The Goat That Saved Me

When I was in third grade, I was "Wendy's sister." This was spoken in hushed tones with reverence and awe. When it was time for our research papers to be presented, the teachers gathered expectantly, as Wendy had done her 3rd grade paper on "The Study of the Brain" and presented it to college students. When I revealed my 3rd grade topic the following year, there was the whoosh of air leaving the room- "The Care and Feeding of the Black Capped Chickadee." I think it is safe to say all college symposiums on the subject were canceled.

When I hit 6th grade, the assignment was to do a "How To" report. We could teach the class how to do anything we wanted. I had heard rumors that in years past, such topics as "How to Ride an Elephant" had been presented, with a real elephant. I was a painfully shy child and these teacher exercises in student humiliation and terror always produced months of angst. How could I get in front of all those faces and speak a word? I was the child who had run home and cried all afternoon when a little boy behind me in the lunch line had kindly and gently pointed out that my slip was showing. The mortification of that event would be nothing compared to the idiotic babbling I was sure to produce for my How To talk. I had learned from my father that when in doubt, be outrageous and so far over the top, people might not notice little insignificant things like you have no idea what you are talking about. So I settled on my speech topic. I went to my mother and asked if she could help with the logistics.
"I think you will need to clear this with the principal," she said.
By now my topic had assumed a life of its own, and despite the horror of talking out loud to the principal, who in those days still had the power to paddle, I marched in to his office and asked politely if I could bring a goat to school.
He asked if the goat was house-trained, which of course it was not. It lived on the farm that I raced to every day after school. Every day I shoveled manure for hours, in ecstasy as I was surrounded by horses, cows, cats, and the goat. One of my jobs at the farm was to milk the goat. Then I would take the goat milk and pour it in a row of endless saucers for the many barn cats and homeless creatures that wandered to the farm. Milking a goat, while not at the level of navigating the mysteries of the brain, is not a totally mindless or simple task. If you do it improperly, instead of the milk coming out the spigot, it is squeezed back into the goat and she then bellows and kicks over the pail. It took a good bit of practice to learn to properly milk a goat, and I had become proudly proficient.
I promised the principal that I would lay papers down in case the goat needed to potty in the school, and we decided that it would be ok if I just brought the goat in the front doors, and had my class come to the entry hallway to watch my speech. That way, should the goat need a quick escape, I could usher it immediately out the doors.
I don't think I was well liked. I am not sure it was because of my personality so much as no one really knew my personality. I was just a formless blob, too frightened to speak to most people. But I related well to animals, and animals liked me. At that point in my life, that was enough.
The day of the speech, Mom picked me up from school and we drove to the farm for the goat. We loaded her in the VW minibus, and I sat in the back seat with her, stroking her neck and telling her what an adventure she was about to have.
The class was already gathered when we arrived. They didn't know why they were in the front hall so all craned necks expectantly as my mom, and me, and the goat hopped out of the car. There was a huge crowd. This was not just my class I could see immediately. As I have mentioned in the past, I have a horrid memory, but I am pretty sure the entire 6th grade was there, and many teachers, and the principal too. It is not every day a goat goes to school.
Instead of laughing at me, or as was more typical, just looking through me, there was a crowd of peers smiling at me, and when I gave my talk and demonstrated how to milk, there were rapturous faces and arms shooting into the air begging me to let them try. I forgot to be frightened in my earnest attempts to turn every student into a competent milkmaid, who would not hurt my friend, the goat.
I got an A+ on my talk. It is one of my favorite memories of school.
So of course I have always had a soft spot for goats. It was with great delight and astonishment that I discovered the greatest miracle of the Christian faith, the atonement of sin, was to be symbolized by a goat. In Leviticus, each year the priests were to gather the people and take two goats. The peoples' sins were symbolically cast upon the goats. One goat was sacrificed (to my great dismay) but the second goat carried the sins and was to be released into the desert- the scape goat. It was a poignant symbol of what Christ demonstrated with one act- sin was so repugnant that the punishment had to be death, but mercy was so strong, that He offered an escape. Christ became our scape-goat.
^" But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat." Leviticus 16:10

The Artist's Prerogative

One of the best parts of being an artist, besides of course the fact that I don't have to hang Velvet Elvis on my walls because I have so much original art to choose from, is that I have the freedom to create the world I want. If I want to move a mountain, I can. If I don't like a person, I can erase him. If I want a horse, I can have one with the flick of a pencil. If I want snow or rain or sunshine.... all are equally within my grasp. The world I create is only limited by the skill with which I can draw it.

