The Sacrifice

Opening a page from the past.

I stood watching from the kitchen door, knowing I wanted no part of it. Mother was gathering materials to wash my hair. Like a pet wary of a bath I knew the routine and arrayed myself to resist.

She placed a clean, white folded towel on the drainboard, opened the cabinet door and took out the shampoo bottle and set it down. The liquid inside was pearly green and on the outside were letters I understood: P-R-E-L-L. I had asked Mother once to use HALO, certain it had power to produce shiny ringlets like Sydney’s, the prettiest girl in class at school. But she told me it was ‘too high.’

Before she could open her mouth and say, “C'mon honey, let’s get that dirty head scrubbed,” I started to whimper and edge away. She glided over and swirled me up.

“It hurts!” I was well into waterworks now, and kicking.

“Oh, it doesn’t hurt that much!” Now she was transporting me across the room.

“Yes, it does, it pulls! Your fingernails scra-a-a-atch!” I struggled but not too violently as I was under authority.

I tobogganed from her grasp onto the drainboard by the sink. My bottom made contact with the cold counter-top; my legs flopped against the wood door beneath.

She pushed my head back, “No!!” and stretched me out, “Puleeze!!”

Lamb for the slaughter.

Paradox of God

Have you ever given thought to, or viewed God and/or the things of God with an eye to discover a bit of paradox? I have in the past at various times, but it seems lately He is placing this concoction of confectionery before me almost daily, saying, “Here try one!” or “How about this kind?”

Some years ago now, I first read Philip Yancey’s book, “The Jesus I Never Knew.” In it each chapter is prologued with a quote from a famous person, one being from Napoleon where he begins, “Everything in Christ astonishes me. . .”

The proclamation itself astonished me! Because while I had chronicled many wonderful things about Jesus, astonishment, or surprise had never been one of them. I guess I must have been awfully stodgy back then, but that is the profane truth.

In the ten or more years that have passed since that time I have learned to count on Jesus' surprises. He has never disenchanted me. Sheer numbers, paradoxes in Himself unveiled, are one of the mechanisms He employs to amaze.

The paradox of strength in weakness has been a recent confounding of mine. At church I opted for a ladies bible study with the dubious title, “Confident Weakness.” The springboard scripture, II Cor.12: 9, was like a Russian nesting doll in reverse. For example inside one babushka named "Weak Christian" might have been another called "Strong Savior." Each revelation became more glorious than the previous.

But then last Sunday the buzzword came flying at me again, this time from Pastor’s Christmas sermon. Hearing his comments on the great paradox of the Incarnation, I began to recognize a pattern. “The Lord is trying to tell me something,” I said in my spirit; and I began riffling through mental archives.

What a throng came swooping down! Scriptures, passages, and persons from the Old and New Testaments. Parables and principles. Attributes of God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. And I feel certain there are hundreds, probably thousands more in the stands, watching. I delight to share but a few.

Paradox I, and so forth:

If you want to have a lot of faith, have a little.

“. . . assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you." Matt 17:20

If you want to save your life, lose it.

"He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. Matt 10:39.

If you want to be strong, be weak.

“And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” II Cor. 12:9

If you want to be master, be servant.

"But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Matt. 23:11-12

If you would be rich, be poor. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 5:3

If you desire to rejoice, be sad.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matt. 5:4

If you want to be full, be hungry.

“Blessed are those who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Matt. 5:7

If you want to slay a giant, call a child.

“And Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are a youth, and he a man of war from his youth." I Sam 17:33

“Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. I Sam 17:49

If you have a sacrifice to ignite, pour water on it.

“Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench.” Elijah before the priests of Baal in I Kings 18:38

For want of paper I leave this last as summation of all former. If you crave to hear a word from the Almighty, listen for the still, small voice.

“Then He said, "Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord." And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 1Kings 19:11-13

Epiphany for all Seasons

This is an updated, renamed version of "My Christmas Wish." I submit it with many thanks to one who took time for helpful critiquing.

The ladies were a small group, but deeply affected. Word had reached them that yet another famine was rampaging in East Africa. And though the wretchedness raged far away, yet it seemed to the women right there in front of their faces every hour. How they yearned to go there and minister to the people! But the little band had few resources and they knew there wasn’t much time. These people were starving. They needed immediate help.

I don’t remember myriad details; I do know the ladies set themselves to pray. And I know that God answered their prayers in part by providing travel arrangements, possibly free passage on a multi-purpose cargo steamer or other type ship. However, the primary goal to provide food and medicine to make available to the sufferers failed of its consequence in the time allotted. In spite of this the ladies made their decision to move forward, leaning upon the Lord’s will. Why He chose to send them empty-handed they didn’t understand just yet, but certain they were that He would reveal all in His good time. If not in this life, in the next. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and look not to your own understanding." Nevertheless their hearts remained burdened throughout their voyage.

At last the day came for de-boarding at a foreign port and the travel-worn company made their way to the appointed meeting place. That they were months late and supplies short weighed heavy upon them. How they dreaded the blow that was bound to cloud their reception! After all, these folk had been through so many hardships already. How could they stand up to one more disappointment?

As the mission group had feared, famine and disease devoured too many. The signs of this lay all around. Still, a hopeful, small flock gathered to the pilgrims that day. When the would-be benefactors mingled tears with their apologies, "Chakula, dawa! La! we’ve no food to offer you, no medicine!" the tentative thrust in Swahili hit its aim. And when black arms enfolded their more pallid counterparts, it seemed weeping must reach universal mass.

But it was not as one might suppose. African tears had a wholly different source. Theirs had erupted not from grief, but from gratitude, "You came! You gladdened us with your presence! It is of most importance. Because you come to us, so far! Just to see us, to be with us! We know your heart is truly in love with us!"

For weeks afterwards, the ladies were stunned at such generosity of spirit! But were they not, after all, His handmaidens, and as such given to much contemplation upon His mysterious ways? Could it be the Lord was here revealing a vault of wisdom? Hard though the lesson might be in terms of human suffering, had the Master sensed a need for honing in the tools at His workbench?

Like Mary and Martha of Bethany - losing then regaining their brother - the women eventually came to see they had needed to lose something, in order that a better something might be gained. While the westerners were grieving empty hands, their African neighbors had already, instinctively, apprehended a greater excellence. What more unfathomable love was described for these than that someone was willing to leave their homes and come so far, expend so much just to be with them, to participate in their predicament!

What I see here is a solid match for the heavenly pattern. But before we go there, I would like to preface by restating something said in an earlier paragraph. We may not fully understand in our lifetime the reason for human suffering or why God allows certain tragedies to take place in our world. But we can know with Abraham, "Will not the Lord of all the earth do right?" Yes, He will! With all my heart I believe that all will come clear when we see Him face to face.

And now for the heavenly epiphany we can glean thus far. When the Lord came to us that first Christmas, His journey tapped so much more than mere furlongs in space. With His coming alone He taught us so many things: about heart, about stooping, about bridging, and about His Presence. Though it was with all the elements of salvation encapsulated in one tiny frame that He arrived, Jesus employed a mighty leap to do it. What a descent He took from glory, power, and majesty - into human flesh!

And so it is with this in mind, I offer a Christmas prayer to share,

"Lord, enlighten me as you did the missionary ladies; gladden my heart as you did my dear African brothers and sisters. With the central and elemental goodness of Your coming, consume me in every season! For yes, I know You came a man of sorrows and to suffer. And yes, I know You came to die. I know You came that my sin might blister Your sinless being! I know that for a thousand reasons, You came; and for those thousand reasons, I love You! But please, before I hymn of nails piercing tiny feet, allow me to stand here and gaze awhile at You, this little baby Jesus in the manger, who came so far."

"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!"

Poem - The Cottage

I’d like to live in a stone cottage some day,
And keep house like a maiden aunt:
There’d be lots of arches and corner niches:
And in every window, a plant.

My garden would grow right up to the stoop,
With paths going nowhere at all:
And a bench, and a pond, and a bath for birds,
And creatures great, and small.

Inside would be paintings of ships in storms,
And a rowboat with oars, at the shore:
And a gray cat would curl in front of the hearth
And a tabby tom crouched 'neath a chair.

My floors I would cover with rugs I had hooked,
My tables embroider with lace,
And beeswax and candles and tins of tea
Would be ever so nice in this place.

My bed would stand high, way high off the floor;
It’s the kind that I’ve always wanted:
And when I’d lie there I’d look up at the stars
Out a window strategically slanted.

On its shelf each sheet would be folded neat
With lavender tucked inside,
And pillowslips starched and pressed and stashed
And tea towels stacked beside.

