Wow

I read that Steve Jobs, in his last moments before dying, while surrounded by his family, was looking just beyond them with a rapturous look on his face. His last words were, "OH WOW! OH WOW! OH WOW!"

I know very little about Steve Jobs. I don't know where he centered spiritually. But that response to something no one else in the room apparently saw reminds me of Anders as a very young boy once looking around him in wonder and telling me, "Mommy I see angels." His eyes were bright and sparkling, and he was looking delightedly in the air above him.

I love this season that celebrates miracles with Hanukkah, and the birth of God's son with Christmas. God is a God of Wonder, and there is so much wonder in the trappings and beauty of the Christmas celebration. I saw the dogs sitting before the Christmas tree just gazing at it, and I could almost see them discussing what it meant to bring a tree inside a house.

"I don't know, Lucky, it makes no sense."
"Humans don't make sense, Honeybun. Sometimes we just have to accept on faith that they know what they are doing."
"But at times they seem so rational. They seem to know we need food, exercise,and finally even rescinded that ridiculous rule that we couldn't sleep on the couches," said Honeybun, "And then...this." She shook her head sadly, looking at the tree.
"That's true, but then how can anyone explain those parts of their being we don't understand....like how could anyone kiss a nose that doesn't lick it's own butt?" asked Lucky, while noisily doing just that.
"I know....that is inexplicable. Or why they don't roll in dead animals and even worse, prevent us from doing so?"
"I guess there are just some things that we can never hope to comprehend, and must just make that leap of faith that our Master, while being incomprehensible, is Good," Lucky answered, with a philosophic tilt to his ears.
"What do you think is the good behind bringing a tree meant to live outdoors inside? And then covering it with lights, putting that angel on top there, and then plugging it in...a definite fire hazard?" Honeybun puzzled.
"Maybe  bringing it to a completely unexpected place, seemingly irrational, and so far from what one envisions a tree to be, makes us look at it in a new way. I know it does for me."
"How so, Lucky?"
"It just makes me want to say, oh wow...bow wow wow WoW!"

My beloved boys and delightful new daughter in law, dear daughter, and loving husband are all with me this Christmas. I am surrounded by miracles. This morning,I remembered  a favorite verse that has little to do with Christmas, but every thing to do with contentment in what God has provided, "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places."

"Listen to her," said Honeybun cocking an ear, "She's not so incomprehensible after all."
Lucky opened an eye, "Why? What did she say?"
"She said ,'Wow, bow wow wow wow!"


Psalm 16: 5-7
⁵ LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;
   you make my lot secure.
⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
   surely I have a delightful inheritance.
⁷ I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
   even at night my heart instructs me.

A True Peer

Our little goodwill ambassador sat in the kayak with her lopsided ears perked forward. People in other kayaks floated by and everyone smiled. There is something about a dog in a boat that produces happiness. You don't often see dogs in kayaks. We headed to our favorite swimming sandbar with Honeybun perched in front. One small boy and his mother bobbed on their kayaks by the sandbar where we always moor.

"I am entirely waterproof," said the boy, "From head to toe everything I am wearing is waterproof."
"That's good since you are in the water," I said. I could tell within 3 words from his mouth that this child was a genius, and probably had some extra labels thrown in as well. As an Occupational Therapist in my life before homeschooling, I had worked with many gifted children with varying disabilities, including autism and Aspergers- the spectrum of autism of the genius with few social skills. Besides that, having a genius as an oldest son, my radar for genius is finely tuned. Even the cadence of speech seems to give them away. There are a whole host of issues with any difference in intellect from the norm. I knew it from my work, and I knew it from my life with my own son. Much of it is wonderful, but much of it is very, very hard.

"And would you like to see my shell I found? It has shades of purple in it," said the boy.
"I'd love to," I said, taking the shell from his outstretched hand.
Then he turned and disappeared under water and splashed off to pet Honeybun.

