Little by Little

While Asherel went off on her riding trail, happily bouncing on the horse, I was helping at the barn with the job de jour. My unglamorous labor was to chip the cement like layer of goat mashed straw and mud and goat excrement from an aisle in the barn that ran alongside the horse stalls front ends. The bonus for this job was that as I worked, the horses all looked at me, with their sweet brown eyes. I would pause, often, sweat dripping down my neck, to pet their muzzles.
"There are advantages to  not having opposable thumbs," I told one silky muzzled brown horse. He stomped his hoof and swished his tail, scattering flies.

"Well, nice chatting with you," I said, glancing at my watch. I had been working 5 minutes. Only 55 to go. I was already gasping air a little, and my arms ached. With a sigh, I went back to work, chipping inch by inch of the rock solid mass. It reminded me of why we left NY state. Chipping ice off of driveways was similar to this job. It is back breaking, tedious, and hard. If you don't get just the right leverage under the ice or goat cement, the shovel clatters and skitters over the surface, and all your forward momentum causes you to lose your balance and almost fall while ten soft muzzled horses nicker politely behind their hooves.

In one of my frequent pauses to try to bring my heart pace down from 3,000 times the normal rate, I thought about the East Coast book signing tour I am contemplating. I contacted a string of bookstores and rescue organizations along the east coast, from our town all the way to Boston. I have never tried to promote a book before, and have no idea if the expense and time would pay off. However, I would hate to see my book die a small, local death. My best hope in reaching the masses, was to go to the masses. As I leaned on the shovel, I thought how each little book signing venue would be like chipping away, piece by painful piece, at a layer of cement like goat sludge.

My brother texted me from his flooded home last night. He and his son had just taken a cold shower, as of course, there was still no water heater, or electricity, or any modern convenience restored to the flood devastated city. They had spent the day in his basement, ripping out soaked insulation and trampling through the furnace oil encrusted mud. Shivering in the cooling night, they had built a fire in the firepit and were warming themselves.
"What more do you have to do?" I asked.
"Oh just replace the electrical circuits, furnace, floors, and move 47 tons of mud. Little stuff like that."
(He didn't say "stuff" actually, but in the midst of this terrible calamity, one can forgive him a little slip of colorful language.)
"Then you can return to fine living?" I asked.
"This is fine living!" he countered.
"Yeh, for a caveman...are you eating your food raw?"
"No, cooking it on the double burner Coleman model stove 425E that we looted. Really nice. Google it."
"Why are people getting rid of good things?" I asked.
"Water damage. Many good things come from adversity," he added.
He sent a picture from his phone of the blazing fire in the fire pit, and then of a lovely full moon.
"How does one pump out 47 tons of mud?" I asked, but he didn't answer that text. I think he and Greg had gone looting again.
(For those of you ready to call the police, my brother is a good, moral man. When he says 'looting', he means rummaging through people's flood garbage.)

But I thought of how one removes 47 tons of mud from a flooded house. A little at a time. What else can one do? One clears a floor of  goat plastered sludge one shovel at a time. I travel with my book and convince the world it is worth reading one person at a time. All of us survive adversity one moment at a time. And God sent manna from heaven one day at a time. It sustained a whole people for decades of wandering in the wilderness, and when they reached the Promised Land, the manna ceased. But God warned them they would not possess the land all at once...but that little by little, they would overcome their enemies and settle the land He had prepared for them. Step by step, shovelful by shovelful, book by book, little by little. The smallest numbers added together over and over still add up to infinity.

"On the prowl for more Stakmore chairs," texted John, "I hear the fire department is getting rid of hundreds."
"Maybe for good reason," I said.
"They are fine," He said, "What's a little water damage?"
A little water damage might not be the way most residents would describe the epic flood of Owego, where the river is still 5 feet above flood stage, and a whole city was submerged. But if one can define "fine living" as sitting around a fire pit and cooking over a coleman camping stove after taking a cold shower in the dark, contemplating the work of removing 47 tons of sludge from a flooded home....well, then I suspect it will take alot more than a flood to drown him. I hope there is a bookstore open in Owego when I pass through on my East Coast Book Tour.

Exodus 23:29-31

²⁹ But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. ³⁰ Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.