In my larder you’d see e’er so bounteous a lot:
I would stock it with wonderful things:
With crackers and noodles and Parmesan cheese
And tomatoes and sausage rings,

And a crock for cookies and one for butter
And a basket of bagels and biscuits
To say nothing of pickles and apples and herbs:
There’s really too much there to mention.

One thing though that I’d like you to know,
When writing of cottage perfection,
That first must come prayer, possessions behind -
When finding one’s true satisfaction.

So I’ll pray for you and you pray for me,
For foes and the wide world outside,
For people beyond mere stone cottage walls. . .

-and if they all show up at my door I shall invite them right on in!

I'm Back

I can't believe how long its been since I've posted anything on my blog. Since the few (two) folk who used to visit ne here have probably long since given up on me, I guess I'll have to give them a heads-up for the latest enty.

What happened is that I joined an internet Christian writers' group and it has been guzzling all my blocks of time set aside for writing. (sounds organized doesn't it?) In addition for the past 2 weeks I have been participating in two Bible Studies at my church, both of which have been fairly demanding, though well-worth the time and effort expended.

The writing group is faithwriters.com and it is absolutely great. In fact I was just thinking I could kill two birds with one stone (unfortunate apropros term though that may be), by posting some of my faithwriters submissions right here on my blog.

.Well, anyway, as the Jewish mother told her son when he was contemplating violin lessons, "Can't hurt!"

This one was submitted in last week's writers challenge. The challenge word was LIFEGUARD.

I called it "The Breaking"

Tobias sat atop his scaffold perch viewing the flat stretch of sandy beach, cut horizontally by the gray-green expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The beach was deserted, the wind rising. The sky, heavy with moisture, diffused all light. Scattered waves erupted in whitecaps, but mostly the water was calm.

The day was drawing to a close, as was the season for ocean bathing. And yet he stayed. Would she come? His expression was composed, serious. Waiting, his eyes pierced the distant waters for someone in trouble. And then he saw it, an erratic dot jiggling on the horizon. He lifted his binoculars, quickly adjusting his sight. Yes, it was who he had instinctively sensed it would be.

Nimbly he climbed down, wasting not a single motion. Within seconds he had crossed the strand and was in the water, swimming with long, even strokes toward the object of his ardor. Marissa. He had first noticed her on a day when the sun and sand were warm, the beach splashed with laughter and the color of towels, hats, umbrellas, and people dressed in bright swimwear. When his eyes picked her out of the congregation of light-worshippers, she was alone.

A stunning beauty she was not. She was too thin and her hair too dishwater; her swimsuit, outmoded and out-worn, did nothing to enhance her form. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Stretched out with nothing to shield her pale limbs from the elements, she was on her stomach in the sand, her forehead resting on one arm lying across the open pages of a book.

He had thought the girl drowsing there in the sun, but suddenly, as if his gaze had sent a verbal message through the back of her head, she lifted and turned to look his way. After that she ignored him the rest of the day - and for many days thereafter.

On a midsummer Wednesday afternoon, he walked toward her little spot of beach. She was lying again face down just as she had been the first day he saw her. Kneeling in the sand, he reached out and touched her hair. For a moment she didn’t move. Then she turned her head and looked him full in the face. He saw her eyes belied the plainness of the rest of her. They were gray-green ocean, flecked in white seafoam. And they were every bit as troubling as any ocean can be when brewed by storms. He knew her past had deeply wounded her.

Would she trust him? She rose slowly, brushing with a slim hand at the dusting of sand on her suit. Then she gave him one quick glance, turned and walked away.

He was mid-point now and the swells were rising, the troughs deepening. The tide was coming in, but the current was pulling her sidewise, away from him. He could see her struggles were slowing; several times the waves washed over her head, obscuring his view of her. Increasing his efforts, he willed her to hang on.

He remembered that from July through August he mourned her. Every day he scanned the beach, hungering for a mere sight of her. But she didn’t come. His summer job as a lifeguard technically over now, he came this one last day.

He swam on, hope piling on hope; he prayed, he believed. And then just when he felt he could not lift another heavy arm, new strength surged through him. And then he was there, reaching for her as she reached for him. The enemy had not won.

As soon as her head cleared the surface, she wheezed, gurgling seawater our her nose and mouth. She opened her eyes, and squinted at him through dripping, scraggly, seaweed hair. He was strong, she was weak. She had no choice now, but to give in and trust him. Where most drowning victims fight their savior, she knew all the fight had gone out of her.

As yet Tobias and Marissa had not exchanged a single word. But that was okay. There would be plenty of time for that, later. Then she could tell him all about how she came to such an impasse. But the telling would be for her benefit, not for his. He didn't need it. He had her, and that was enough.

My Aloe

It was late summer, our Texas Hill country was sizzling and I had a nasty burn. Not from the sun though and not all over - just a small spot on the inside of my left arm. Burns don't heal very fast on me, and aloe is about the only thing that can save me from weeks of having to take special care so that they don't get infected.

Usually I have an aloe plant around from which I can cut a leaf for gel to apply to superficial wounds. But this year I hadn't wintered over any in the greenhouse and I had failed to purchase a new one in the spring. So I was desperate to find a nursery that still had aloe stock this late in the season. "Ah-ha! I thought. I bet anything South Texas Growers will have one."

So I got in the car and drove the 15 miles, happy to see they were still open. I asked the lady and she led me to a shady area where she pointed out several giant male aloes (they are the kind with the stickery spines on the sides of the leaves). These things had seen better days; they were untended - looked as if they had been dumped there and forgotten. Some were lying on their sides, some upright, some scattered about; all looked dry and vastly overgrown in their pots. The plants had mushroomed above their gallon-size containers, appearing like tall fat men shod in tiny shoes. I didn't care. They were beautiful and I picked a large multiple one thinking I could divide it into several individual plants at home.

Just as I remembered, the gel helped my burn almost immediately. For that reason alone, I hoped never again to find myself without an aloe. But I never knew they made flowers, or how beautiful the blooms are. One day a month or so later I was standing at my kitchen sink looking out the window. I blinked when I saw my aloe had put up a long slim stalk with a desert-like unopened bloom at the top.

Taking daily note of it, in about a week and a half I saw the bud had matured to reveal a beautiful red blossom, similar to the one a firecracker plant forms. I knew when it peaked I had to have a picture and so yesterday I snapped it from various angles. The three shots above I thought turned out best.

SPOILED DOG

Took me awhile to get this one, but it finally came through. Okay so I'm old AND slow!

Don't Blink

Jerry tries his camera hand

I like this one my husband took early one morning from the front of our house looking out toward the street

Say Hi to Pierre

Peirre lives at Independence Hill in San Antonio where my mom has a retiree's apartment. He is the darling of all the little old ladies.

Even though fish-feeding is forbidden the residents, the fish don't know it. When any human form bends over their pond home, they come swimming eagerly to beg.

Disturb - to stir, to move, to turn

Who is the last person, or kind of person, you would ever guess might fear themselves falling into indifference, apathy, complacency? How about the intrepid Sir Francis Drake, explorer extraordinaire?

Hear his prayer, 1577, written on a voyage around the earth:


Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
When our dreams have come true becuse we deamed too little,
When we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst for the waters of life.
Having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the
new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly
To venture on wilder seas where storms will show Your majesty;
Where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes
And to push into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain, who Jesus Christ.

Confident Weakness Bible Study, week 1

Linda's Story

When I walked into the room all eyes turned toward me and I knew it had to be because of the recent news article. The challenge of the moment was obvious, "Was it really true?"

A long period of silence ensued and then conversation started up again; but I knew I was not off the hook. I looked around for a place to sit but all tables were taken. No one offered to pull up an extra chair and so I stood there, rooted to the floor.

Finally I noticed an empty space across the room, just large enough for me to squeeze into. Trying to be as unobtrusive as possible I bypassed the center of the room where tables were clustered, keeping to the sides near the wall. What I really wanted to do was leave, but I knew that would only make matters worse. Sooner or later I was going to have to answer some questions, and it may as well be now.

I landed on the chair with a solid plop and it protested with a rusty squawk causing a repeat of what happened when I first came in. I decided I'd best sit quietly and pray for a miracle.

Two of my longtime acquaintances were seated at the table: a girl I once roomed with and her husband, as well as an older man I thought I recognized, though I could not place him right then. He looked grim and I sensed he wished I had not chosen this particular table to occupy. My married friends both wore pasted smiles and stared at me from glassy eyes; I was sweating profusely. How I would ever get through the next hour, God only knew.

"Why, Linda? Why did you do it?" I jerked up - sure someone had spoken to me. But when I looked around it was obvious my subconscious was working overtime. No one had moved a muscle; no one had said a word.

