Melting to the Sea, but You Remain

"The code is 241," I whispered to the mother with the baby seat on her bike. The guard was not going to let her ride through the bike path gate without the code, and she was fumbling through her phone trying to find it. I was leaving the gate, where the code is written, to remind all the exclusive Sea Pine residents of the number sequence they would need to return. I see the point of gated communities, but something about it irks me to the core.

I had come by the code the way I always do. I ride up the beach, and when I have had enough of headwinds, I cut over to one of the paths that lead into Sea Pines from the beach. No code is required on the hundreds of beach access paths.

Yesterday, on the morning I came across the mother who couldn't remember the code, I had ridden all the way to the end of the island along the beach. It had been effortless biking, and I had been rewarded with a whole flotilla of dolphin just off shore. Then I headed back, and realized it had been effortless because I had had hurricane force tailwinds. I would never be able to return along the beach with the headwinds that were slowly removing my eyebrows and outer layer of skin.That's how I ended up on the Sea Pines bike paths.

And I was formulating my design plan for the sand sculpting that afternoon. It would be a surprise for Asherel.

When we got to the beach later that day, I had to race against the incoming tide. I had about two hours to build my creation before the tides engulfed it. I began shoveling piles of sand in the appropriate places.
"What are you making?" she asked.
"It's a surprise."
She watched for a few minutes as I began sculpting a nose on a submerged head. Then she glanced at the hourglass shaped pile of sand below the head.
"John Lennon playing guitar?"
The girl is good.

"Yes," I said, "And I have to hurry. The tide is coming in."
What kind of guitar?" She asked.
"His."
"Rickenbacker?"
"Sure."
"What year is this?"
"I don't know. The year he had long hair."
"The magical mystery tour album?"
"Sure. I need help on the guitar. I did the general shape but I don't know the details."
She went right to work, and left me to handle Lennon's face. Several people came with cameras and asked if they could take a picture.
"Of course," I said, "But it isn't nearly done. Do you even know who it is?"
"No."
"Come back in half an hour. You will."
"Do you want me to make his glasses out of reeds?" asked my husband, Arvo.
"Yes, please!"
The tide crept closer as all three of us worked on our assorted tasks. The photographers kept coming back, gazing a moment, and then returning to their chairs.

Asherel was carving detailed frets, pick ups, knobs and designs.
"Is that a Rickenbacker?" asked one man.
Arvo plopped the glasses on my nearly completed head.
"John Lennon!" cried the man.
Now a horde of photographers descended, and all agreed, the sand had become John Lennon. I drew a peace sign on his chest.
"Perfect!" said one man.

Within half an hour, the tide began to swirl around the Rickenbacker. Then John Lennon's hands began to melt into the sea.
"How sad," I said, "He is dying again."
"Nothing's gonna change my world," sang Arvo, as we remembered John Lennon's song and watched him slowly crumble away.

I had been humming that song all day. But I didn't agree with the message. Things change my world every day....every moment. A lost job, an alligator snout poking above the surface from a long ago history, a great blue heron with a neck gracefully curved, a word of encouragement, a stranger helping a stranger, a family building together in the sand, a God of mercy and grace who engineered a world of such exquisite beauty that sometimes I want nothing more than to melt into it with the glorious green blue tide.

Psalm 102:25-28 NIV

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them
and they will be discarded. But you remain the same,
and your years will never end. The children of your servants will live in your presence;
their descendants will be established before you."

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Wobbly Weebles

Consumed with all the work surrounding my book publication, our summer that was meant to be calm and fun was taking a disturbing turn. So I carved out a few hours each afternoon this week for us to do something happy, something summery. Yesterday we snatched two of Asherel's friends and scurried off to Lake Wylie. It was supposed to be a record hot day, around 104 or so heat index. It was like stepping outside onto the surface of pizza fresh from the oven. Nonetheless, armed with water, kayaks, and skimboards, we headed off to Ebenezer Park. From the park we can kayak just a few minutes across to a little island. We usually dock at the island and the kids swim while I kayak along the shore and pretend I'm Gilligan from that old TV show Gilligan's Island, forced to survive having shipwrecked on this distant and unexplored land. I have it a little easier than Gilligan since I have a smart phone with which I can google the nearest take-out restaurant.

