Leaves Abound

We have a pile 50 feet high and still the oak trees are only half bared. Since it is almost Thanksgiving, I will think of the leaves in a new light. We are blessed with leaves, abundantly and overflowing with the blessing of leaves. Our yard runneth over.

My bible verse this morning was about loving each other. This is not always easy, in fact I find it to be often quite hard. I want to love others, and I especially want them to love me. But others can be such irritating schmucks.

However, the prayer at the bottom of my study struck me. It said to view others as Christ sees them. And then added another little zinger about how we are forgiven and loved while we were yet sinners.  My love should overflow like the leaves in my yard. And my heart should be filled with forgiveness. And my eyes should be focused on the person that Christ knows he or she can be, not necessarily who he or she is at the moment. This is impossible, like raking all those leaves. And yet, it is what we are urged to do. Loving well, like raking, is a never ending task.

Isaiah 43:4 NIV

Since you are precious and honored in my sight,

and because I love you,

1 John 4:19 NIV

We love because he first loved us.

Romans 5:8 NIV

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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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.

While I have breath.....

I mean no disrespect to a necessary profession, but I hate going to the dentist. I have sensitive spots in my teeth that the dentist always seems to want to find, and dig around in with metal tools. You all know that electric shock that makes your nostril hairs singe and your eyebrows curl. If you don't, count yourself among the lucky few.

So I dutifully go twice a year but I look forward to it like I would walking on hot coals to reach a bowl of lima beans mixed with cow brains. Just yuck and double yuck.

Yesterday was my biannual visit to the masked purveyor of torture and pain in the name of health. (For all you children reading my blog, remember that I use exaggeration to make my points. Every one of you should go to the dentist faithfully, floss daily, and change your toothbrush every 3 months. Do not be dissuaded by my recounting of my own neuroses with dentists).

The dental hygienist is always impossibly cheery as she lays out the sharp, menacing tools. Before I even sit down, I remind her to swab my gums with the numbing gel. As it takes effect, my whole throat goes numb as well, and of course, now I am not only gripping the seat edge in anticipation of the inevitable shock of pain they always seem to inflict, but I am quite sure I will die of tracheal paralysis. And then of course, she asks  a question. Not just a yes or no question I can mutely nod or shake an answer to. A question that requires a dissertation to answer appropriately. But there I sit, mouth agape, tongue, throat and lips numb, with her fingers in my mouth and some hideous tool scraping away.

As she settled the apron that keeps the xrays from etching holes in my midsection, she told me, "What a beautiful day!" glancing at the sparkling sun outside the windows of the torture chamber.
"It is," I agreed, "It almost makes me feel like I am on vacation in this weather."
"Some of my clients tell me their favorite day of the year is a visit to the dentist," she went on.
My face must have conveyed the polite but obvious unspoken retort, "You are a big fat liar."
"Yep," she said, "They are usually young mothers with 3 kids under age 5. They say the trip to the dentist is the only time they have an hour of uninterupted peace and quiet."

I pondered that thought for the rest of the visit, which only had one brief moment of tolerable pain. I guess, like in all things, it is a matter of perspective. To a starving child, moldy bread is a blessing. The Bible tells us, in one of my favorite verses, "A live dog is better than a dead lion." (Ecclesiastes 9:4)  I suppose the simplest way to think of it is count your blessings.  I had no cavities, I left with nice clean teeth, and a new yellow toothbrush with bristles that tell me when it is time to get a new brush. The sun was still shining, and my dear daughter greeted me with a smile, hard at work on finishing her school work when I returned.

While I have breath, I should really be using it to praise God for how fortunate I am to have breath to praise Him.... and sweet smelling breath, courtesy of the dentist I so fear.

Ecclesiastes 9: 4-5
⁴ Anyone who is among the living has hope -even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!  ⁵ For the living know that they will die,
       but the dead know nothing;
       they have no further reward,
       and even the memory of them is forgotten.

1 Peter 1: 3-4
 ³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you,

All the Right Reasons

I love divine appointments ; the wonderful people God brings to me in this often tumultuous river of life that give islands of refuge and delight.

As Asherel was walking the course for her last run of the weekend AKC trial, I took Honeybun out to walk and sniff and do whatever business a highly untrained but willing Agility Dog should do. I was in a bit of a daze as the very early morning, and noisy Independence Weekend evenings had taken their toll on my consciousness. We almost bumped into another handler, probably equally dazed, walking his dog.

He asked me what kind of dog Honeybun was.
"She's a Carolina Dog," I explained.
"I don't want to appear stupid," he said, "But what is that?"
"It is not recognized by AKC," I told him, "But it is a breed recognized by the UKC and the American Rare Breed Assoc. (ARBA)."
"Really!" he exclaimed, "My dog is an ARBA breed too!"
I glanced down at his dog, which in my hazy fog of fatigue I had not paid much attention to til then.
It was the sheepdog I wrote about yesterday- the wonderful happy fuzzball that had captured the hearts of the audience as he good-naturedly and slowly trotted around the agility course!
I told the owner how much we enjoyed watching his dog and how I had written about him in my daily blog. He asked me to send him the link and I took his contact information, then had to scurry back inside to hand Honeybun back to Asherel for her class.

When I got home, I sent the man my blog link.
Within minutes I received a reply.
The Polish Sheepdog ( I think that was his rare breed) was 13 years old. He was obviously past his prime for agility contests, and was not likely to win many more awards. But the owner and dog both loved the agility trials, and the people they had met and befriended over the years. He told me many friends had kindly and gently counseled him to retire his sheepdog and get a puppy for agility.... but he just didn't want to deprive his sweet faithful old dog of this pastime that they both so enjoyed. My blog post had come at a hard time for them and been a little bit of encouragement.

I read the letter, and of course cried. How often we hold back words of affirmation, encouragement, or praise that might steady a faltering step? With all the hard core competition and even back biting politics and acrimony that seems to accompany every competitive endeavor, it is so easy to lose sight of what really matters.... friendships, laughter, intrinsic love of the activity. Over the weekend I heard many stories about severed relationships, jealousies, back-biting.... all the ugly things that happen when people gather. To see that lovely dog and his wonderful master do agility together for all the right reasons helped me remember the need to keep it all in perspective.

I have a potholder that I think I got from my mom. I am not quite sure how I got it and it may not have even been from her, but it says, "It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice."
I used to scoff at it, thinking it was just the rallying cry of those incompetents unable to achieve much. I figured it was the sour grapes mantra of people who could never hope to be important. I repent in ashes and dust now for such a despicable attitude, but that is how I felt.

The older I get the more I realize that being important is much easier than being nice.... and how I long for nice! The world clamors after so many things that in the end mean nothing.
So I leave the wonderful agility weekend with a warm and happy oasis in my soul, the memory of a man and his dog who run around a ring and jump for the sheer joy of being together among friends.

Ruth 3: 10-11
¹⁰ "The LORD bless you, my daughter," he replied. "This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. ¹¹ And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character.