Silently then, and purposefully, I asked myself the same question; but the only answer I could come up with sounded lame, even to me. "I didn’t think anyone would find out!?" Now, that would have been the height of ignorance. For even though it was at night, under the cover of darkness, these kinds of things have a way of leaking out. "I didn’t think at all," would have been more like it! How stupid I had been to risk my reputation and alienate my friends all for a foolish prank that seemed at the moment like a wonderful lark.

It was over with so fast, the rush of adrenaline, the feeling of absolute freedom, the sensation of having for once in my life thrown caution wholly to the wind. But now the fleeting space of time was past and consequences to be paid. How wonderful was it, really? "Not so wonderful huh, Linda?

"Just then, to interrupt my thoughts, a tall, buxom woman came marching toward our table, drawing closer and closer until she stopped, so near I could feel heat radiating off her body and smell the scent of her too-sweet perfume. Still no one broke the silence and so when the newspaper hit the table top with a whack all of us jumped as if we had been caught in some cowardly act. As solidly as she came, the woman strode away.

I could hardly believe my eyes. How could anyone be so cruel? I wished I could die right there, or vanish somehow without a single memory of Linda left behind. At that moment I understood the hackneyed phrase about the floor opening up and swallowing someone. Oh what blessed relief that would be.

But of course it didn’t happen. When I opened my eyes the newspaper still lay there. Like a snake coiled on the table, there was its thick self, folded so the inch-high headlines seemed to shout loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

I tore my eyes from the odious thing and glanced furtively around the room. Now instead of the previous dead-pan silence I noticed ghosts of smiles, beginning first at the corner of the mouth of a lady at the next table. Then a snicker started going round, and finally everyone in the room erupted in long ugly guffaws.

Was I going mad? Could this really be happening? Even my former so-called friends could no longer hold back. Well, at least they tried - I would give them that.

With tears marking dark trails down the sides of my cheeks I ducked my head; but that was another mistake. For there, leering back at me, was the same accusing text, bold against the gray-white paper. I tried to look away, but found my eyes glued to the words:

IRATE WOMAN COLLARS SHEPHERD - Local Matron, Garden Club Pres. Calls Neighbor's Dog Menace ALLEGING TO POLICE LATE FRIDAY THAT NEIGHBOR'S DOG, LINDA, STRAYED INTO HER YARD SOMETIME DURING THE PREVIOUS NIGHT, MISS LULUBELLE THOMPSON TOLD OFFICER PERCY O'HARE, "IT WAS IN THE "WEE" HOURS - IF YOU GET MY MEANING. THAT DOG ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED MY PRIZE PETUNIAS AND I DON'T DOUBT THEY'LL NEVER RECOVER." MISS THOMPSON FURTHER TOLD SGT. O'HARE ABOUT PLANS TO ENTER HER GARDEN IN THE "BETTER LAWNS" CONTEST NEXT MONTH, BUT NOW BECAUSE OF WHAT LINDA HAD DONE, HER HOPES WERE DASHED. BUT WHEN QUESTIONED, LULUBELLE'S NEIGHBOR DENIED ALL CHARGES, SAYING LINDA ALWAYS SLEEPS INSIDE AT NIGHT. MISS THOMPSON, REFUSING TO BACK DOWN, STATES SHE WILL CONTINUE TO PURSUE THE CASE.

. . There was more, but I just couldn't stand to read a single line further. Not only had I disgraced myself, but I had brought my master's good name under suspicion - and cast my entire species in an unfavorable light. Would I ever again be able to hold my head high when entering a room? Would anyone refer to me as man (or woman's) best friend? I could only pray that time and my tongue would heal all wounds.

Bathing Your Cat - Easier Than You Think

Recently I learned that one Gallup poll found 43% of pet owners pay out the nose for professional grooming services. Frankly this shocked me. When bathing pets at home is so effortless I marveled why anyone would want to spend money at the pet-groomer. And while the report didn't pinpoint species, for cats I felt this to be exceptionally unnecessary.

The reason is that I have bathed my cat at home for years and never found it one bit hard. For example, I can show anyone how to do it. All you need are a few simple directions and you can achieve a clean and happy cat while at the same time keeping sanity for your budget.

Now the first principle for any successful endeavor is preparation. With that in mind, I am giving you a list of materials you will need to get started.

So here's the list:

1. pet shampoo
2. about 54 old towels
3. doctor's appointment card with phone number (or you can use emergency room of nearest hospital)
4. blow dryer with silencer for blow dryer
5. tranquilizer (for cat-bather)
6. one jumbo-size tube antibiotic ointment (also for bather)
7. video cam with removable cassette for evidence when doctor reports possible spousal abuse case due to multiple lacerations covering entire body od cat-bather
8. pitcher for rinsing cat
9. chain-mail body armor from local museum, if available (or if not , elbow-length gloves by Playtex will suffice - heavy duty)
10. flashlight
11. ladder

Now that you have everythign you need, you are ready for the actual step-by-step bathing procedure.

• Collect all suggested items at kitchen sink
• Go and look for cat
• Next day persevere in looking for cat
• Place stopper in sink and fill to about 2/3 shy of top with warm water
• Go and look for cat
• Let some of the water out of sink and replace stopper, then run more warm water into sink
• Go and look for cat
• Place cat on folded towel near sink
• Remover cat from front of shirt being careful not to snag shirt
• Place cat on towel
• Remove cat from window curtain being careful not to snag curtain fabric
• Continue to remove cat from curtain
• Detach curtain from rod and place everything including cat on bed
• Detach cat from curtain and bedspread
• Dispose of curtain of curtain and bedspread
• Place cat on towel
• While supporting cat's body with left arm, grasp hind legs in right had and slowly lower cat into water
• Remove cat from left arm being careful not to snag skin of arm
• Using same method as before attempt once more to lower cat into water
• Remove cat from head being careful not to snag hair
• Add more warm water to sink
• Go and look for cat
• Place cat on clean towel near sink, being careful not to lower cat into water
• Place left hand on cat's back and gently but firmly apply pressure
• Being careful not to take eyes off cat, feel for shampoo bottle with right hand
• Clean up spilled shampoo, also with right hand
• Remove cat from back of shirt and place on towel
• Drain all water from sink and refill
• Go and look for cat
• Place cat on towel
• Hiding shampoo behind back, pour small dab onto palm of hand
• Fool cat into thinking you are giving it a pet massage
• Go and look for cat
• Place cat in shower stall and close door
• Fetch ladder from garage (I told you you were going to need ladder but you didn't believe me, did you?)
• Lean ladder against glass shower door; climb ladder
• Attempt to remove cat from fixture on ceiling
• Change clothing
• Call repairman to see when he can fix shower door
• Being careful not to go look for cat, notice time
• Begin dinner preparation

Over dinner casually bring up subject of adding pet-groomere's fee to budget

The Canada

They’re winging home.

From here, a black check mark on a gray expanse.

Up there, hammering hearts, hum of wings, and call so wild

Fill the ear; my eye with pinions countless motion.

Motion, blue-gray blur a whirring Omnipotent

Instilled within each breast, to lead to follow.

Followers following leader against all

Flood of wind, damage, fatigue.

Their eye rests not;

Breast steel forces them forward, or intermittently

Down, taking havens of rest and nourishment - or to retrieve

A single faltering fellow, or alien to mark as brother.

Up again and on their swift way, a marvel

Of direction by design, guts and fire,

Strength and sense in number -

Sure to wing us home.

Living Beyond the Limits

For the lion's share of my life I have been a reader. It is a pastime that if I allowed it to could wholly take over. So I have made rules that I have been pretty much faithful to follow. I try to be to be selective about when I read and what I read, sensitive as I read. I even have aspirations to being a mediocre judge of good as opposed to bad literature.

But several months ago I joined a writer's group where along with learning some practical techniques about writing, I began to experience the mixed blessing of educated reading. I say mixed because it is not always pleasurable reading when I find myself dissecting paragraphs and sentences, or half-consciously nosing about for a whiff of editorial error. Nothing can blur plot focus more effectively for me than to detect some gross faux pas in writing etiquette.

Yet somehow with my most recent reading project, Living Beyond the Limits, by Franklin Graham, that literary prosecutor in my head shrank and trailed off into nothingness. And the defense didn't even have to say a word. The level gaze of the accused was its own best plea. Now I do not mean to say that the book is devoid of good writing process. If it were I couln't have spent five minutes in its presence. In truth this work by Franklin Graham possesses the most important ingredient of great story-telling: desire in the protagonist. Desire is the everpresent, powerful undercurrent sweeping downriver the lesser debris of small imperfections in writing; here it rushes through every line. This book is the real deal.

I guess all this is to say that what makes Living Beyond the Limits a book I would want to comment on and recommend to others is not the writing itself, but what it is about. And what it is about is a few folk who have over time crossed the author's path, and God, and their adventures together, including Franklin himself. My copy has 215 pages making up seventeen chapters; most are self-contained though some bleed over into the next. You will always want to go to the next and you will not want the book to end.