Before leaving, my friend Nicole suggested I develop a website for my author and book information. Several people suggested I do this, so I knew I should. One person told me it needed to be professional....not like my blog. Smarting a little from that compliment, I reeled into the world of web site development. As though figuring how to publish and market a book were not taxing enough on a brain accustomed to daydreaming about how to survive when shipwrecked on islands 500 feet from the mainland, I now applied its remaining 4 brain cells to this new task.  I found a free web host, and prayed that it was not riddled with viruses that would noodle their way into my hard drive. I was very pleased with myself as I filled out the necessary forms, gave myself a domain name (though I had to run and ask Arvo- "Before I do this....what exactly is a domain name?"), and then accepted their terms. Pushing the button "Accept terms" is as terrifying as "submit" which I discussed in yesterday's post. However, these terms were brief and I had no obligation to do much of anything, as far as I could tell, and those are the kinds of terms I can most readily accept. But then when I tried to do anything on my new website, I could not figure out how to even put my name on it.

Nicole wrote and offered to help. She told me while I was out kayaking to think of font style, colors, and content I wanted on my web page.
"Just make it green," I advised, "That's my favorite color."
That gives you a proper sense of how well equipped I was to tackle web development.

So off we went into the leaden heat. We brought Josh with us, which guaranteed that we would have nonstop entertainment of one type or another. While Alex and Asherel submerged themselves up to their eyeballs in the cooling water, Josh ran up and down the shore for two hours skim-boarding.
"Come on Asherel, Alex! Ready, this is all you do, drop the board, run, jump on.....see? It's easy. Now ready, GO!"
Occasionally, Asherel would make feeble attempts to follow the steps up to the point she was to leap on the board and skim, but usually opted out of that part.
I kayaked back and forth off shore from them, ready to leap in should there be any need to dial 911. The only emergency was when Josh got a little cut in his foot, and then a little pebble embedded itself in his cut. While I sat nearby, he gouged the pebble out, giving me step by step analysis of the treatment procedure, and then ripped the flap of damaged skin off.
"There!" he said, and was back to his skim boarding. I admire someone who knows what needs to be done, and just does it without flinching. The girls continued to submerge like hippos hiding from the African sun. Josh continued to beg and cajole and demonstrate how easy it was.
Finally Josh called out, "Come on Asherel- you are making me feel bad that I am so good!"

I returned the kids largely in one piece, minus a small flap of skin on one, to their parents, and settled back in front of the computer to have another go at my web page. My friend had sent me a new web hosting server and suggested I try working a web page from that host. I was happy to take her advice for two reasons:
1. She had developed web pages before and was knowledgable, and I was not, and
2. The web host was called "weebly" and my web page would be vickykaseorg.weebly.com . Who could pass up a name like that? Weebles wobble but they don't fall down. 

With that encouraging refrain in my head, I followed the directions, and downloaded 4 pictures successfully and then put a page of text on my new web page. It looked horrible and crowded, and I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the paragraph stay in a nice little contained space instead of sprawling like spilled milk across my page. And most disturbing was when I showed the site in progress to Nicole, she told me the author photo looked like I was wearing no pants. I was kneeling beside Honeybun in that photo, and since my shorts didn't show, just my huge foreshortened knees, I could see where one might think that. This would not have been at all a big deal....it would be easy enough to change the web page photo....but it was also the photo on the back of my new book....the proof of which was coming tomorrow. Since nudity is not the message I am hoping my book will convey, I saw that there were already going to have to be changes to my book, and publication date was going to be delayed even further. Unlike Josh, I was not so good at this that I was making my friends look bad. And I had unhappy thoughts that in this case, the weeble might very well fall down.

