All of Life's a Stage

While sitting with Walter waiting for intermission when the patrons would hopefully stream out with pockets full of donations for Hollow Creek Farm, the actors would rush out of the dressing room and watch the monitor near us of the ongoing play. As their cue arrived, the manager would open the door to the theater and I would watch them scurry through the door, and then see them on the monitor as they hit the stage. They would practice dance steps silently as they kept their eyes on the monitor, last minute prep for their big moment.

"You pay close attention," I told Walter, "This is the way life works. You spend a lot of time watching, a lot of time waiting, a lot of time preparing, and you get your chance. Sometimes it is just a few moments on the stage so you have to be ready to give it your all."

His head wobbled on his wiggly body and he climbed into my lap.

So we were at the theater all weekend and came away with a grand total of $18 in donations for the wonderful farm that saved Walter and so many other great animals. This is a little discouraging, but I guess we don't know the full repercussion of our time. Maybe all those people who took flyers about Hollow Creek Farm will decide they want to adopt one of the wonderful dogs. Maybe they went home and wrote a big fat check. I know Walter gave it his wobbly all.

I ammended my speech to Walter, "That time on the stage..... It is not all there is. All that stuff we were watching going on behind the stage.... that is most of it. That's the part we have to value more, because sometimes it is all we get."

Walter lay his big head on my lap and closed his eyes.

The event brought to my mind the passage in the Bible when Peter is on the mountain top with Jesus, and Moses and Elijah appear. Peter is obviously overwhelmed. He is in the presence of the biggest spiritual heroes of all time, and he is seeing them with his own eyes. So he does what all of us wish we could do. He wants to build tents so they can all camp out there and he can hang on to that joyful experience a little longer.He is like the kid at the end of the beach vacation, on the verge of returning to school...."But I don't want to go home!"

 Jesus instead leads him back down the mountain. I am sure as they plod back to the valley, He tells him, in a kindly way, "Peter you are a fruitcake. You can't hang out on the mountaintop, though the view is indeed great and the experiences pretty amazing up there. Hope you enjoyed it, but get back in the real world of the valley and toil and trouble. It may not seem like it can compare, but you will discover it is what gives the mountain meaning. Without a valley, there is no mountain."

So, we may not see the whole picture; we may not have hit our big moment on the stage yet; we may just be squirming on the valley floor for a while, or in Walter's case, wobbling. But we are honing our skills, and when the mountain is ready for us, we will be ready for the mountain.

Psalm 18:29
By my God I can leap over a wall.

2 Timothy 1:7
God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power
and of love and of self-discipline.

sunset or sunrise?

Dear old Grandma could not be budged from Florida...not yet. Her sons each grabbed a leg and an arm, but she managed to sink her teeth into the door frame and no matter how hard they pulled she was unyielding.

She is frail and should not be living alone, in our opinion, but no sign of fraility was apparent as she refused to leave her home.

My husband Arvo and his brother, R, both dropped to the floor in a puddle of defeat and begged her to see reason. Her mind is as whip sharp as it always was, and despite all the daily struggle of managing a home, she would not opt for the cushy life of someone else caring for her. Not yet.

I advised they get a care provider to come to the home instead. I will start making calls after I finish booking the honeymoon for the newly soon to be married son.

I can't help but find it ironic that at the same moment in my life, I am watching the excited couple about to begin the journey into adulthood, and the tired old woman who is nearing its completion. One is filled with the hope of expectation; the other with the peace of fulfillment. One is making dreams; and the other is reconciling herself to dreams unrealized. One plans for a spectacular beginning; one hopes for a gentle and peaceful end. One is blithely exploding into a new phase of independence; while the other is gently succumbing to unwelcome dependence. I stand straddled between both worlds- a beginning and an ending longing to ease the struggles of both.

Funny how in the natural world, sunrise and sunset are interchangeable. They look the same. And God, who painted the world in exactly the right colors is telling me, "They are the same." They occur because we are on a circular path, but it is the same sun we see rising in the morning as we see setting in the evening. Our perspective may be different, but the sun is immutable.

The same soul that glowed in Grandma at the start of her days will glow in her at the end. The same God that created her and patted her back as she skipped off to her life will gently hold her gnarled hand and pull her back to His everlasting embrace when her journey ends. The same God will shout, "Safe travels!" to the bounding young couple who can barely restrain the enthusiasm for life, as the God who whispers, "Well done, Welcome home" to His weary servant upon her shuffling return.

It is a message of hope to me, that the sunrise and sunset are bathed in the same glorious strokes of warm glowing reds and magentas as a familiar Voice beckons me draw near. It is the same Voice that coaxed me to be brave when the sun first bathed my face, as well as when it casts its last beam upon my back.

Amos 4: 12-13
¹² "Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel,
and because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel."

¹³ He who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals his thoughts to man,
he who turns dawn to darkness,
and treads the high places of the earth—
the LORD God Almighty is his name.

Jeremiah 24:7 (NIV)
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.