Glimpses of God

I love the rare, the unusual, the under-dog, the shy, the elusive, the mysterious, the miraculous. I equally love the thing so common that it is overlooked. I think God is both.

When we lived in Syracuse, NY, we had a home right on the Erie Canal. The part we lived on was pretty decrepit, but you could still walk along the tow path and see the old locks that used to raise and lower the water level. If you listened very carefully, you could hear the tow mules bray amid the shots of hunters who thought it was great sport to hunt deer along the canal, shooting towards the neighborhood filled with small children. I once demonstrated my mind boggling lack of common sense when I confronted one of those hunters with his gun dangling towards me, and told him didn't he know he was not allowed to shoot on state park lands and that there were little children playing just beyond the tree line? he didn't answer, and his gun lowered slowly, but he turned and walked away. (whew)
The path went on for endless miles, and most of it was parkland, so it was filled with nature and largely deserted. On snowy winter days of which there were approximately 300 a year in upstate NY, I would cross-country ski on the tow path. That, in and of itself was enough to make my toes curl with delight. But as though a peaceful winter wonderland with the sounds of skis swishing and the soft snow hushing the moans of troubles were not joy enough, I would invariably catch a glimpse of my favorite bird, the Great Blue Heron. It would be quiet and beautiful, and I would be contemplating deep and significant thoughts like whether I should get my hair cut.... when I would see something move out of the corner of my eye. I would look for it, whatever it was, and it would be nothing, just a shifting of snow from the bridge of my nose. And then, as I would swish off again, the heron would suddenly flap its enormous six foot wings, and it would glide down the middle of the Erie Canal. It would settle a hundred feet ahead, until I caught up, and then sail off to the sky again, leading me further down this path of peace and elusive silence. Every single time it happened, and it happened many times, I thought of God. Every time I see a Great Blue Heron, I feel the presence of God.

I am not saying that God is a Heron, mind you. But the qualities of the Heron always remind me of God. They are magnificently large and yet it is rare to see them as they are masters at blending in to their surroundings. You can pass them by and never know they are there. But if you draw close, they will always show themselves with their awesome presence bursting heavenward. I always wonder how this huge bird can be so hard to find, but so unmistakably present. If I hike while make a lot of noise, I will almost never see one.... but if I enter the forest sanctuary and still my chattering soul, and look with quiet but searching eyes, I almost always see one.

I think that is the way God reveals Himself. You can't hear Him if you are busy talking yourself, and you can't see Him if you aren't ardently looking. And just when you think you have it all figured out, like how to submit a post without underlines appearing at the most inopportune moments, He is hiding again, and all you get are glimpses from the corner of your eye. So much of the Christian life is a walk of faith, but it is not blind faith. Like the Great Blue Heron, God is there and at times His presence will manifest itself in such a dazzling life-altering way that all you can do is shield your eyes from the blinding light of the sun and watch Him draw with wings of mercy and grace the path to Heaven.

I had a glimpse last night, right before we went to bed. We had just prayed for a dear family who had been without work for a year. He had had an interview that morning, one of many he had had over the hard and draining year. I went to my computer to shut it down, weary from all the demands of the day, and of Wii Yoga which is harder than you would think.... and there was an email from my friend. Her husband had gotten the job in a most unlikely way. I could hear the beat of a heron's wings, rising like a miracle into the sky.

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.

PS_ One dog is only a few votes ahead of Honeybun in the contest. You can vote every day when you first log on, and the steps are below. Please vote for Honeybun, and help win dogfood for a year for Hollow Creek Farm.

click on this little link below and skip to step 8.
http://tinyurl.com/voteforhoneybun


1. Click on this link:
http://www.petco.com/content/storiesListheartChampion.aspx?bvcategoryid=1-9
2. In upperish right side, select "sort by OLDEST STORIES FIRST"
3. Scroll down to bottom and select page "5".
4. Scroll down to bottom and select page "6".
5. Honeybun is the second story (picture: doge sleeping on pillow,
covered with a blanket. title: A Last Chance Dog.
6. Click on "Read my story and vote"
7. Click on the 5th (rightmost) gold medal (it will say "5 stars" when
you hover over it.)
8. On the Righthand side of the page enter your/an email address and
click the continue button.
9. You will be returned to Honeybun's story page.
10. Close your BROWSER program (not just the window).
11. Repeat steps 1-10.