Essentials

The kids with me shot through the rapids fine, and I followed with no trouble except for momentary cardiac fibrillation. However, the double kayak in our group hit a large rock sideways and the water washed over the two novice kayakers, filling the boat, and dumping them out. The guide shot over in his kayak and told them to just float with the current keeping their feet up. I kayaked near them as they bobbed like corks in the refreshing water of the Catawba. It took the guide twenty minutes to free the boat, dump the water out, and retrieve the human corks. He lost his glasses in the process. This is why one should never kayak alone.

There were only two sets of rapids on the section we kayaked, but I am not sure I would want to do it if I were the only adult. Later as the guide was walking with me back to my car, he asked if it had been fun for someone who had as much experience as I did kayaking.
"Oh yes," I said, "I would not have wanted to do those rapids alone with the kids. I mean most of the time, nothing goes wrong...but look what happened to the tandem kayak. What if I had been alone with the kids and that happened?"
"Things can happen," he nodded.

While the kids had a great time, they all found the flat water sections somewhat dull, and wished there had been more rapids. I enjoy the thrill of not smashing my skull against the rocks, but my favorite part of kayaking is the peaceful, flat water surrounded by wildlife one might not ordinarily see from the living room recliner. That is as much excitement as I can handle. We saw several herons and osprey. Bald eagles live along the river, along with mink and foxes, but we didn't see them this trip. It was a beautiful after dinner glide down a sparkling, swift river.

Afterwards, I settled back in the car with relief. One dream fulfilled and the entire group in my charge would be returned whole to their parents. I was glad I had done it, and I was glad it was over without mishap.

Now the craziness begins. I have a room covered with all the things I need to pack for the wedding trip to Virginia Sunday. We are staying a week at a condo on a lake, and have to bring all the linens, towels, soap, toilet paper, paper towels, dishwasher liquid, laundry detergent, wedding clothes, and of course the two very large boxes of the very specific vases I picked up at the mother of the bride's request. Then, there are the 6 kayaks. 3 are single person inflatables, 1 is a tandem inflatable, and must fit in the car.The two hard shells can go on top of the car. Of course to go with the kayaks, I need to pack 7 life jackets, 7 sets of oars, an anchor, wetbags, watershoes, locks, and emergency kits. Then naturally, we need to pack games for all the cousins to play, and there is some talk of packing the Wii and the rock band guitars. This pile of necessities is now sprawled like a homicide across the floor. Shooting the rapids is child's play compared to the daunting task of fitting all this in our car.

Funny how much is needed to survive just one week away from home. When I was younger, Arvo my husband and I bicycled across the country. We carried everything we needed for three months on the back of our bikes. I still remember how I vowed that I would always remember how little I really needed, and try to live like that for the rest of my life. Moses and the Israelites traveled 40 years in the desert and all they needed, God provided. He sent manna from heaven, and when they tired of that, He sent them quail. He produced water from the rocks to quench their thirst, and parted the sea so they could journey unhindered on dry land.

I looked at the pile of essentials spewed across my floor. I remembered the peaceful flow of the river lapping at my kayak, and the osprey circling overhead, and thought of the refrain from a song we sing in church, "All we have needed, you have provided."

Deuteronomy 2:7
 ⁷ The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.

Rejecting Help

We begged, cajoled, almost coerced Grandma to leave her home to either live with us or have a small assisted living apartment. She refused. The only option left would be to tie her up and put her on top of the van like a Christmas tree. It would not work to put her in the car, even fully bound because she is old and frail but feisty and her mouth muscles seem stronger than ever.  So with our hopeful departure time being pushed back further and further Arvo and I both got on the phone and made dozens of calls. Finally, we arranged to have two home health services coming to assess the situation (one today) and the private one will start immediate services after the assessment. As I arranged it, before getting off the phone, I asked Grandma, "So are you on board with this?"
"I'm on board," she said, "Or you will never leave."

It is not fun using strong arm tactics with a frail and kindly, shaking old woman who would die for us. I appealed to her sense of reason,
"Mom, if your own mother were in the same level of health as you are, would you leave her to live on her own?"
"She was!" exclaimed Grandma, "And she was so stubborn! She refused!"
I looked pointedly at her without speaking, letting those words echo back to her.

The situation is not unlike what God faces with us every day.  He pleads with us to be rational; look at the evidence of His goodness and provision. Trust in Him and turn to Him and be healed. But we run on our meager and imperfect self-reliance, rejecting the source of sustenance and help, to our detriment and His despair.

In the end, we have probably done all  we can do for now, other than continue in prayer.  But I told Asherel that should I ever become so irrational, just bop me over the head, and drag me away.

1 Peter 4:7-8 (NIV)
The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. [8] Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.