Nicole quickly discerned that my skills were not finely honed in this area, and offered to work with the site a little and see what she could do. An hour later she sent me a beautiful, elegant web page.
 It was her first stab at it, and "not even close" she said, but I could have an idea of what was needed.
And I did now have an idea of what was needed....someone other than me doing it is what was needed. I was like the girls submerged in the water watching the master skim board past me. No one was in any danger of feeling bad because I was so good.

But I also remembered Josh ripping that piece of skin off without a moment's hesitation and I told Nicole that it was gorgeous, a wondrous start of my web page, and I would play with it today to add the necessary text. I didn't know how to train a dog with intense fear aggression when I started with Honeybun, but Nicole helped me then as well, and in the end, we succeeded. I didn't know how to write a book or try to publish it, but several agents offered free advice, and in the end, we succeeded. I didn't know how to walk at one time,  but my mother held my hands and supported my first few steps, and in the end we succeeded.

Life is too hard. Way too hard. But fortunately, I am not all alone on the island. While daydreaming about being all on my own trying to tackle the trauma of survival on a distant island, I was surrounded by friends willing to put themselves out on my behalf.  I think there is no better expression of God's spirit within us and around us.  Wobbling, I signed back into my weeble account.

Exodus 23:4-6

 ⁴ “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. ⁵ If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.

Hearing without sound

Well, ok, if we are going to the State Science Olympiad contest, I suppose it behooves me to try to figure out how we could make our trebuchet fling further. The trebuchet issue is like a tree- the trunk is solid but there are millions of limbs of variables that sway and flex and absorb energy. We have to find every one of those, and make it energy efficient. To that end, our partner's family called Asherel and me over last night. We live nearby. They had piled the treb in their car after the competition Saturday, and so it was currently at their house.

"We have a neighbor who is a genius type looking at the treb. Can you and Asherel come right away?"
We walked over to see a whole crowd of people in the driveway surrounding our treb. It takes a village to build a trebuchet.....

One of the neighbor kids standing with his chin in his hand, listening with complete absorption clearly had some sort of physical disability. He didn't say much, but his eyes bored into my face as I spoke and gave my analysis of what I thought was going wrong. Soon all 6 adults and 6 kids were waving arms, pointing, jabbing, suggesting, groaning, crouching, peering at it at different angles. I was making my case for chopping off the front end of the treb, but no one was listening as they were busy analyzing how to make the tracks for the wheels more efficient, when suddenly the young man with the disability leaned in, put his weight heavily on the treb, and began making sounds. My yearlong rule to the kids has been ,"Don't lean on the trebuchet!!! If any of the components buckle or bend, it throws off our data and we have to rebuild!"

But Josh's mom quickly said, "Josh, tell him in sign language to not lean on it."
Oh, I realized, I should have known. He's deaf!
"You know sign language?" I asked Josh, who continues to surprise me, as does this whole delightful family God plopped me in the presence of.
"We know our version of sign language," said his brother Alex.
They motioned to the boy, who backed off but then earnestly made chopping motions and pointed vigorously at me and at the treb. He understood me and agreed. Chop off the front and bring the dropping pivot point forward. I was totally with him on this, and wondered how he had understood this concept and why it was such a good idea. However, in the end, we decided it would be too much work to do that for now. We would alter easier limbs of our tree of problems first, and if the treb still wasn't flinging far, we would go to that rather drastic plan.

We all looked at our watches. 7:30!  We had spent two hours throwing out creative ideas about how to save our treb....even forgetting about dinner. A neighborhood had gathered to help us. Even the dog and cat came over to look at it, and the toddler crouched and gazed at it from her perspective. It is funny that my favorite moments in this year long journey of Science Olympiad have nothing to do with science.