Clinging to Hope

The irony in being prepared for life when you are young is most of the time you are clueless about what you are preparing for. When you ask, like every other child on earth, "but why do I need to know this, I will never use it...", the Older and Wiser Ones smile like Mona Lisa. It is as futile as telling a kitten it climbs and shreds the draperies for the day when it is being chased by a fox as it is to tell a child that Algebra may reenter his life in ways he never thought to consider. Since we don't know the future, we are forced to prepare for all eventualities. This is a daunting task, and more so if you are a home school parent as the whole chinchilla rests on your shoulders. (For those of you who excel in catching malapropisms, I know that most people think the proper phrase is "the whole enchilada". But I ask you, which would you rather have resting on your shoulder- a messy dripping oily enchilada or a furry soft chinchilla?)

So every morning, while petting the Chinchilla, I do a Bible study with Asherel, forging through the blank stares when I talk about trials, and suffering and struggles in life. For a kid whose been blessed so mightily that her most heart wrenching problem for the day is how to talk me into letting her have icecream for dessert 3 nights in a row, these biblical issues of struggle and temptations that lead to death have as much relevance to her life as the Middle Ages, which coincidentally, we are also studying with similar attenuating interest.

So like I find myself doing with other subjects that don't seem to have any significance to her now, I try to emphasise that we never know when something we thought we would never need suddenly is all we need.

For example, despite the fact that I never knew why my words were underlined like they are now, I did not research it, or ask for help from someone who might know. And now, for no reason at all, my words are underlined yet again, and I am unable to correct it. This gives me an aura of "lack of credibility" which detracts from the truth of my message.

So I continue to help Asherel find and even memorize those verses that give hope and strength for a day that she cannot yet envision. You just never know when you may need to find comfort from God- affirming words like a curtain to cling to covering a window of despair.

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

By the way, Honeybun is one point behind the leader!!!! OH NO! Please go to http://tinyurl.com/voteforhoneybun and vote for Last Chance Dog, and click on the far right (5th star). If you click on the first star, it will record as the lowest rating and will hurt her chances. Tell all your friends!!!!! And you can vote as many times as you log it, I think, as long as you are not registered with Petco, but just click on "new customer".

The Right Way to Say Hello

No one greets you like a dog. Dogs do "hello" right. No matter how smelly or ill-tempered or depressed or ugly you are, when you walk in the door, a dog suddenly realizes that all creation was engineered to create you and you alone. With unrestrained delight the dog gallops across the floor barking "hallelujah!" the whole way. His tail, which I understand is powered by microscopic nuclear explosions, gyrates wildly as the absence of clear English makes it difficult for him to otherwise convey the words, "My reason for being is you!"

If your dog is like my dog, within nanoseconds of greeting you, he then remembers he is hungry. In his infinite kindness, he escorts you to the food cannister. He knows that your mind is foggy and not fully tuned in to the needs of the day, so with careful placement of his body, he nudges you closer and closer to the Gravy Train that you may not find on your own, and certainly not with the necessary speed. If you get sidetracked and Heaven Forbid, must use the bathroom before attending to the dog's breakfast, he does not berate you. Instead, he waits patiently at the door, occasionally ripping irreparable deep grooves in it, and as soon as you emerge, he behaves as though he had not just reminded the world that the most incredible human being on earth has just appeared and his exultant greeting begins all over again.

I have often watched our dogs greet my husband Arvo when he returns from work. First, I don't know how they do it, but ten minutes before his car pulls into the driveway, they start barking and running from the bedroom to the front door. Lucky runs to find his bone, which he then picks up and carries around for the next many minutes til Arvo arrives. It is his offering. When the car rolls in, the dogs become more frantic. Their tails are wagging so fast that they momentarily lift off the ground and hover like a helicopter. When the door opens, it is a bedlam of rapture. The dogs swirl like frenzied sharks around Arvo's legs. Lucky drops his bone at Arvo's feet. They paw at him, and bark, and jump to lick his face. Oh happy day, the pack is complete again!

I know I should be there with them, drooling with delight, welcoming my tired husband home from his long day in a similar manner. The dogs put me to shame. I am woefully inadequate and am humbled by a dog. Instead of showering him with exuberant joy at his presence, I often have a litany of all the things that went wrong, that need fixing, that need doing, that need attending......
It is never all about the dog, in the dog's eyes. It is all about the Master.
My lips will shout for joy
when I sing praise to you—
I, whom you have redeemed. Psalm 71: 23

PS- Honeybun has over 200 votes! It is hard to determine if she is still in first place, but there was a dog close on her heels. Please please vote!!! Find specific instructions in the post 2 days ago about the Petco contest. Thank you!