In acknowledgments Franklin Graham opens with the statement, "God sends many people along life's pathway to help and encourage us." I have to confess that while God does sometimes send people my way He more often sends books. If you're at home reading books, you're not out circulating. But the thing is, many of these books have had a common denominator I can identify as telling a story of ordinary people who have allowed God to use them beyond the limits of the ordinary. So - if I may be so bold as to place myself in such illustrious company(Franklin Graham would probably laugh at that) - essentially we two are articulating the same thing : "God sends people to help and encourage us."

As the men and women portrayed in the book stretch their boundaries, live their lives as if faith truly were the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, God is both faithful and creative in His role as leader. There is no boredom here in the Christian experience, no dull vision of the goody-two-shoes missionary marm. We as readers are running, jumping, crouching, dodging bullets, feeling heart-thuds along with the person we are reading about - and akin to them asking God, "What in the world are you doing?" .

There is action, drama, even horror as you see, for example, through Franklin's eyes what life is like in Calcutta, India, or inside some of our planet's worst slaughter zones, or what it is to look at an array of torn bodies knowing only too well the limitations of available human resources. The book will reveal how God can use places, places of bone-crushing pain and human spirit deformity, as staging grounds to demonstrate His mercy, salvation, and grace, and as scenes of music and celebrating. There is life or death venture here into the unknown with only God's invisible (yet firm) grip to escort the daring, as well as the dubious, follower.

There are also those who are helped, those who are healed, those who are changed - those who learn to smile again. As Franklin so often reminds the reader, "We can't help all, but we can help some!" And in the helping of those some, when we walk in sync with God, He lights a candle - and light has a tendency to spread. Wherever we are to the best of our ability with God's help, we can brighten our corner, give a hint of a world that is yet to come.

I hope you will read Living Beyond the Limits. Is the book the for all time great American novel? I don't apologize when I say, "No!" Is it a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of many? Definitely not! Is it even prose with a twist of lilt? M-m-m-m - I don't think so! But it is real, authentic, palpable. It has substance. Yes, it is real and it has substance, substance so meaty that it can change a life or redirect a life that has yielded to a tempororary cul-de-sac. It can make a person kneel as I did to a powerful God of extraordinary patience toward ordinary whiners like me. And it is free if you write to Samaritan's Purse, PO Box 3000, Boone NC 28607.

If after reading the book, you have a tendency to think all this intrepid stuff for God is only for those with a special calling, I have only two words to say to you . . . Mama Gump.

Herb Garden front entry

Herb garden view from street

Story Dilemma

At the last Us R Writers group of which I am a member, the homework given, write about a favorite food recalled from your childhood, or one that was your most disgusting experience when you were a kid posed something of a problem for me. It seemed, though I could certainly remember some wonderful foods from life at home as a small girl, I couldn't make quite enough of the subject. Not much more, that is, than a sentence - or a paragraph perhaps.

I had thought of my mom's cream puffs, made from scratch and fresh from heaven, as one memory-lane food I could possibly use. But would it be enough to talk about mere physical senses? Would the aroma of baking that filled our house, wafting into every room and drifting out the open windows to lure us kids inside - or the tingle as the combination of thin crusty outer layer and thick creamy inside sank in, crunching slightly, then giving way to melting-smooth custard sweetness be sufficient? Great as it was, there was nothing beyond. I judged it wouldn't be a story to say I always wanted just one more.

And then there was my favorite breakfast food when I was four: chicken farina. But how could I create a plot out of, "I ate one bowl and asked for more please." My mother didn't react with outrage. Just glad to find something I would eat a lot of she laughed, "Another one?" I could never seem to get enough chicken farina. But probably no one at writer's group (well maybe one) ever heard of such a thing. And what's more, even if they did hear of it in a story I would write, they could hardly have their heart stopped by anything so common as chicken-flavored hot cereal.

I also gave passing thought to a simple snack I loved, real longhorn cheese slices on saltine crackers. But even if in great demand in my old neighborhood, I sensed it would seem boring compared to the bizarre combinations in fast food available nowadays. No, that one wouldn't do either.

Some few others came to mind; I won't enumerate. In the end I discounted each as unworthy subject matter to fill up several pages of writing about tasty childhood foods. There was however, in the disgusting category, a glimmer from the past that kept reappearing on my brain film. So as time wasn't getting any longer, I sat down this morning, and the following is a rough cut of what came forth and what I think will suffice (with some editing) to fulfill my assignment this coming Saturday. I'm pleased enough with it - at least today I am.

Just Like Chicken.

She was doing it in the wash yard. And my parents were letting her. I couldn’t see my aunt, but I knew what was happening. I had heard the adults talking about it. My mother told my Father, "Lena’s just horrified! All that good food, going to waste!" But I was the one who was horrified. Why were my parents allowing this? I felt something in my universe move then, as if all kinds of things could now come rushing in with no one to stop them.

It began with Funny Bunny. Funny Bunny was my pet white rabbit I loved because he could make me laugh even when I was determined to have a sad, dramatic day. Who could resist him with his tall pink ears, inquisitive expression, and velvet nose, pushing off a quick hop from those ungainly back legs? Nobody, that’s who and certainly not eight-year-old me.

That’s why I’ll never forget the day Funny Bunny got lost. Someone left the door of his hutch open and the whole family spread out in a frenzied search. My brothers were all red and sweaty - nothing new - when one of them called out, "We found him! We found Funny Bunny!" But it wasn’t Funny Bunny, it was a stranger; a white rabbit that looked like Funny Bunny got poked into the hutch, to be joined by the real Funny Bunny we found later that day.

I was so happy to get Funny Bunny back. And the bonus was now I had two white rabbits. But we were town people and thought nothing of keeping the two rabbits together in the same hutch. We didn’t regard them as girls or boys, male or female, just rabbits. But were we ever surprised to look out one day and see white popcorn, popping all over the bottom of the hutch. That was even more exciting. At least to me it was. Mother said, "I’ll swan!" but on the second hatching, when my brother paraded a half-eaten pink rabbit infant around the Sunday dinner table with company present, Daddy wasted no time building a partition down the center of the hutch.

I don’t remember how big the white crowd in the cage had grown the day my Aunt from the country came to visit. Only that brutality entered my world with no warning. Why do adults think children are stupid? Kids have eyes and ears and if something is as important to them as my pets were to me, they should know little people know what is going on.

Two scenes emerge, clear as yesterday: black and blacker. I am standing in the back yard, knowing my Aunt is doing her bloody deed and wondering why on earth my parents aren’t stopping her. And though I don’t know who planted the idea that she was using the clothesline to hang the corpses on, the thought persists even as I write.

That and the next day seated around the Sunday dinner table. It was company again, good china, white napkins - best glasses clinking with ice and water. The food is being passed around, family style. "Would you like a piece?" my mother asks, holding out a platter of meat, brown and flaky like fried chicken - only different.

I eye it and query, "What is that?"

Lowering the plate, Mother speaks up with cheer, "Rab-chicken!"

"Mm-mm!" I reply in the negative. I start to scoot my chair out then and ask to be excused. "My stomach hurts!"

"Well, alright, then. She stares at me. "You better go lie down awhile."

I head for the bathroom, her voice tracking me, "Anyone else like some rab-chicken?"

Christian Fiction Book Review, "Charade" by Gilbert Morris

What started out as a lark, has now become an aggravating habit. When I am just a little way into whatever book I happen to be reading, I see it made into a movie, type-casting characters with actors as they appear to me in their respective roles. I say aggravating because once I get that thespian in my head it refuses to leave. This book was not different, but with the exception of one only, lest I influence another, to their chagrin, I will try to keep my players to myself.

The book Charade by Gilbert Morris opens with the main character, Ollie Benson’s, avowed obsession for mirrors - a bit of irony in that his real obsession is avoiding them in whatever way possible, even to the bizarre. Ollie is grossly overweight to the tune of 406 lbs. and because of it compromised in almost every aspect of his personality. I don't believe I have ever read a book before where the protagonist was a fatty.

Though tops in his field of computer technology and in his private life as a gourmet cook, Ollie has allowed his passion for food and its consequence, too much of a good thing, to overshadow no pun intended his greatest strengths, his intellect and creativity. He is an interesting person, genius if not wise, and kind, but few it seems are willing to look beyond his mountain of human cutaneous tissue to learn his heart. This is his cross he bears and again no pun intended, it is a heavy one. Ollie has only one friend, a co-worker, who also ironically seems driven to matchmake, fixing Ollie up with blind dates, consistent to end in disaster. Ollie is in a catch-22 situation, compulsed to do the very thing that merely worsens his problem, staying to himself and eating, eating, eating.