1 Thessalonians 5:11

¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

The Sitting Contest

Every time we pass dogs when we are out walking, my own dogs go ballistic. I have learned that the only way I can keep my arm attached to my body, which is definitely to be preferred, is whenever I see dogs in the distance, I make my dogs sit and "wait".  The other dogs would then pass by, often lunging and barking themselves, but my dogs would  be still and on the surface appear to be well-behaved good canine citizens. Should I become smug and prideful and attempt to pass the other dogs without using this strategy, my very opportunistic pets would immediately revert into wild and uncontrollable beasts, lunging and barking and making me look like I did not deserve to be a dog owner, which is indeed the closely guarded but true secret.

Unfortunately, other dog owners began to catch on. They also did not like having their arms wrenched out of the acetabulum, which is the mobile but unstable shoulder socket. So other dog owners, when they saw us in the distance, would make their dogs sit. Now we had a stalemate. Neither of us dared move, knowing how expensive shoulder surgery could be.  So we would edge closer, then make the dogs sit again. Dogs all over the neighborhood were beginning to learn to be calm when other dogs passed, as long as they were sitting. The problem was that we were all out for "walks", not "sits".  On the other hand, the nice benefit was while we were all sitting, waiting for the other owner to make the next move, we began to chat. I was slowly growing to know people in my community. Bad dogs could lead to good things, I learned.

And this is often the case. What looks like wretched and painful trials can result in wonderful things if we persevere. If we can manage to hang in there, and look beyond the naughty dog on the end of the taut leash, we sometimes see a sweet and kind neighbor we might otherwise have missed entirely.  Perhaps that is part of why James admonishes us in the book that bears his name to "count it all joy when you encounter many trials." Joy? Joy when we are struggling beyond what we are certain we can bear? In all things? I don't think so, James......And yet, time and time again, when I do manage to hang in there beyond the trial and look back, I do see that what I gained usually exceeds what I lost. 

I suspect this is key to living life with joy no matter what. Trusting that the trials are leading to something far greater and often beyond what we can see. Hang in there, whispers God, and make your dog sit. Then, when the barking is stilled, listen in the silence for Me.

James 1: 2-12
² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.  ⁹ Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. ¹⁰ But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. ¹¹ For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
 ¹² Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

Porches

When we moved here about 15 years ago, I had two requirements for the new house- 2 bathrooms and a front porch. There are things I would have liked, but the only necessities were the bathrooms and porch. I think the whole world would become a nicer place if everyone committed to sitting on their front porch at least a few hours a week.

Our homes these days are barricades- few front porches are even available to sit on. We never see our neighbors walk by except in fleeting, rushing moments with our hands full of groceries or garbage. But if you look at photos of neighborhoods from long ago, everyone had a front porch. People used to rock on the porch swing, and chat with their neighbors. The neighborhood was a real community, not just a collection of hermitages.

There are other ways to promote community, but for me, the front porch is perfect. It is not forced gaiety, like a party. Am I the only one that goes home from parties with aching smile muscles? Interaction feels more natural for me from a front porch. For reclusive sorts like myself, if the need arises and a neighbor has overstayed his welcome on the porch, there is always the excuse of "something is burning on the stove" and a convenient getaway. And this is rarely not true in my home, something probably is burning or about to be burnt on the stove.

If you are truly blessed, your front porch will be surrounded by flowering bushes that attract hummingbirds. This has a double fold blessing. First, who could not be awed by the magic of hummingbirds? Secondly, if need be, those bushes can hide you from people when all you can handle at the moment is wings beating at a thousand beats per second with no human voice shattering the cadence.

Honestly, I think the health care money would be put to much better use if instead of requiring health insurance, the bill required front porches. I think blood pressure would drop, lonely hearts would find communion, and the drastic paucity of Vitamin D in most people would be quickly healed by the gentle rays of sun streaming over the porch sitters.

Today we are supposed to have 70 degree sunshine. The dogwood and Bradford pear are in bloom, and my daffodils are tipping yellow and white bonnets to a perfect Carolina blue sky. It is a day when my book and I will rock on the front porch and dream about a kind and gentle world.

Isaiah 34:16
....and his Spirit will gather them together.