Breaking Out

As we were preparing my son's pile of things for him to leave for his first year at college, he refused to bring an umbrella. Young adults have bizarre perceptions of what makes them conspicuous when they would often prefer to just melt into the wall. As Anders was heading to Boston, the cold and desolate north where there is cold and rain, and he would be without me to remind him that it was cold and rainy so that he could then ignore me and go out unprepared in the cold and rain.....I wanted at the very least that he would have an umbrella. Who would have thought that the very suggestion of an umbrella would cause my son to shudder with the gruesomeness of my deviousness for even thinking such a thing. I could not imagine why the thought of an umbrella would cause such a reaction, particularly in Anders, who probably more than anyone I know could not care less what others thought of him.
"Really Anders," I insisted, "It is perfectly normal to carry an umbrella when it rains."
"I have no intention of being normal!" he barked.

Well now. This could probably be emblazoned on our door, the rallying cry of our family.
"Give me abnormality, or give me Death!"
"I only regret that I have but one not normal life to live for my country!"
"I think, therefore I am not normal!"
You get the picture.
I think this is the blessing and the curse of the creative, artistic soul. There is something that rebels deep inside against conformity, against sameness. There is a constant drive to be unique, to show a soul that sparkles in the fog. It is a blessing when the bubble of creative juices boil above the simmering mass and splatters a fresh thought to a world tired of the same old mush. It is a curse when the creative soul languors in weary exhaustion, every new thought depleted and dry, with the crushing realization that Shakespeare already said it, or else it is in the Bible. There is nothing new under the sun. We are living in a world of left overs.
And just when the creative soul is ready to hang up his beret, something bizarrely wonderful and new is unveiled.....creatures like the Dumbo Octopod are discovered a mile beneathe the sea- 6 foot long octopus like animals with fins that look like ears of giant elephants. Or the recently discovered ghost slug, a blind huge white carnivorous blob found in Wales. It feeds at night with razor sharp teeth. Ick. If that isn't the stuff of nightmares, I don't know what is. Picture yourself out for an evening stroll and being stalked by a slimy blind blob that then goes after your toes with a mouth full of razor blades. (I am canceling my trip to Wales....)However, who would have thought to make such a creature? Creativity is not dead!
So the very same Bible that bemoans that nothing new is under the sun in Ecclesiastes 1:9, also lifts our drowning spirits with this exaltation:

²² Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

²³ They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

PS- Honeybun is in first place!!!! Keep voting- instructions on post from yesterday. Also, if you don't register, but log in as a new customer each time, you can vote more than once! The rules do not say you can't vote more than once! And very important, when you vote, only click the far right star or our rating goes down. Many thanks from the bottom of our wagging tail.

Vote for Honeybun!!!!!!

The dog that inspired my book is now in a Petco Writing contest. She is currently in 4th place and has a definite shot at winning! When I first read the rules, I was concerned as I know very few dogs that know how to write, and even fewer that can do it well enough to win a writing contest. Upon closer perusal of the rules however, I see that Honeybun does not have to actually write the story. She just has to dictate it to someone with opposable thumbs.
Her story has to be about why she is a champion. If you want the full version, you will have to buy my book.... and if you want the fullest version, you will have to find me a publisher willing to take a chance on a new author who will publish my book. But if you act now, today, in the next hour, you may read her story free of charge. I entered her in the writing contest with high hopes. The winner gets a whole doghouse full of dog food. If she wins, she plans to eat as much as she can before I donate it to Hollow Creek Farm, who could really use it in these trying economic times of hope and change.
Unfortunately, to vote for her requires a doctorate in computer programming. I think Petco needs to hire someone other than the babysitter to develop the website. It is not easy to navigate but my dear cousin who is highly trained in understanding gobblydegook has sent these instructions which I will paste below. Please note, when you vote, click on the star to the far right of the row of 5 stars. This is what rates Honeybun's story. If you click on the first star like some less savvy voters did, that is all the points she receives and we can just kiss that dog food goodbye. Honeybun would thank you herself, but is extremely busy right now writing her sequel.

EAsiest steps: click on this little link below and skip to step 8 below.
http://tinyurl.com/voteforhoneybun (if you find pleasure in ripping your hair out, cursing, and slamming your head against the wall, you may prefer to follow the full set of instructions below, but most of you may find it simpler to go for the easy option.)

