and booze are available. Bad men with guns aren't likely to come target little lakes with mama geese herding their new babies on tranquil waters. Besides, if a bad man came, I would just float in the middle of the lake out of his reach. A bad man with a canoe just stretches even my paranoia too far. This is a lake where nothing happens except peace.

So I can't get Asherel to join me very often when I go to the little lake. She finds it boring. That is what I love about it. So quiet, so undemanding, so gentle. It is too small for noisy motorboats, and tucked away where not many people even know about it. The only other inhabitants are turtles, fish, and birds. An occasional hiker walks the path around the lake, and sometimes horses and riders meander near. Everyone needs a quiet beautiful place like the little lake, a place where they can gaze out with unfocused eyes and breathe in calm. I have found it the surest antidote to despair. Find a corner of the world where it is impossible not to see that God reigns. How blessed I am to have found this oasis from struggle.

Psalm 107: 28-30
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper;
the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm,
and he guided them to their desired haven.

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