His mom began chatting with me, and soon was telling me her woes about finding a school that fit the needs of her son.
"He was just diagnosed with Aspergers," she said. I could see she was still reeling from that news.
"Is it hard to find him friends?" I asked.
She nodded vigorously, "I thought in a smaller school setting he might do better."
"Well, I have a son who is now graduated from college, but he is a genius, and finding true peers for him was one of the hardest parts of growing up for him. I prayed and prayed about it, and he always managed to have one good friend nearby. If you can help him find one really good friend he can relate to, it might help him alot. How old is he?"
"Nine years old today!" she said, smiling at her son. It spoke volumes that this 9 year old was celebrating his birthday without a friend in sight....just him and his mom.

"Did your son go to college....graduate.....and now.....Is he ok now?"
I could hear the depth of worry in this devoted mother's voice, starting off this uncharted journey with a 9 year old that most people didn't understand, and was already on a road to isolation.
"Yes," I said, "And in college he did find true peers. He loved it there. He works in a business he helped start, and has a wonderful girl friend. He is happy now and doing well."
"I am so happy to hear that," she said, sighing, "It gives me hope."
"Try to find him a friend," I encouraged her, "Someone of his intellect who accepts him. Just one is enough."

We talked quite a while, and then she told the boy it was time to head back. Without a moment's hesitation the boy pulled his kayak off the sandbar, settled in place, and headed down stream.
"Well??? " he called back to his mother, "You said it was time to go. I am going."
She stopped her chatting with me abruptly and said, "He's always so literal."
I watched them kayak away, and said a little prayer for the journey of joy and heartache those two were on.

I remember hearing a show on the radio once of a mother with a genius child who was sadly telling the Christian host, "I just want him to have a friend."
"He always has a friend in Jesus," said the host gently.
"I was hoping for someone closer to his age," said the mother.

I suspect Jesus would be hoping for the same.

Honeybun sat back in the kayak as we started back upriver to our car. Invariably, every kayaker that passed us said, "Oh look! There's a dog in that kayak!"  Asherel was paddling a little slower against the current than she had on the downriver trip earlier. Honeybun wriggled and seemed anxious to get back to fresh cold water and dogfood and AC.
Being different can be a good thing....but sometimes there are spots of upstream struggle along the way.

Romans 15:
 ³⁰ I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.

On the heels of his master

Strong storms expected again today. I could tell before I read the forecast because Lucky is stuck to my heel. Everywhere I go, he follows, head low, tail between legs. He knows the barometric pressure is dropping like the Social Security funds and he is taking no chances. I don't know what he thinks I will be able to do for him should an F5 Tornado decide to pick on a house more challenging than a double wide. But he knows I am the master and he trusts that the master will have a plan.

And I do. I always have plans. As soon as I see the funnel cloud, I will bring all living beings into the bathtub. We will close the door and huddle and pray. There are some circumstances in life when our plans just are not sufficient for the threat.

Lucky's dour Eyore pessimism is in sharp contrast to how I feel today, however. There was only one dark cloud on a day of sunshine yesterday- one of my blogposts had disappeared perhaps forever.  I spent much of yesterday copying the year of blog posts and saving them in a word doc. I had thought of them as safe til Blogspot went down yesterday. For a day and a half, my post from Thursday was gone, totally gone. What if I had said something that should have been recorded for all time? What if I had uttered words so profound that it would be chiseled over " I think therefore I am." ?  I decided rather than take that chance, I better back up and copy my precious words.

And so I relived my year in about two hours. This is similar to your life passing before your eyes that so many people describe right before a near death experience. I was not near death fortunately; in fact my joy yesterday was so bubbly that I felt I could live forever. But I was struck by how often in the past year I wrote about horrible, dire, impossible circumstances that there seemed no way out..... and then at the last possible second, in the nick of time, so often some miraculous solution appeared.

I know this doesn't always happen. I know life is not a fairy tale and sometimes the pauper doesn't marry a prince; the dog doesn't find his way home, the beloved child doesn't return contrite and grateful, and the ark springs a leak before dry ground appears.  But one theme that occurs over and over again in my blog posts, the chronicle of the past 18 months of my life, is that whenever things turn around on a miracle, it is because I have been close on the heels of my Master. Lucky perhaps has the right idea.