My mom and I were chatting a few days ago, and she told me that once I was with her while she was struggling to paint something that she really did not feel added to the beauty of the scene. She was painting from nature, gazing out on a landscape, and as I recall there were just too many bushes for her taste.

"Then just leave it out," I had told her. She was flabbergasted. She told me this was an astonishing revelation to her.
"You are an artist, not a camera," I told her, "You have the prerogative to add or delete anything you want."
When I paint trees, for example, I usually make an effort to paint the main trunk and largest limbs faithfully, but then the smaller limbs I just design in the way that gives my picture the most visual impact and the least frustration to my impatient hand.
I could see my mother, out of the corner of my eye, with almost a lunatic smile on her face jabbing at her scene with a wide brush, obliterating the offensive and difficult to draw little bushes.

Of course, if I could, I would erase cancer, and diabetes, and deviated septums. If I could, I would add ten telephone calls a day from distant sons, and a belly button that actually had a use like by pushing it short grey wiry hair would grow long and lustrous. I would wipe away twenty years of wrinkles but leave the wisdom that comes with each hard earned crevice. I would patch broken hearts and return orphans to mothers. I would remove every tooth designed to rip meat and replace it with only grinding molars. I would add a loving owner for every lonely dog, with an endless supply of milk bones. I would give snakes a different planet. This is just the short list.

One of my art class students once gazed absentmindedly into the distance as I was teaching a technique before the class, and then she raised her hand.
"Mrs. Kaseorg," she said, her face puckered in deep thoughtfulness, "Do you think there will be erasers in heaven?"
I paused, and considered the incredible insight of this young mind.
"No, I don't think we would need them," I answered.

Of course, my thoughts are not original. There is never an original thought. There are only recycled thoughts in perhaps a new form, but the essence is the same. Long ago, Jeremiah the prophet was commanded by God to go to the house of a potter. He was to watch the potter and wait for God's message. I love this story, because this is just how I think God often speaks to me. I watch the world around me and try to hear what He is saying. Anyway, Jeremiah watches the potter make a pot, and it is not a very good pot, so the potter smashes the clay and reshapes it into a better pot. I imagine around this time Jeremiah is wincing as he glances heavenward, because the symbolism is getting just a tad spooky. And then, in case Jeremiah has a head of cornmeal, God tells him explicitly-
"O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. (Jer. 18:6)
If this were the only verse you read in the Bible, you may well go about like a beetle, hiding under rocks, but as with any good painting, it is critical to look at the whole thing. This Potter of all Potters spends very little time smashing His pots. Mostly He is binding broken hearts, breathing life into dusty bones, giving strength to the weary, and wings to eagles. And He reminds us over and over again that He specializes in broken pots because when they are broken, He can reshape them lovingly with His own hands.

Yet, O Lord, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8

Not Smooth Sailing

I once won an award for sailing. I had totally forgotten that until a few months ago looking through an old photo album I saw an article I had cut out and proudly preserved that 14 year old Vicky had won some sailing race at Whitney Point. I don't remember the race at all, and I am incredulous about winning as I was not a very good sailor. In fact, while I can sail, and taught my children to sail, I did so a bit unconventionally. The way I know which way to head the boat is to turn it such that the wind hits my cheek at a certain spot. Then I know I am on the right tack. So I cannot explain how to sail, but I can feel it.
My dad was an exacting teacher and he was the one who taught me to sail. Again, I don't remember the lessons but I sincerely doubt he used the wind on the cheek method of instruction. I do remember him teaching me the dangers of sailing. Never ever "come about" (change direction) by going away from the wind. You always come about by going into the wind, "unless you are very skillful". If you come about by going away from the wind, the wind grabs the back end of the boom (the long heavy horizontal metal pole that holds the bottom of the sail) and it smacks it full force in the opposite direction. Wind can carve mountains away, so you can imagine what it can do with a weapon like a boom. Dad warned us that it could remove our head. On the other hand, if you come about going into the wind, the wind softly flutters to the other side of the front of the sail, and slowly eases the boom across the boat, changing the direction the sail catches the wind, and you sail on your new tack with your head still propped on your shoulders. This is by far the preferred result in coming about as heads are quite necessary for sailing so that you can shout, "Coming about!" which makes everyone on shore gaze admiringly at you. Dad used to bellow, "Coming about! Everyone down!!!!" and we children would dive for the floor of the boat, well out of reach of the dangerous boom, though of course, Dad never came about away from the wind, so the boom was less of a threat than it could have been. Still Dad made it clear that little childrens' heads could be smacked open like ripe melons by booms even when coming about into the wind and we were not to raise them above "boom line" until the all clear sounded.