But Ollie’s reclusive life-style acts as a kind of ‘forest for the trees’ as regards his true persona, a double entendre, as I see it, for the title which describes something more obvious in the plot. In Ollie I see the easy-going extrovert forced into solitude; John Candy cast in the role of a hermit. For example Ollie often wears Hawaiian-style shirts, ostensibly to cover flab, but that which sends a less direct message: ‘here is a fun-loving guy.’ And despite all the pain and discouragement people cause him, subconsciously Ollie still harbors hope for that one profound relationship that is someplace out there waiting. A true introvert gathers strength in solitude; but I sense Ollie is not really satisfied with the great Alone.

And so of course voila! Into this most vulnerable of vacuums steps Ollie's worst nightmare in the person of Dane, a formidable antagonist if ever there was one. And close on his heels Marlene.

Ollie has come up with a unique computer game called Moviemaker that is about to make him absurdly wealthy. A top software company is ready to snatch it up for big bucks. But Dane who has advance knowledge of this has already shown up and bamboozled Ollie into hiring him as his personal agent and marketer. The reader guesses all along that Dane is a con-artist and Marlene his henchwoman, but Ollie seems clueless. It is one of the most maddening yet endearing aspects of Ollie’s character that he can be so smart and yet so naïve. In California, married to Marlene, Ollie faces the end of all things at the hands of the two people he has come to trust most implicitly, his wife and his partner in business.

As the plot unfolds, in the process of conquering the enemy without, Ollie learns that his real enemy, not unlike the rest of us, is mostly inside. His quest for vengeance threatening to destroy him, he learns just in time there is another way out, the only way. And he takes it, following the path trodden before by four people God sends into his life. And God’s providence is seen once again in His economy when the reader recognizes Ollie is also God’s provision for these same four, as well as for others.

The externals of this book belie its tone, which except for the panicky places, carries a subtle humor and lightness of spirit. Again, it is the John Candy chimera that does it. The pace is fast, but not too fast, bearing one right along like a willing voyager on the water of swiftly moving currents. There are few flashbacks and those are minor. I read the book in two sittings and could have done so in one, were the night a little longer. It is written in first person POV.

With apologies for the hackneyed, I have to say Charade is a real page turner.

Love Thy Enemy

"In what way exactly are we to love our enemies?" Today upon reading my daughter-in-law Kim’s blog about Easter, I asked this question, not for the first time thinking of a few particular enemies. At first I answered myself, "As Jesus loved His enemies, of course!" But after that, it was "Who were His enemies, anyway?" and "How did He show love to them."

I was the first one who came to mind. Let's face it, before I covenanted with Jesus, I was God’s enemy. Well, then how did He love me? He died on the cross for me, paying for my sins. "But I can't do that for someone else, Only Jesus, who is God, is worthy to pay for sin."

True, but He was resurrected to life, so as a living Savior, how does He love me now?" More than anything, I think He has patience with me. He covers my sins with a multitude of His love. He forgives me daily, hourly, minutely - seventy times seven - absolves me of the foolish little straying, and the awful ugly transgression. He intercedes with the Father on my behalf, over and over. He hears and answers my prayers - according to His will, yes; but also sometimes just to be kind. He heals me and raises me from sickness. Any obedience that I have, He provides. He gives me His testimony. He lavishes daily bread on me, both spiritual and material. He opens up the scriptures, feeds me on them, and speaks to me through them.

When I go to the house of worship, He blesses me with His presence, in hymn, in prayer, in preaching. And when I take the bread and wine, He sits down with me - and He sups with me. He joins me to other believers. He never will leave me – no not ever.

Though these, by far, are not all, I take them out and look at each, one by one. A few, I think to myself, I could manage toward a friend, but for an enemy? How can I ever forgive an enemy as Christ forgives me? Or love him or her that fully? I know the scripture. If I want forgiveness, I have to forgive. "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Laid on the table, that is a shocking statement.

Can I truly say I forgive and love my enemies as Jesus has forgiven and loved me?" I don't think I can pass this one off! Jesus is serious about the issue of forgiveness. Well, there can be only one answer, "With man (me) this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible." And I might add, with God many things are mysterious. It is then a mysterious, but possible process - with God. That forgiveness, that divine forgiveness I lack toward my enemy, can serve to open the door to more of His provision and grace. But I must ask.

And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Luke 11:11-11:13

Another book

If you happen to peruse my son Nathan's blog site you may recognize the name of the book I have just started reading - advice to writers titled "From Where You Dream" by Robert Olen Butler. With a slight difference in the author's middle name, that is, you may recognize it. Owen and Olen at various web sites seem to be interchangeable with no explanation as to why. This book jacket says Olen.

Residing most of yesterday on my car seat, the book rode with me to the store, my mom's apartment, and the beauty shop to get a permanent. Until after about 9:30 last night, I was able to snatch only a line or two at red lights, then a chapter before bed through sleepy eyes. Even though this book is non-fiction, it is about fiction and I think I am experiencing that suspension of unbelief , so necessary to the reader of fiction. In other words so far he has captured my conviction.

And while I am reading slowly, trying to digest as I go, there are already a few tentative consequences of my trying to write like Professor Butler recommends, without my head getting in the way. That should be easy as my head rarely gets in the way of anything.

Well, I think it did get in the way a little, but hey, this is my first effort:

There’s more to everything than we can see,
Something just under the bark of the tree.
A person in there, looking out from my cat -
The ululation of the shadow.
~~~~~~~
They can’t take Him out of light ripping through water.
~~~~~~~
Some people’s words are sudsy; hundreds and hundreds of frothy tiny bubbles crowding one another, and still more to come
- others, square and solid heavy stones dropping on us one at a time, for hours.
~~~~~~~
On the one side of the brain respect, honor, duty, industry, and virtue triumph over great odds. It is man.

On the other side a woman, Grace, sees something better just beyond the shoulder of the ordinary failure. It is man.

Books

As usual I have been reading. And as usual, that makes me want to talk about what I have been reading.

The first of my recent readings called, The Heavenly Man, by Christian Brother Yun, with Paul Hattaway took me on a sobering journey through the physical agonies and spiritual ecstasies of one of the principle founders of the house churches in mainland China.

To the faint of heart, I do not commend Brother Yun. Being one of the fainter hearts myself, I am surprised I got all the way through to the end. But this book sounded intriguing, and once into it I kept reminding myself that if Yun could stand feeling the pain, the least I could do is stand reading about what he felt.

Because of his obedience to God’s call on his life, Christian Brother Yun in communist China confronts overwhelming challenges and endures much suffering. He is tortured with beatings and starvation, imprisonment and poverty and humiliation, much like the Apostle Paul. But the Holy Spirit is faithful to give him strength to endure. He is also faithful to teach Yun who the real hero is.

Miracles that are truly astonishing accompany Yun’s torments. There are wonders of healing, deliverance, and provision in life and death circumstance. But when Yun sees how God can transform the most depraved hearts, he knows this to be the greatest miracle of all.

Before you read this book, you might think some people are beyond even the Almighty’s ability to change. But you will witness that these can become some of Christ’s most devoted followers. And that is really what God’s work in Yun is all about.

The second book on the recent readings list is titled, I Dared to Call Him Father, written by Bilquis Sheik, with Richard H. Schneider. This is a bizarre tale of a wealthy Pakistani Muslim woman whom Christ turns from the Quran to the Bible, from Allah to Himself, from arrogance and bitterness to humility and grace. Like Brother Yun, Bilquis is subject to supernatural dealings such as dreams and visions, but in contrast to him, her heavenly Father shields her from the most potent dangers. Though her family shuns her, no actual physical attack on her person ever succeeds.

What is strangest about this story is that Jesus approaches Bilquis before she knows a single thing about Him. It is not that she is seeking Him, it is that He is seeking her. After her conversion, Jesus lets Bilquis know which way to walk by the giving or the taking away of His joyous presence. She learns this is the one thing she cannot do without.

Especially if you are woman, you will pick this book up and not want put it down until you have devoured every last page. As well as illustrating how uniquely Jesus can work in any life, told as it was in first-person, it provides intimate acquaintance with an Eastern woman’s mindset. Alike in certain ways all us women are, yet also diverse as to culture.

The third and last book is God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew, with John and Elizabeth Sherrill. Of the three this is my favorite; I hardly know where to begin. So I’ll start with culture. Because Brother Andrew is Dutch, and because I am a big fan of Corrie Ten Boom, who was also Dutch, this book made me feel like I was coming home.

I think one reason for the homey-ness of it is that the Dutch, if Corrie and Andy are true representatives of that race, have a great sense of humor. Brother Andrew does not come across as a too-saintly saint, but more like the guy down the street who just happened to be tapped on the shoulder by God. Washing across some of the most dangerous circumstances anyone could find themselves in, is this wonderful down-to-earth-ness and good humor. Brother Andrew, in derring-do for God, accomplishes something I would like to imitate. He takes God so much more seriously than he does himself.

The book begins with Andy as a young lad with his family on the Polders of Holland. The Polders are dank lands that have been reclaimed from the sea. The smallest house in the village is where Andy lives. But because his parents have a reputation for compassion; many of the even less fortunate find their door.

With himself as the main character, young Andy dreams of exploits. He is the intrepid spy behind enemy lines. The early days of the book include occupation of Holland by the Nazis. Andy prides himself on his ability to run fast, and thinking he can always get away, likes to plague his Nazi occupiers. Sometimes he escapes by a hair's breadth. But when he is seventeen and on the front lines in Indonesia, Andy learns just what a horror war really is. He comes home with a shattered ankle and a broken heart.

Andy never liked going to church, but that doesn’t stop God. He has his hand on this young life and that’s all there is to it. Andy yields up his ego one night, something his scholar friend Kees describes as crisis conversion. From there it is but a small step to Andy realizing his special calling in life is to the mission field. But he wonders how that can be possible on a crippled foot. When he decides to commit all to God’s keeping, God heals his ankle instantly and miraculously.

Ultimately Brother Andrew (the name chosen to provide a small measure of anonymity) learns that his near destiny is to Eastern Europe and Russia. In these countries under communist domination Christians are repressed in various ways, sometimes overtly and brutally, sometimes cunningly. Few Christians, including many a church pastor, of the time and place, own a Bible. And that is precisely where God and Brother Andrew step in.

God takes Brother Andrew thousands of miles, at times to meet people who themselves have traveled thousands of miles, knowing only that God has sent them. Over the years Andy sacrifices much when he smuggles hundreds of Bibles to a people who weep with joy over so precious a gift. You sense he is relishing every minute. Andy really does become the adventurous person he envisioned as a child, only for a far different purpose then a small boy would ever dream.

Somewhere about half, or maybe two-thirds of the way into the book, is a surprise. But to find out, you have to read the book.

Biography for “Writer’s R Us”

I started this two weeks ago in response to a request from my writer's group facilitator. Since she did not specify what kind of bio she wanted, I tried to make it general but not too detailed.

I thought maybe posting it here on my blog might give me motivation to get going on parts two and three.

(Part One: Early Years)

My entry into the world had a single distinction; I was a girl. Though I had nothing to do with that fact, my mother tells and retells the story as if I accomplished a great victory for her just by coming out the correct gender. After three stinky puppy-dog tails, my birth gave her opportunity at last to announce sugar and spice. To my parents and the relatives, this was celebratory news. My brothers, on the other hand, had they been disposed to deep thought - or any thought at all - may have taken it differently. But they were too occupied with nails and snails to worry much. The girls could do their thing; they would do theirs.

Though ignoble, seeds of early childhood cravings were thus sown in chromosomal soil. Being a boy was fine for boys but girls needed to be ladies, and if possible, beautiful ones. Paper dolls I cut outfits for were the same glamorous stars I saw at the movies. Visions of Betty Grable, Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner, and Rita Hayworth evoked a childish longing - and disagreements about whom got to be who. More significant, the complexities of grooming for the gentler sex seeped in by osmosis when I watched my mother. I can see her now.

Starting at the top, she wore her dark hair near shoulder length with full bangs, curled under. Sides were pulled up and back, anchored with hairpins she concealed by allowing upper locks to flow over. A cloche with veil came next, guarding everything but the cherry lips.

Generally, I visualize my mother back then in the well-tailored suits she preferred; though occasionally she put on something more daring like the loose trousers that had just come into vogue. Gloves, silk stockings with seams, and a red fox stole draped over padded shoulders conclude the vision. And Minnie Mouse shoes. This in the forties was the epitome of feminine mystique; and from a tender age, I wanted it.

Other factors had their role to play too though in shaping my personality. Culture was one of these. The city of my birth, San Antonio, evolved a platypus creature in those days and I am sure this diversity had a profound effect. The military influence was strong upon us and as well both Latino and German ethnicity. Until spring of 1953 when my parents moved to Corpus Christi, I was nurtured in the deep bosom of lugares del San Antonio - plätze San Antonio. Breckenridge and Playland parks, Casa Rio and the River Walk, Joske’s, Bluebonnet Hotel, Christie’s Seafood Restaurant, the train depot, and the Alamo, are names any native denizen of San Antonio in the forties can spark to. Reluctantly I admit this will not hold true for folk of other times, other places.

Closer to home animal friends exerted their sway. A bobtail terrier named Lady was with us almost from birth to death. She came as a pup of three weeks and stayed until old age took her away. During her tenure, Lady and her adult master and mistress put up with white rabbits, parakeets of all colors, chickens, rats, fish, lizards and later on the occasional cat I had to smuggle in. Except for the rats, I loved them all. It is my view that affection and caring for pets contributes much to the making of an emotionally generous person. I believe these beasts beloved did that for me.

And then there were the books; intertwined with other elements for propensity was the continuity of literature. From an early age, I loved reading. As a family we were not great world travelers, but books were available to broaden my horizons, ignite my imagination, and give me a love for the cadence of words fitly written. Without my even realizing it, books helped open for me the integrity of life’s mysteries. Who could ever be bored when so much of the interesting world out there exists between pages of books? I had merely to walk to the shelf, pull one down and off, or in, I went.

When I was in the sixth grade we made our move and life became more tropical. Giant hibiscus and purple bougainvillea grew right in the front yard and the ocean was near enough to visit often. In summer, I would have gone salt-water swimming every day if someone were available to take me. Padre Island was free as a bird in those days. Teens lucky enough to have a car could drive up and down the beach, stop and swim, or build a campfire to roast wieners and marshmallows over. One end of a rope we would tie to a car bumper, the other to an inner tube to be inhabited by a hapless volunteer. As we jolted our way over ground too near, across dune hills and sandy vales, we would hang on for love of life and limb. Though much relished, this could be a painful and dangerous ride.

As a teen I think my aspirations were similar to that of my chums – eminently short term. I did have a vague notion of home, hearth, and motherhood, but was mostly interested in having a good time - right now. Then at eighteen very green years, I encountered my future husband of a lifetime. We met in May of my senior year, married in July. Two years later I held my first babe in my arms and the first (adult) inklings as regards the importance of developing real character began to dawn for me. It was to take some years before I began to explore what that might look like.

