A Voice Crying Out

The voice that spoke out of nowhere in the dark morning was eerie, other-worldy. I stopped and swung around to confront whatever ghastly thing was crying out so near to me in the early morning while my family slept. There was no one. The dogs stood in front of me, wagging their tails and asking for breakfast. Had that plaintive cry come from one of them? I stood still, listening, but there was no repeat of that horrible, frightening cry. I thought it had said, "Vicky", but I couldn't be sure. I peeked in our room, but my husband still slept, and the sound had been right behind me, in the kitchen...I was certain of that. A little spooked, I fed the dogs and then sat down at the computer to start writing this post. And then, from behind me, the moaning, garbled cry again. I leaped to my feet and went running to the bird. Maybe he was choking on a seed. But no, the bird was standing on one foot, eyes closed, peacefully asleep. I returned, truly frightened now, to the computer. Something was in pain, something was calling me, and I could not help. I could not find what it was.

I thought of all the things in pain that might be calling me. Yesterday, we collected the food from the neighborhood dogfood drive we had organized for Hollow Creek Farm Rescue. I collected only 6 bags, some dog food cans, and two large containers of biscuits. In the past we have gotten almost 300 pounds of food. I was disappointed, but Asherel kept reminding me, "How wonderful! We have 100 pounds of food for them that they wouldn't have otherwise had."  She is right, of course, but it was hard not to be sad that I couldn't help more. I know Hollow Creek, like all the charities and rescues are hurting in this economy of "hope and change."

"Mom!" called the terrifying, desperate voice.
I jumped up again and stood by Asherel's door. She was also asleep.
My boys need me! I thought .  They are both off on their own now, but I had no doubt that if God wanted to alert me to the need for prayer or assistance to them, He would call me in some way. I had not expected it to be so audible. I prayed for them, and walked nervously around the room, listening.

I had read yesterday in 1 Samuel about how God audibly spoke to the young boy, Samuel, calling him by name. It is one of the few times when God spoke in an unmistakable, audible voice, and He did so because He had a message for the priest Eli. Eli's sons were desecrating the temple, and Eli's people were turning from God. God spoke with a dire warning and a message that Samuel was to convey. As I read that passage, I thought how terrifying it would be to hear a voice out of the early morning darkness, not knowing who was speaking or why. And now, here I was in just that same situation! A voice was clearly calling to me in this very room. Something I could not see. The voice had called me by name and then identified me by the most important role I had been given on earth: Mom.

I stood in the kitchen, quivering.
"Speak Lord, your servant is listening."
Just then, the voice returned, "On this day in 1851, Moby Dick was published...."
I glanced on the counter. My smart phone was on. I had looked at the email from the History Channel when I had first come out, but was almost certain I had turned it off afterwards. I had been unaware that there was a setting that would allow the news from this day in history to be read out loud, but somehow, inadvertently, I must have pushed some button that activated this feature.

However, I sat down and prayed fervently. I prayed for my sons so far away with all the struggles that young men starting out in life might endure. I prayed for my parents, and for whatever unknown voice might be calling out in distress, thinking it was all alone, unheard. And having never read Moby Dick, I think God might want me to read that next....

Hebrews 4: 6-7

 ⁶ Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, ⁷ God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted:
   “Today, if you hear his voice,
   do not harden your hearts.”

1 Samuel 3: 9-10

⁹ So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
 ¹⁰ The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
   Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Pleasant Places

Asherel should have known better than to put a hotdog down on the floor of a room swarming with dogs. The hotdog was supposed to last for the full ten minute warm up period before she was to do her first run of the day at the Dog Agility Trial.While no food is allowed in the agility ring itself, hands smelling like hotdogs are allowed. And if a dog's attention is fully secured before entering the ring via highly desiriable snacks, she was more likely to sustain attention during the critical moments.