Dad's warning to never ever come about away from the wind was so full of dire consequences that I never thought of attempting to disobey..... until my rebellious young adulthood. There had been that little nagging caveat- "unless you are very skillful". Skillful people could ostensibly come about away from the wind, and still live to eat their fig newtons waiting on shore. If skillful people could do it, why couldn't I? After all, I had been sailing for years now. Surely I was now among the skillful people who could come about away from the wind. I understood that coming about into the wind was far safer, and far preferred, but maybe there was some hidden thrill that I was missing by not coming about away from the wind. And surely when Dad forbid me to come about away from the wind, he didn't mean today when the wind was not so very hard and there were so few boats on the lake and when he wasn't watching so he wouldn't worry about having to go retrieve my head bobbing bodyless on the water.

So in partnership with Eve as she gobbled the forbidden apple, I sailed to the middle of the lake, and shouted, "Coming about AWAY from the wind!" and ducked. Dad had been right. The force of the wind grabbing the back end of the sail was tremendous and while I am a fast ducker, I was not fast enough. The boom smacked me in the head, not quite hard enough to remove sinew and bone, but hard enough to explain my amazing lack of memory capability. The boat teetered on the verge of toppling to its side, and I dropped the sail rope as I grabbed my aching head. The sail flapped wildly back and forth and the boat turned gradually into the wind as the fluttering sail slowly calmed.

Sometimes I hit patches of rough water in life and overwhelming winds because God is honing me, and training me for some future purpose I may not understand. But sometimes, I make my own dangerous winds and waves. In both cases, I need to cling to the words of my Father because they carry both warning and promise, despair and hope. And whenever possible, come about into His wind.

²⁶ See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse- ²⁷ the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today - Deuteronomy 11: 26-27

Prophesy of the Ground Hog

Today is a favorite holiday of mine, as an animal lover. I wish there was also a dolphin day, a horse day, and a variegated skink day. Every creature deserves a day commemorated to him since all reflect the hand of the Creator. But since this is the one day that we pause and celebrate an animal, it captures my heart.

Groundhogs are large rodents, members of the squirrel family. While on first blush, it seems a little silly to think that this animal would have the intellect to accurately predict how many weeks of winter are left, it really is not as silly as it may seem. Groundhogs are one of the few animals that go into deep and true hibernation. This is why they are "ground" and not "tree" hogs. If you fall into a deep sleep in a tree, the probability of severe and irreversible damage due to falling is much more likely than if you are already on the ground when your body shuts down for the winter. They emerge from hibernation when the weather has started to warm to the degree that they can shovel their front walk without fear of slipping on ice and chipping their large front teeth. If they emerge and see their shadow, the folk lore tells us that winter will drag on another 6 weeks. The ground hog turns around and returns to its den, and its long winter nap. If no shadow is present, winter is due to end soon and the ground hog goes foraging for ground to hog if a groundhog could hog ground.
Interestingly, groundhogs have a pretty good internal clock with an alarm set to wake them up as soon as the daytime hours of light increase enough for them to be able to read the weather report. At that point, they weigh several salient factors in their weather prophesying, only one of which is whether they see their shadow. They have also been known to examine glacial melting rate and permafrost levels, which they cross reference with solar position as well as sales information from LL Bean really warm coat market. This is a little known fact, but certainly is the only explanation, scientists believe, for their remarkable accuracy in predicting the length of winter.