> 1. Click on this link:
> http://www.petco.com/content/storiesListheartChampion.aspx?bvcategoryid=1-9
> 2. In upperish right side, select "sort by OLDEST STORIES FIRST"
> 3. Scroll down to bottom and select page "5".
> 4. Scroll down to bottom and select page "6".
> 5. Honeybun is the second story (picture: doge sleeping on pillow,
> covered with a blanket. title: A Last Chance Dog.
> 6. Click on "Read my story and vote"
> 7. Click on the 5th (rightmost) gold medal (it will say "5 stars" when
> you hover over it.)
> 8. On the Righthand side of the page enter your/an email address and
> click the continue button.
> 9. You will be returned to Honeybun's story page.
> 10. Close your BROWSER program (not just the window).
> 11. Repeat steps 1-10.

For the few of you still reading who are not over at Honeybun's story, I did not forget the spiritual application. It probably did not escape your notice that I told you if Honeybun wins she will donate (unwillingly) most of the dogfood to Hollow Creek Farm. This probably left a bad taste in your mouth because it sounds like self promotion. Oh look at me, wonderful me, promising kibbles out of my largesse. Our sermon this weekend was all about generosity of God's people, but we were to give in a very unusual way. ... and I quote:
Matthew 6:3
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing

That of course means that when your left hand is giving out dog food, your right hand should not be holding a bullhorn and notifying everyone in sight what a good and generous person you are. While my motives are not pure, I will state in self defense that some of you might not bother to vote if you thought it would just fill our larder with dogfood, as some of you have met our dogs, and know they hardly lack for food. However, if you know it goes for a good cause like Hollow Creek Farm, you might be willing to take the time to vote. I am not guilty of the sin of hypocrisy so much as the sin of manipulative behavior. We will discuss that in another post.

Visions

There was a large spooky forest that bumped up to our backyard in the house where I spent my first five years.
My earliest clear memory was of that forest, and the frightening thing that emerged from it one day as I was playing in the backyard. My mother used to tell us it was time to go out and play, send us out back, and then lock the door. It was Enforced Playtime til her eyes stopped rattling in her head. While children are, as everyone knows, a source of great comfort and joy, four children under age 6 can stretch the definition of joy til it is almost like torture. I loved being outside, but the spooky forest really scared me. It was big, and dark and menacing and I knew that very large and dangerous things lived there. So I would stick close to the house and play with less scary things like the snakes under the doorstep.

Most of the time my siblings were near, so the forest didn't hold the terror it could have, but on the day of my vision , I was all alone. I don't know where my siblings were off to, probably stealing the farmer's corn and outrunning his shotgun, which was another favorite memory. (Well, ok, I am not quite certain I remember him actually shooting, but he did scream at us....I think.)

I was happily feeding apples to the snake, whom I called Slidey, when I saw something on the edge of the forest out of the corner of my eye. There was a lot of shouting and thrashing of underbrush, and horrible growling noises. I raced to the door, which of course was locked, and pounded on it. Mom's policy was the door remained locked for at least an hour, on a sliding scale
of time based on how long it had taken her to get us into all our outdoor clothes. If snowpants and boots and hats and scarves and mittens were involved for all four of us, we could count on being locked out til the next meal. This was a summer day, but nonetheless, Enforced Playtime was not over, and so children were still required to fend for themselves, unless "we saw blood".

I cringed against the door and opened one eye to see what unspeakable creepy thing had been raising the ruckus. It was then that I saw, clear as day, a large bear break out of the forest. Well, actually he did not break out of the forest.... he rolled out of the forest. It was a fearsome large brown bear, at least as tall as a large man, on roller skates. I huddled against the door, whispering, "Mom! Mommy... let me in. There is a bear!"
Fortunately, the bear stayed along the edge of the forest, and was actually skating quite well considering the less than ideal surface of tree roots and rutted ground. Why was a bear roller skating...? At the time, it did strike me as odd, but then the answer became clear. A farmer with a pitchfork burst out of the forest waving his arms and giving chase. It was obvious the bear needed to roller skate to outpace the man. I watched in amazement as they raced across the far backyard, and then both disappeared again back into the forest.

To this day, when my family feels I am not being quite accurate in my rendition of events, they will say, "Like the bear on roller skates?" and then smirk. I get the distinct impression that no one believes me. My blessed mother turns 78 on Valentine's Day, but I am sure she too remembers opening the door to the hysterical child telling her there was a bear on roller skates in our forest.