Thus, the hotdog was in Asherel's hand as she was dutifully stretching Honeybun's legs the way our dear mentor, Polly, had showed her. Asherel always would line up about ten minutes before her run was to commence, plop Honeybun over on her side, and gently stretch each leg just like Polly had taught her. Polly had warned her that this simple technique would help prevent injuries and allow our dog to run the course for years to come. Asherel always stretched the little dog's muscles before her runs.

However, this time, Honeybun was somewhat resistant, so Asherel needed to put the hotdog down so she could use both hands to convince Honeybun to lie still. A proven axiom with Honeybun, the once starving dog, is that if food touches the floor within a quarter mile of her radar, she will be on it before you can say "corpulent canine."  When Asherel looked back, the hotdog was gone. She had no choice but to pull out another hotdog to finish the warm up session before her run. Somehow, with two hotdogs busting from under her belt, the little dog made a beautiful run and qualified, completing her Novice title. As she waddled  from the ring, tail wagging, I thought she looked happier than usual. Later, hearing the hotdog story, I knew why.

A short time later, I went back to where Asherel was sitting with Honeybun, to see her munching on a full large bag of gummy worms. Gummy worms are to Asherel what hotdogs are to Honeybun. Our friend, Danielle, upon watching Asherel qualify and secure her last Novice Agility title, had given her the bag of gummy worms. Two of my favorite creatures on earth gazed up at me, with happy, gut-filled eyes.

Later, as the agility judge signed Asherel's junior handler forms required by AKC when a junior handler's dog qualifies, she asked me how old Asherel was, and how we had come to start agility. I told her that Honeybun had been an aggressive dog, towards both dogs and people. Asherel had always wanted to do agility, and despite Honeybun's overwhelming issues, she began training Honeybun on her home-made agility course in our backyard. In that difficult first year after finding the half-dead, starving, vicious dog, we had been strongly urged to euthanize.
"But we just couldn't euthanize her in the end," I said, happily collecting not just the signed paper for the first class, but a second form as well. Honeybun, filled with energy and surprising focus, had qualified in her second class, too, and placed second. That class was the harder Open division,  and a much larger class.
"It really shows the value of persistance," said the judge.
Persistence...and hotdogs, I thought, glancing at my daughter, and gummy worms.
And friends. I hugged Danielle, wondering how on earth she knew gummy worms were more precious than diamonds to Asherel.

I had been thinking all week of the blessings in my life. Like most people, I had balanced that against my chronic complaining over what I didn't have, but as I looked over the room teeming with happy dogs, and people, and our now gentle and sweet little rescue dog, I felt deep satisfaction. Oh Lord, I thought, watching the full bag of gummy worms slowly disappearing, the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.

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 World of Grief

In proofing the copy of my book, I was struck again by the world I had found myself plunged into- animal rescue. I had known nothing about the depths of suffering that animals endure for human pleasure and comfort. But my year of rehabilitating the dog we rescued, Honeybun, and of working with Hollow Creek Farm Equine and Canine Rescue  (HCF) taught me that human beings are not very kind to the creatures they are supposed to be caring for during our mutual stay on our melting planet.

I have been reflective of late, as I reread the book and ponder the lessons of Honeybun. Would I be able to do it all over again? If I found another dying dog with all those horrendous issues, could I manage to do what I did with Honeybun? HCF deals with this every day, and has for years. Honestly, I don't know how they do it. I don't know how I did it with just one dog.  After talking with some very dear people who asked me to tell them about Honeybun's story, they joked as they drove away, "I sure hope we don't see a dog dying on the side of the road as we head home...."

And that's the thing....a strong conscience will not let you keep your eyes closed forever. And suffering dogs are just one small part of the suffering organisms here on earth....what about the house spiders getting trampled on in every kitchen millions of times a day, not to mention starving children in Africa? It is overwhelming the amount of grief that lurks at every turn. No wonder as a people we drown ourselves in drugs, and alcohol, and stupid television shows.