Groundhogs are not the only animal obsessed with predicting things. The well thumbed pages of the horoscope section of the newspaper indicates the raging desire to foretell the future.
Jesus Himself got a little fed up with the constant desire of people to see the future, but a marked rejection of the obvious salvation and hope right in front of their face:

¹The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. ²He replied,^a]">"When evening comes, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' ³and in the morning, 'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. Matthew 16: 1-3.

So this Groundhog day, despite the rain falling and the high likelihood that there will be no shadow casting (at least for Charlotte groundhogs), I will still be looking for the Son and the light of hope that an early Spring symbolizes.

The Mondays of Life

Oh well, it had to happen. The snow had to melt, Monday had to come, and the regular rhythm of life resume. That is not to say that habit, and hum-drum routine is not good. It has its place. If there were no Mondays in life, we would never appreciate Fridays so much. If every day were filled with snow and skiing for hours, when would we find time to notice that our 30 year old skis were disintegrating?

We came in from our hours of frolicking in the snow on our trusty old skis to see they were no longer trusty. The bottom strip had de-laminated from the base, and hung like a broken arm flapping uselessly.

"How long are skis supposed to last?" asked a friend. Probably not this long. Thirty years is a good return on a $50 investment. However new skis are out of the question. We get snow once a year in NC, and I do want to start traveling to cross country snow in the mountains since this is a wonderful winter sport and one Asherel loves..... but we might do that once or twice a winter. We had a hard time justifying $300 (and more!) for a new set of skis for each of us with such limited opportunity to use.

So my husband Arvo who never met a problem he didn't try to solve got a can of liquid nails and some clamps and went to work. I am sure that if there were a way to fix thirty year old delaminating skis, he would find it, but I chose the easier path- I went on-line to hunt for distress sales of old skis.

Meanwhile, the ski operation laid out on the ping pong table looked like a scene from Frankenstein. The mad doctor was cackling as he attempted to breathe life into those old inanimate bones. I don't know if it will work. We have to wait 24 hours for the liquid nails to set but I think it may be time to lay the poor old skis to rest.

I could use a few clamps and liquid nails around my aching joints today too. I knew I would pay for the hours of joy. Everyone needs a break from the routines of life though and I am grateful for the magic of the snow, and the last glorious glides on the faithful old skis. They deserve peace now, for they served me well.

As I glance at the mournful skis, clamped and gooey, and settle my own aching muscles into the chair with a groan, I think about how wearily I am looking at the ferocious mouth of the week before me. Life is so busy .... and now with the respite of snow and ice gone, we have no excuses but have to leap forward with flailing arms into the fray. I will try to preserve the sanctuary of peace I felt out on the frozen hills of the golf course, the silence and solitude, and remember that truly that is available to me at every moment. I easily forget that peace and rest is not in a place, it is in God, and even when it is not snowing, within our grasp.