Matthew 25:21
  ²¹ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

Are you a Chihuahua?

My only excuse is that when I get nervous, my brain shuts down. I looked right at the large, curly haired dog, and asked the owner if this was the chihuahua who was up next.
"This is a standard poodle," she said.

They needed volunteers for the class at Asherel's agility trial, and I had told them I would fill in as needed.
"Can you be a scribe?" the volunteer coordinator asked.
"Well, I've never done it."
She looked me up and down.
"How about a timer?"
"Well, I've never done that either."
She looked at her list.
"We need a gate steward.... have you....no, I guess you've never done that either."
"I can maybe learn," I offered. I hate being unqualified for unpaying, unskilled jobs.
"Ok, gate steward is easy, I will teach you."
So she showed me how to cross off the names of the dogs as they finished their run, and to always have the next three dogs on the list waiting and ready to go when their turn came. I was a nervous wreck. I knew that if things slowed down because the gate steward was messing up, the judge was not going to be happy. A friend with a loud voice gave me a lesson in speaking from the diaphragm so I could project the dogs' names across the arena. I tried it.
"Not unnaturally low," she corrected me. She gave a few more lessons, and then shaking her head almost imperceptibly went to get her dog. I practiced some diaphragmatic breathing. Another lady helpfully suggested I just look at the breed of the dog up next.
"Then you will know who is next," she said sweetly.
I would, except that a funny thing happens when I get nervous... I think Standard Poodles are chihuahuas.

For the next half hour, I would look carefully at the dog's name and breed next on the list, and repeat it over and over in my head. Then I would look around, and call out the name, wishing fervently I had paid closer attention to the Westminster dog show and knew what the heck a Trolling Dog was. Or something like that. When I asked one lady if she was the next in line, which happened to be an all-american breed , she smirked. "All American" is a fancy way of saying mutt, and I had just asked this of some highly pedigreed dog. I knew I had insulted her. Truly I hadn't meant to. She then explained, "This is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. That is the All American dog." She pointed at a mixed breed nearby, and the owner smiled and waved.
I blinked.

And so I sweated my way through a job that I have seen others do while laughing, joking, smiling....All I could do to survive was give it my full concentration. I know I am not dumb. At least my parents have told me that they know my IQ and insist I am not dumb. At least not too dumb to call out dog names and cross them off a list after they run in the class. But I don't think my full potential was being demonstrated. I collapsed when the gate steward job ended. I think I had lost 5 pounds in that half hour.

Asherel and Honeybun did very well. She placed thrid and qualified in her first class, and had a clean run and almost qualified in her second. She had a couple of refusals in her third, but otherwise a clean run then too. It was a good day. We get to do it all over again today. I am bringing my dog breed encyclopedia and plan to study.

This morning, while preparing at this unseemly hour of darkness to leave early for the show, I saw a youtube video of a dog that was floating on the tsunami wreckage. He had apparently been stranded on small floating two by fours and splintered wood without food or water for three weeks. The Japanese rescue helicopter, after spotting him, called in men and boats who rescued the stranded dog. As they pulled the poor creature in, he licked them.
Somehow, that brought an awful lot of the world into perspective for me. A half a world away, a people devastated by one of the worst natural disasters in history had the kindness, the compassion, to save one dying dog. And the dog's first response was to lick the face of his savior. I am quite sure they didn't know the breed. I am also pretty sure it didn't matter, not at all. And the dog didn't care the breed of his rescuers either. True compassion and true gratitude don't see boundaries.

Funny how the Bible verse I thought of was Jonah, who initally disobeyed God and refused to bring God's word of salvation to the Ninevites. Jonah hated the idolatrous Ninevites.
"They won't listen anyway," he told God as he ran away.

I'll let you tie the meaning of these disparate events together. There may not even be a connection other than dogs. It is too early and too rushed to tie it all together. Good luck! I gotta run to the dog show.....

Jonah 2:8-10

 ⁸ “Those who cling to worthless idols
   turn away from God’s love for them.
⁹ But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
   will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
   I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.’”
 ¹⁰ And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.