When I was a little girl, I remember going down the street thinking about things like this even at the tender age of 5,  and crying. I remember one of my parents' friends stopping me and asking why I was crying. I immediately stopped crying, shrugged my shoulders and trudged on. When he was out of sight, I started crying again.

So I went kayaking with Asherel to have an hour of communing with nature, with man and creature in balance along the lovely Catawba river. I know the better choice to walking down the road crying is to seek the good, do the good you can, and trust the results to God. I peacefully dipped in and out of protected coves along the shore, watching the Great Blue herons hunting, and then settling into their nests overhead. Peaceful quiet enveloped the river and turtles popped their heads out into the sunlight.

Suddenly there was the high pitched roar of a jet ski. The water beneathe me became an ocean of waves as it roared past me, obviously ignoring the sign, "SLOW-- no wake."  Perched on the front handlebar, held firmly there by its owner was a daschund, with its long ears whipped straight back. It had a look of terror on its pointy little face.

So much for harmony of man and creature, I thought.

Ezekiel 34:2-4

² “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? ³ You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. ⁴ You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.

Love in Action

The little Welsh Corgi with a broken back was dumped at a shelter by his owner . His back legs hung uselessly behind him and he dragged them along to get around. This would not have been a very cheery story for Valentine's day, but it is a story of love and victory in the end and worth reading.

Hollow Creek Farm is the quirkiest animal rescue I know. They don't rescue the animals that most people rescue. They rescue the blind, the lame, the wounded, the vicious... and they restore them and place them in a forever home, or they give them a home on their beautiful farm dotted with rescued cows, horses, deer, goats, pigs, and dogs dogs dogs. They prowl the kill lists sent from the surrounding shelters and the most tragic cases are the ones they snag. The ones no one else thinks should be bothered with.

Speedy, the little corgi was brought home to Hollow Creek. They started a fund raising plea on Facebook for "wheels" for Speedy. But whether they got the funds or not, they began the process of fitting Speedy to special dog cart wheels so that he could run and play again. You can go to their website (hollowcreekfarm.org) and watch the little corgi learn within seconds that he could walk again. And within three days, Speedy was playing fetch, and herding the pack of dogs like every Corgi is innately wired to do.
He already knows how to wheel his cart to his special pillow where his front end lies luxuriously and his motionless back end is supported on his new wheels.

Donations are at an all time low, and the needs are at an all time high. It was in this wretched economy that Speedy was loved enough by a little rescue farm to be given a chance to be a corgi again, doing what corgis love to do.

Jesus told us that it is when we act on behalf of the "least of us" that we most fully reveal our love of Him. I know that He is speaking of humans specifically, but if God created the animals, surely He cares for them as well. Proverbs 12:10 says the "righteous care of the needs of their animals."

There is plenty of suffering to go around, and plenty of human and non-human places to send our money that might ease the pain for some creature of God. But I hear there is a paralyzed goat at Hollow Creek Farm watching Speedy enviously....hoping for funds for her wheels so she can race the little corgi and rip open and dump all the feed bags like all the other goats.


Matthew 25:40
⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Luke 9:46
For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.”

An aptitude for desirable discovery

I am bringing a dog to the theater for the production of Annie, but not in the coveted role of Sandy. The dog will instead be begging for money.  When the lady in charge of finding the canine star for Annie received my photos of Lucky, she also noticed my signature on the bottom of my email of hollowcreekfarm.org .  She went to their website, being an animal lover herself, and was awed by their work and their incredible success in saving thousands of animals. She asked if I might want to come to the running of Annie and set up a booth, free of charge, to promote HCF.  You all know that old saying, "Don't look a gift dog in the mouth." This is because many dogs do not have adequate dental care due to the extortionist rates charged to clean their teeth and the breath of a gift dog, or really any dog, could impair the nostril's ability to intake oxygen for decades. The other less literal meaning is when opportunity knocks, open the door.