Matthew 11:28
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Frozen Manna

I can barely walk today. That is because yesterday we got that promised blizzard, the winter storm to beat all winter storms, the harbinger of the dreaded melting of the glaciers and annihilation of all polar bears. We got a full one and one quarter inches of fresh powder. Charlotte ground to a standstill. Every event was canceled including church. For the Bible Belt to cancel church, you know the storm is of epic proportions. I arose in the morning and pulled aside the blinds- SNOW!!! Real honest to goodness frozen manna from heaven waiting for me to go frolic and taste the goodness and beauty of God's icing on the streets.
I quickly downed breakfast, and gathered the cross country ski equipment, that is thirty years old and only gets called into service once a year here in Charlotte. In places that are used to snow, like NY where I hail from, the twenty inches that drop every hour are immediately dispatched, but here in Charlotte, the one snow plow that serves the entire southeast was busy in Concord which got a death defying 5 inches, so we were sure to have snow covered streets til at least April or the first thaw....tomorrow. So I opened the door, slapped on my skis, and the world was my groomed trail! I skied joyously down the white street. The downhills became Olympic mountains, the speed bumps my moguls. I passed many children who stopped building snowmen to point at me, and say, "Look Mama! An alien!"
Many adults called out, "You're not from around here, are you?"
It was clear that no one in Charlotte had ever seen a cross country skier.
I headed to the open wilderness, the sidewalks along the busy thoroughfare. Few cars were out as one inch of snow is not to be trifled with, unless it is for an emergency situation like a Starbucks Latte. Now while much of my writing is intended to be humorous and somewhat exaggerated, I am telling the truth when I say that this was the singular best day of ski conditions I had ever encountered. God had sent a cystal layer of pellets as a base, and then soft powder, but just one inch. So my skis could not ever hit the damaging pavement, but slid across the icy pellets and were cushioned by the soft powder. It was the finest groomed ski trail and I raced along the sidewalks. I made for the golf course, the one where only the people who have cheated on their taxes can possibly afford. Normally, the guard at the iron gate there takes one look at me and slams the door shut as it is clear people of my station in life are not allowed. But the guard house was unmanned, as no one but the snow bunnies were out that morn, so I whisked onto the forbidden grounds. I skied last winter in the Washington mountains, and I can tell you, that golf course was just as gorgeous with the added benefit of no pumas stalking me. I sailed up and down huge hills and deftly negotiated sand traps with ease. The whole country was blanketed in untrammeled white, and I was alone, lost in the wilderness of an elite golf course.

I knew I had skied too far and would pay dearly for it by the next morning, but it didn't matter. If I must be crippled by excess, let it be an excess of joy. I skied 18 holes, and sadly turned homeward.

And today, I can barely walk. Did you know that there are muscles in your ear lobes? There must be, because even there, I ache. But it is a pain from feasting on the pure goodness of God's world, a satiating moment of beauty and pure whiteness in the often grey stumbles of life.

Psalm 51:7
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Finishing the race

I was wondering about the term "rat race". Do rats race? I have never seen a rat race, but I have seen them play basketball at our local science center. If they can master that sport, I am sure they could race if they were so inclined.

In researching the etymology of "rat race", I discovered that it was the name of a dance at the same time period as "fox trot" but then came to mean a meaningless, exhausting pursuit such as laboratory rats in an endless maze. Well now THAT is interesting- to morph from joyful dance to futile, endless wandering.... I think many people could relate to the transition from joyful, hopeful embracing life, to mechanical duty and drudgery as hopes and dreams become stale and bump into dead-end reality.

In the movie, Chariots of Fire, Olympian runner Eric Lidell tells his disapproving Christian sister, "When God made me, He made me FAST, and when I run, I feel His pleasure." I too am a runner, and when God made me, He did not make me fast. In most of the many talents God doled out to me, none are quite amazing enough to make pedestrians pause in the cross-walk. However, I love to run, and cajoled my fifty year old mother into running many years ago, shortly after she quit smoking. I remember on that first "run" with her, she huffed and puffed one block and then had to walk. So it was nothing short of miraculous when she entered a marathon just two years later.

Now inspired by my mom, I too was training for the marathon, but I had my own training regimen, which was in sharp contrast to the suggested training schedule. I basically cut it in half. I mean, really, who wants to run 20 miles as a warm up to the real thing? So when it was time to take Mom to the starting line, I was not registered, nor should with any semblance of sanity even think of running that marathon yet.... but of course decided at the starting line, I should.

And as you so correctly anticipated, at mile marker 23, I lay down to die. The end was in sight, but it didn't matter. I was done.
"Go on!" I told my mom,"Leave me here for the vultures to peck my eyeballs out. You go on!"
No, my mother insisted, I could, and should, and would finish the race.
"You may not be able to run, but you can walk," she told me.
And despite my protests, she dragged me to my feet and tugged me along. She was right, I could walk, and after a little while, I could run again, and we crossed the finish line together, holding hands, victorious.

I learned many things from that race. I learned I am missing a bone in my right foot, diagnosed after two weeks of being unable to walk after that race. I learned that mothers are always right. Obey them. Most importantly, I learned that there is something more precious than having wings of eagles that can soar effortlessly to the mountaintops. It is to have wings of a turkey, born aloft by the love of others and maybe even one's own determination to reach the heights of whatever perch God intended I land upon without giving up.
1 Corinthians 9:24
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.