Minnie Boot

Glass Wing Butterfly

These photos were sent to me by a friend via email. He noted only that they are found in South America, and are very rare. Their beauty and the brevity of information he supplied piqued my curiousity, so I did a bit of research on these breathtakingly beautiful creatures. The following is from Wikipedia online encyclopedia:

Greta oto is a brush-footed butterfly, and is a member of the clearwing clade; its wings are transparent. Its most common English name is glasswing, and its Spanish name is espejitos, which means "little mirrors." Indeed, the tissue between the veins of its wings looks like glass. It is one of the more abundant clearwing species in its home range, which extends throughout Central America into Mexico. The opaque borders of its wings are dark brown sometimes tinted with red or orange, and its body is dark in color. Its wingspan is between 5.5 and 6 cm.

Adults inhabit the rainforest understory and feed on the nectar of a variety of tropical flowers. G. oto prefers to lay its eggs on plants of the tropical nightshade genus Cestrum. The silvery-gray caterpillars feed on these toxic plants and store the alkaloids in their tissues, making them distasteful to predators such as birds. They retain their toxicity in adulthood. The same alkaloids that make them poisonous also are converted into pheromones by the males, which use them to attract females.

G. oto adults also exhibit a number of interesting behaviors, such as long migrations and lekking among males.

What in the world is lekking, I wondered? So I followed the Wikipedia trail to another article, even more fascinating:

A lek (from Swedish lek, a noun which typically denotes pleasurable and less rule-bound games and activities) is a tournament (the males of certain species of animals for the purposes of competitive mating display), held before and during the breeding season, day after day, when the same group of males meet at a traditional place and take up the same individual positions on an arena, each occupying and defending a small territory or court. Intermittently or continuously they spar with their neighbours one at a time, or display magnificent plumage, or vocal powers, or bizarre gymnastics...

A strict hierarchy accords the most desirable top-ranking males the most prestigious central territory, with ungraded and lesser aspirants ranged outside. Females come to these arenas in due course to be fertilized, and normally they make their way through to one or other of the dominants in the centre. Two main types of lek are distinguished, classical leks and exploded leks. In classical leks, individuals are within sight of each other, physical contest is not infrequent, and can even be prevalent in some (mainly shorebird and gamebird) species.

Exploded leks rely on vocal signals, the most famous example is the "booming" behaviour of the Kakapo, where distances between individuals can be up to many kilometers due to the deep far-carrying call. Indeed, female kakapos seemed to often have considerable problems locating mates as the population declined on mainland New Zealand; this was a significant contributing factor to the insufficient reproduction rate which made this species to go extinct outside human care for some years.

The term was originally used most commonly for Black Grouse (orrlek) and for Capercaillie (tjäderlek), and lekking behaviour is quite common in birds of this type, such as Sage Grouse. However it is also shown by birds of other families, such as the Ruff, Great Snipe, Musk Ducks, Hermit hummingbirds, Manakins, birds of paradise and the Kakapo, by some mammals such as the Uganda kob (a waterbuck) and by some species of fish and even insects like the midge and the Ghost Moth. The rut of deer is also very similar. There is some dispute among ethologists as to whether the lekking behaviour shown by animals of widely different groups should really be treated as the same, and in particular whether similar selective pressures have led to their emergence.

Lek paradox: (or in other words, just one more of our Creator's amazing mysteries) persistent female choice for particular male trait values should erode genetic variance in male traits and thereby remove the benefits of choice; and yet choice persists. Most obvious in lekking species where females gain no material benefits or parental care from males.

The Half-Empty Life

While I’ve never thought of our cat as philosophic, that implication is beginning to grow on me. In times past I blamed her behavior on faulty wiring; lately it’s beginning to dawn on me I may have been hasty.

For example, take her food bowl. With the food bowl thing, Minnie had to have thought hard on how to make half-empty a positive. For is it not true optimists see the glass half-full, pessimists, half-empty? Not so Minnie. If life is half-empty that means she can be optimistic she will see it soon completely full.

The first indication of a soon-full bowl is Minnie sitting staring at it. It’s really much better for all concerned to fill the bowl immediately upon noting this posture. But we are often slow learners at our house.

Because we insist, she will take us to the next argument. Stare at bowl; stare at idiot who hasn’t made the connection yet. Alternate the pattern. And the ensuing like unto it; stare at bowl, stare at idiot, squeak like a rusty hinge.

I pause here a moment and reflect. It was the squeaking part that made me first suspect Minnie was turning ruminant. Yowling - anyone could put up with for a while. We expect cats to yowl, that is where the word caterwaul came from. But squeaking. Squeaking is Chinese water torture of the ear.

However, it is amazing what one can become accustomed to. And so, on the heels of point three, four follows swiftly. Note the above heels, for the word will take on new meaning in this step of Minnie’s polemic. As will ankle, lower leg, and bare toes if available.

This point normally is made while the casualty walks to and fro in their kitchen, ignoring the staring and squeaking. And it usually decides the matter. In fact, I’m thinking that much of Minnie’s new bent for philosophy seized a firmer grip while she was preparing this detail. Cows may contemplate while chewing; but I sense cats do it best, when they sharpen.

As I said earlier, take the food bowl. And fill it.

Minnie the Pooh

(warning: Only two people that I know of, other than me, reads my blogs. One is Kim, my daughter-in-law, the other my son - her husband. And on one occasion someone who happened to stumble through by accident. This is to say that while Kim is welcome to read this, I don't think Nathan is quite ready - :) After I'm gone. Maybe. )


Names are supposed to mean something and this one surely does. Minnie the Pooh. Why are some of the funniest scenarios in life just too embarrassing to write about? Or read about? That is what I’m wondering as I muse on my one and only indoor cat and some of her vexatious ways.

I have written in other places about the Christmas-light wiring in Minnie’s brain. Her demands for human fare, then refusal of service as if it were an insult, made permissible copy. And I hope elicited a few belly laughs. When clawing the door to get out in Minnie language translated, "A blizzard is brewing out there, head for the back of the house!" I wrote about it with inner chuckles, and no qualms. I even risked my image, appearing as a disgusting creature slithering through the night when I told about Minnie’s kinky ideas as to lap time. In that story, interpreting subtler clues as for setting was left to the reader. At least I wrote.

But now I am faced with tougher choices. Do I for the sake of comic relief place the delicate ears of my reader(s) in harm’s path? Or should I let this one pass, only to regret the one that got away? The obvious answer is that if I planned to let go of it, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

So I may as well just dive on in there. To put it frankly, despite all Minnie’s feminine wiles and cutey-pie looks, she is the poohing-est cat that ever owned us. I cannot, simply cannot keep this cat in litter. Constantly dashing to the store for more is running up my grocery bill - and the gasoline card. In big enough boxes, litter does not come.

And then there’s this other thing about – well, hangovers. While faithful to the litter box no matter where I move it, our girl sometimes forgets to wipe. Or maybe she is having so much fun playing, that like some kids in training pants, she waits one second too many and doesn’t quite make it to the bank. I never know if the deposit was made premature, or as an afterthought. Only that I better get to it before someone less understanding in the house steps along.

Should I mention effluvium, or is that going too far? In plain language, Minnie’s litter stinks to high heaven. And she doesn’t even bother to say; "The dog did it!" We have tried deodorizing; let me count the ways. Vanilla room spray, vanilla candles. Arm and Hammer and Oust. Frequent scooping, flushing, cleaning, and changing. Multiple-cat litter when there’s only one. Filters and fart fans. Regular fans. If I put her outside, she can hold it for hours.

We are a two-bath house; the box started out in the "other" one. Trying to keep this space smelling like something sweeter than an army latrine nearly drove me crazy. So I decided on the spare bedroom, which does quadruple duty as guestroom, laundry-folding room, ironing room, and prayer closet. For a while that seemed like a better arrangement; but then the pray-ers complained. My final option was the utility room where the box now lurks beside the back door, waiting for ill-fated victims.

There’s more, much more. But I’m thinking I won’t go a single step further. If you come to call at our house, please know that despite all Minnie’s peculiar, and yes sometimes less than delicate ways, we are still "love us, love our cat" people. Only keep in mind you may want to use the front door as first choice of entry.

More Kinky Wrinkles

Eyelids battle but can't win over airplane glue. Brain maxes out at 395 lb – very dead weight. Feet shuffle forward in darkness; fingers feel for the light switch. "There – it’s right there."

With something between a groan and a sigh, an organism – once human – slumps onto frosty ivory. Toes withdraw from shards of Tidy Kat enmeshed in carpet.

"Oh no! Oh, please! Not now, Minnie!" a swamp frog croaks.

"M-m-f-f-f-t-t! I’ll decide when and where’s lap-time!"

Bog beastie mutters, "Minx. One of these days, you’re going to get on my last nerve!"

"B-r-r-r-r-r-m-m-m-m!" counters catawampus "- a little to the left, please. No, no – down just a smidgen. There. That’ll do. Now the ears – get the ears real good! Chin. And don’t forget the patch above the tail! You know sometimes you conveniently forget that part. Now - the belly! Oh-ho-ho! That tickles, that tic… ert, that’s enough!"

"Mommy tickle, tickle, tickle!"

"I said, that’s enough!"

"Ouch! Minnie you little imp! You’re out of here!"

"Whuft!" Thump!

Creature slithers back to lagoon from which it emanated.

A New Perversity

I am only thinking, mind you, about going outside. I haven't actually decided to do it, but it is a possible consequence of my facing in the general direction of the back door while lifting one foot off the floor. Movement pounds around me like a herd of stampeded buffalo. I see the flash of a gray comet tail and hear something that sounds kind of like this, "m-m-y-w-t-t-t!"

Dazed from the blast, I recover to see what wonder, looking toward that which in time past masqueraded as an ordinary door. But I can see now that in reality it is the steel-cold bars of maximum security, which are at the moment suffering violence at the paws of feline desperation . Minnie the Unfortunate is attempting to scratch and claw her way into freedom.

But then, but then. . . just as soon as her angel of mercy appears (that's me) to throw wide the gates of iron, caterwaul reverses direction, tail to door. She searches me with large and dreadful eyes; I understand I am nefarious mother consigning tragic child to orphandom and a howling blizzard - sans coat, sans hat, sans food.