So I will drive 100 miles in one day (I was a little disturbed when I mapquested the route to theater and HCF.... that far... really?....I ought to check out these kind of details before I make commitments.....) to pick up the dog from HCF that will be the canine ambassador and then hop skip back to the theater. The dog will spend the night with us and then we will go to the Sunday show as well.  I have no idea if we will receive any donations or volunteers or adopters by sitting in the theater lobby with the canine ambassador and a jar and a prayer. But it seemed too large a serendipity to pass up. Serendipity is my favorite word in the whole wide world. I would use it more but some people only know of definition #2 which I don't believe in, as opposed to definition #1.

–noun

1.

an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.

2.

good fortune; luck: the serendipity of getting the first job she applied for.

Serendipity is a relative newcomer in the English lexicon, though not as recent as "yomomma" or "google". It was used to describe the characteristics of the heroes of the 1754 Persian fairytale The Three Princes of Serendip by Horace Walpole,  in which the heroes possess this gift.

I do believe in an aptitude for serendipity, but I do not believe in luck. I don't think it was lucky at all that the theater manager loved dogs, asked for dogs for the role of Sandy, rejected my dog Lucky but saw my email tag for hollowcreekfarm.org and offered us a forum for donations/adoptions.  HCF has begun a new program, Northbound Hounds, where doomed dogs from southern "humane" societies about to be gassed are snatched away in the nick of time and ferried north where for some reason, it is easier to find them homes. Maybe they are so cold in the North that they need more dogs to snuggle with.

It is a wonderful program that has saved 25 dogs in just the past few weeks, but the funds for vetting, cleaning, innoculating, and prepping the dogs for their forever home has to come from somewhere.


So our canine ambassador will be Walter. I have written about him before. He is the big lovable dog with the cerebellar abnormality that makes him move like a bowl of jello. He is a gentle and lovable bowl of jello though and even if he doesn't raise a single donation, it will be a nice day for the dog who never met a person he didn't love and want to wrap his big clumsy paws around.


And since I don't believe in luck but instead believe that all things have a purpose and direction and are guided by an invisible hand, I suspect something very unexpected will happen at the theater Saturday night. Something too wonderful for me to imagine. I might not see it that night... or even in this life.... but I know that it will manifest itself in some remarkable way.  As we speak, I am sure angels are whispering in Walter's ears giving him instructions.


2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Slim the horse

Nicole of Hollow Creek Farm wrote to me. They had just walked two starving horses to their farm from a neighboring farm. The more decrepit horse, Slim, was as she described it, "one banana peel from a hole in the ground". The horse was dripping the effects of illness and malnutrition from its nose, and it was a collection of mostly bones wrapped in thin, shivering skin. As HCF staff walked the horse away, after encouraging the owner to relinquish it without the use of force or profanity (til out of ear shot), they noticed a yard with a new beautiful truck, and swimming pool. As they walked the starving horse from the people who claimed they couldn't feed it, they noticed a brand new John Deere riding lawn mower, and 4x4 Polaris. A few recreational 4 wheelers dotted the poor, financially strapped homestead.

HCF put the horse in a stall, covered it with a warm blanket, and fed it a restorative diet of beet pulp. The vet arrives this morning with a slew of medicine and antibiotics. The horse is being fed small meals six times a day. This poor horse's troubles of neglect are over, though it will have a hard fight over the consequences of neglect. However, Nicole would go without food herself before she would let this horse know another moment of hunger.

Saving this horse will be expensive. It is just one horse, and there are many starving horses in today's economy. This is one horse that has come to my attention though, and Nicole asked if I could see if anyone might be tempted to donate to their nonprofit farm via hollowcreekfarm.org to help save Slim.

And for the first time in recorded history, this blog is offering a contest! The person with the top donation in the next 24 hours to HCF for Slim's recovery, (mention you are on the Vicky Blog Giant Giveaway) will be sent the lovely pastel featured on this post. Be sure you include contact information with your donation.

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." Matthew 25:45