I have never been able to discern what message God was sending with that vision. Try as hard as I can, I cannot make sense of it. Surprisingly, bears are mentioned in the Bible. When the prophet Elisha is taunted by some youths who call him "bald head!", bears come out of the forest and maul them. Those bears were not roller skating. In Isaiah 59:11, the prophet mourns the state of a sinful people, lost in their sins, who don't know where to turn to find solace and atonement-
"We all growl like bears;
we moan mournfully like doves.
We look for justice, but find none;
for deliverance, but it is far away. "

That might explain the vision of the bear... God was reminding me of the horror of sin.... but the rolling part still flummoxed me. Roller skates had not been invented during Bible times, but there are zillions of references to things rolling. And amazingly, the rolling is usually a good thing, except in a few places like when God tells Jeremiah to tell his people He will "roll you off a cliff" because they refuse to repent. But in Joshua 5:9, God "rolls" away the reproach of Egypt from his people, and the most happy rolling of all occurs in the Gospels when the angel rolls away the large stone to reveal Jesus' empty tomb.

Of course, sometimes a bear on roller skates is just a bear on roller skates.

He is My Song

I wish I could sing, or play an instrument other than the kazoo with skill. Every member of my family can either sing or play guitar or piano.... except me. I mean, I can play a few chords, and I can sing within a very narrow range. In fact, my ability to sing was one of the delusions of my childhood. And it was my mom's fault. As I have mentioned in prior posts, my sister Wendy was highly intelligent and highly talented. All the things I could do, Wendy could do better, and yes, that included art. I hated Wendy, which was the only way I knew to cope with all the feelings of inferiority. My mother, wisely seeing me drowning in my paucity of self esteem, tried to bolster me by focusing on the two things Wendy didn't have that I did. Everyone else in our family (except Mom) had brown eyes, but I had green eyes. My mother made such a big deal about my green eyes that I came to believe I had personally selected them and then special ordered them to arrive on the day of my birth. Were it not for my exceptional ability to procure those emerald orbs, I would have eyes like dirt like Wendy did. (I use the past tense, because in His infinite sense of humor, God gave Wendy brown eyes that faded to green with age, removing one of the two things I had that she did not.) The second thing I had over Wendy which I believe persists to this day was that I could carry a tune. As far as I know, Wendy still can not sing without bats torpedoing out of their caves. So while I honestly probably could sing better than Wendy, with all respect, the bar was not very high in that endeavor.
However, I trusted my mom and so I joined the elementary school chorus. I was put in the soprano section, but I don't think it was really that I was a soprano. I think it was just that since I was such a shy and frightened child when placed before humans, whenever I sang to anyone but myself in the shower, my vocal cords constricted and the squeak that emerged was labeled the closest thing the choir teacher could compare it to. I huddled with the other sopranos.
Despite my debilitating shyness, I had moments throughout my life when I was determined to rise above my temerity. When the tryouts for the School Choir solos were announced, I had such a moment.
When I told the choir teacher I wanted to try out, she paused and said, "Are you sure?"
This may be interpreted by more astute minds as an indication that perhaps I should take up another calling, like removing lint from dryers, but I persisted.
On the day of the tryouts, we were called one by one into a small room, and we sang a verse in front of the choir director. I wore my new dress, the one I can still picture to this day with a white top, green full skirt to match the eyes I had selected, and a yellow sash. I loved that dress and I felt beautiful in it. Inexplicably, when I sang my solo, my voice didn't squeak and I remembered all the words. It was with astonishment (I am sure to the entire choir) when it was announced that I would sing the solo.
So the next month was to be spent practicing for the big event. In practice, as far as I can remember, every single time we came to the part where I was to sing in front of all my fellow choir members my one small solo, I blew it. My terrified vocal chords would take one gander at the crowd and go hide behind my tonsils.
The choir director would try to smile. There would often be shocked silence from my choir mates. How had this worm with no voice won the coveted solo?
After two weeks of this farce, the choir director announced that due to an unforeseen event, the song with my solo would have to be cut from the program. Now of course, I understand that the unforeseen event is that the soloist sang like a wounded burro, but at the time, I only felt a twinge of disappointment. Mostly I felt relief.
With age and dawning wisdom, I understand that whether I want to be a swan or not, if I am a duck, I must be satisfied with what a duck is made to do. And much as I wish I could sing with notes that have the scent of Heaven upon them, I really don't need to. God tells me that in my weakness is where He shines. What joy to read in Exodus, 15:2_

The Lord is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.