But before I can say "perverse Minnie," off my pretty scrambles, fast as her fat little body can ripple (which is pretty darn fast). To dark catacombs she hies it- if only to survive but a few hours more - in the warmth and security of the only home she has ever known.

I shouldn't be here this morning - typing at my computer blog station. When there's a to-do list a mile long, and places I must go in number just as intimidating, this can be a dangerous place to be. How well I know it an object of ambush. And yet I feel something worthwhile nudging me to elucidate what an article I just now read testified to me, or should I say where an article I just read took me.

My daughter-in-law, Kim, calls certain moments magical. Well, my present subject is similar, only rather than involving circumstance and place and the delerium these can invoke, when as she says, "all the ions in the universe line up together" it is entirely inward - though eager to air itself some way outward .

The article I read was written, first-person, by someone who had experienced both as a child and an adult the "thing" I am talking about. As a young boy with a writer father and a reader mom, the author found himself first awakened to this mysterious sensation while listening to his mother read "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," by C.S. Lewis.

At the time the boy's home was an old abandoned mill in southern Italy, elected by his father as a place of summer residence. Father was a whimsical soul with a tradition of settling his family into strange lodgings. As usual this one was big and rambling much like the house in Lewis' story, with those "endless rooms" that came to mean for both the author and Lewis "the true house that we never seem to come to the end of", each room of which is more mysterious and magnificent than the last. Lewis has more about his personal experience in regards the odd something in his book "Surprised by Joy:"

"I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described, and then found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it." Lewis name for it was "joy" and as a child it came over him when reading certain books.

Trying to enunciate this inner place in my own life is like trying to pin down a moonbeam. I may serve better by giving instances. A book can summon it, but just as often it is an abstract, though significant concept, a 'vision' of sorts that comes during prayer, or Bible reading, or while meditating on Jesus and the amazing Person that He is. Amazing - like His answering the trifling little prayers I sometimes forget I prayed - if only to encourage and let me know He heard every word. These little kindnesses of His drench me in incredulity, invoking " the joy thing" that He really is the God who numbers every hair, attends unto each sparrow when it falls.

Or it can come, while fascinated I watch light and shade act out a movie on the wall beside the bathtub when I am taking a good long soak. I seem to see another world there, transendent to this one, in that pattern of light and dark, a place I could enter if I just concentrated hard enough. Sounds corny, I know, but true nevertheless. The comfort is that God never finds his children corny when they are raptured over the wonders of this awesome cosmos - both physical and metaphysical - that He thought up.

A hymn can do it, or a poem. But especially does it woo me when I hear of amazing coincidences in peoples' lives (or as some say there are no coincidences), or in my own when I know without a single doubt that God has spoken to me in esoteric language. These are moments I have heard identified as common grace; to myself I call it finding God in the common and the uncommon. It is then He is most magnified in my life, when I can feel Him hovering close enough to reach out and touch; and yet not quite. A whole book I know of was written about the coincidence phenomen, identifying it as a wink from God. To paraphrase the author, "like Grandma winking across the table at Johnny when he's gotten himself into trouble with his parents.

While these few examples of mine fall short of real description (the article this morning called it "a sense of moreness - an unidentifiable something" that we yearn toward), I guess all said, that if I could describe it - or reach it, then it would no longer be what it is, the indescribable. In some other lanuage I might find a word like that: the thing sought but never reached. A linguist would know. And God.

Christmas Cowboy

He turns his face into the night,
His back upon the town and light,
Embraces cold reality
Of night and snow and wind-downed tree.

The town, back there, it seems to me,
Inviting though appears to be,
Shall not with all its warmth and gleam
Avail to tempt this Man to deem

'tis better than His mission bold.
That thing that makes Him brave the cold,
And brave the night, shall drive Him forth:
A mission dear to Him, its worth

The night and cold; though power to daunt
They hold, and 'neath Him steed is gaunt.
But tilt of head and cast of mien
Addresses more than wind's refrain.

For underneath His arm grasped tight
Are gifts wrapped up in paper bright,
And though the wind may howl and moan,
The Man - He does not go alone.

With Him go Love, and Truth, and Hope
To all who wait in rustic scope
Away from towns, away from light,
Away from human comforts' might

To lure them from the gift He brings.
It is this thought to which He clings:
That each may know and each receive
The gift of Life, from Death, reprieve.

Amazing Love, or And Can It Be That I Should Gain

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.’
Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Worth

Once there was a shabby and disheveled doll named Perpetua. Perpetua had not always been shabby, but now she was. Stained and dingy, the dress that once covered Perpetua's stuffing so prettily, could not be called pretty any more. One of her button eyes was gone, much of her yarn hair had come out, and what remained of that hung like limp brown strings dangling from a half-bald pompon. Her pinafore drooped by one strap and a few threads. The stitching in her legs had come partially undone, and stuffing poked out the openings. It was dingy, too. Most people wouldn’t have given two cents for such an object, and many more would have said, "To the dustbin with you." For not only was Perpetua not worth anything, she was a real eyesore.

Now the trash is a terrible place for anyone to end up, even for an old rag doll. But sadly that is where the little girl of our story first saw Perpetua. Sure that someone had played a cruel joke on a real person, the little girl fished the doll out and took her home. She did not think there had ever been a more beautiful doll. She loved Perpetua just the way she was. But out of respect for the doll’s dignity, she cleaned her up as best she could. Hugging close from morning until evening, and every night sharing a pillow, hardly ever were the girl and her doll apart.

But then one day something terrible happened; Perpetua got lost. The little girl was broken hearted and looked every where for her friend, calling and calling her name, "Perpetua, Perpetua." She looked high. Standing on a chair she stretched herself as tall as she could to see above a topmost closet shelf. But there was nothing other than some old brown boxes and a stack of aged-yellow magazines. She climbed the stairs and looked in the attic too: but no Perpetua.

The little girl looked low. She crawled under her bed and felt among the dust bunnies; and filled with great dread she crept down cold, damp steps to the basement and hunted through a great number of musty objects. But Perpetua was not to be found anywhere.

Once the little girl had been sure her friend was discovered. When she saw poking out the side of her momma's sewing basket a corner of familiar blue cloth, her heart raced. Thinking the scrap was part of Perpetua's dress, she pulled on it - only to be disappointed one more time. But though the little girl was very sad, she was also stubborn enough not to allow this to stop her from looking.

And so she continued her quest, until one day it came to pass that she must take a journey on an airplane. There she met a kind lady with soft brown eyes. "Just like Perpetua’s," thought the girl. Watching out for people on the plane was the lady's job, the little girl was told; the lady had to make sure that every one stayed safe and happy. But someone on the plane does not look happy at all, the lady thought. It was the little girl. But when the lady tried to help her, the little girl only hunched her shoulders and ducked her head.

The lady was persistent. "What is wrong?" she asked. "Why are your eyes so sad?"

"It is because I lost Perpetua," the little girl finally answered, peering up at the lady. For a very long time I have hunted for her, but I haven't been able to find her. And I know Perpetua misses me as much as I miss her. This very minute she may be crying because she has no one to love or care for her."

"But who is Perpetua?" asked the lady.

"Oh, Perpetua is my best friend. She is a real person, disguised as a doll," replied the little girl.

"And what does Perpetua look like?" the lady wanted to know.

This time she did not hesitate a minute before answering. "Well, you see, Perpetua is very beautiful. She has brown hair like cocoa and her eyes match her hair. Her dress is blue and her apron is white with yellow flowers. She keeps herself neat and clean – and because she is so very pretty anyone would want her for their very own doll. I fear she has been kidnapped!"

"Oh!" said the lady. "And where did you last see Perpetua?"

For a moment the girl was silent, appearing lost in thought. "I keep trying to remember," she finally responded. "My Momma and my Daddy took me and Perpetua on a long journey and it was after that I noticed that Perpetual was missing."

"Was your trip on an airplane like this one?" asked the lady.

"Yes!" The little girl answered, " it looked exactly like this one. I remember I fell asleep on the seat."

"Don't be sad any more," said the lady. "I think I can help you. Just now I must go away for a while, but I will be back soon. " And remember, you are not to worry."

The little girl tried to be patient. That many hours had gone by she was certain; but it was really only a very few minutes that passed. She wondered, "Now, what did the lady mean when she said she might help?"

Just about the time the little girl was sure the lady was not coming back, suddenly she saw her standing there in the aisle, holding a bundle wrapped in a white towel. The lady passed the bundle to the little girl, who parted the cloth and looked inside. Shabby Perpetua looked back. And so it was Perpetua returned, appearing exactly as the little girl remembered her. Perpetua was still the same beautiful person she always had been. And she was loved, if possible, even more than before.

And so what can we say is the measure of Perpetua’s worth? Well, it is not to be counted by the negative profit implied by her appearance alone, nor is it to be assumed by the negative light in which others might view her! But rather, we must reckon it, by the inestimable value assigned her in the heart of one very small girl - the one who loved her best.

And that, my friends, was very much indeed.

The little girl and Perpetua lived happily ever after.

~The End

The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with
an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.
JER 31:3 KJV

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
JN 3:16 KJV

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends. JN 15:13

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. ROM 5:8

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
even when we were dead in sins, EPH 2:4 - 5a

And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be
filled with all the fulness of God. EPH 3:19

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should
be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it
knew him not. 1JN 3:1

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his
only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 1JN 4:9

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his
Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1JN 4:10