Day 29—The World in Slo Mo

When I got home the power was out. Right in the middle of making supper. So we fired up the gas grill, sliced up the potatoes and meat, and threw on the whole supper. I even toasted my frozen bagel on it. It tasted a little smoky, but I loved it—it felt like we were on an early spring camping trip. So did the rest of the evening.

It’s funny. Bit by bit the world slowed way down. We went out to the porch where the sunlight was brightest so that we could read. After a while we began to notice how quiet it was—no phones ringing, no internet to plug into and check emails, no TV (no great loss there), no power for my music, no washing machine sound. Just quietness, a setting sun, and the sound of the trees rustling in the breeze.

Darkness crept in, little by little, until it was finally too dark to read. We looked out and saw little burning candles in the windows of our neighbor’s houses. Quaint. Just like Christmas but without the snow. Just as I was preparing to fire up the camping lantern the lights came back on. Too bad, I thought. “What a nice little respite that was, God.”

Even though we weren’t running around frantic today, we were idling a lot faster than I realized, because as soon as the power went out, our body-engines began to slow down almost as fast as the little motors that run all our appliances. We both really welcomed the forced time-out. So now I’m in the planning stage of trying to figure out how to knock that pole out every evening around 6:00ish. (Without getting caught, of course.)

Day 28—Toast and Bones

“Toast and Bones”—it’s a strange combination, I’ll admit. But it’s not a new breakfast entrée. They’re actually the names of two dogs—ours and our neighbor’s.

I peered out from between the blinds today and just caught sight of a slight wag of a tail. “Yup,” I thought, Bones must see our dog coming up his driveway for a play-date. The wag of his tail grew more pronounced as he anticipated the ecstasy in which he was about to indulge. I KNOW that sounds like hyperbole, but you have to see it to believe it.

Little 16-week old Toast does the “puppy-run” up the lawn and leaps with NO FEAR onto the face of Bones. Bones feigns indifference with a gentle swipe of her head away from Toast’s leap, but quickly turns back to see what she’s going to do next. Then we humans take our seats as we begin to watch “wrestle-mania.” Dog style.

First one dives for the other’s neck and clamps down. Then the other shakes free and dives for the first one’s neck and clamps down. Sixteen-pound Toast tries to tackle 2’10”, 67 lb. Bones. She loses and goes rolling side over side down the hill. Amused, Bones takes his shot and tackles her. Whummph! Toast is body-slammed to the grass. Her tail wags wildly now! And she attacks Bones again. Pretty soon they end up in one indiscernible puppy-pile, rubbing each others' throat and neck with their heads. There’s nothing like dog-on-dog-smell I guess.

Then quick as lightning they both release their grips and start to tear around the yard in circles tighter than the key on a basketball court. One after the other. Opps—Time out! Found a new smell that needs sniffing. Then, just as quick—back to wrestle-mania. By the time they’re done we’re left with two very happy panting dogs, who are content to simply lay next to each other. Both are covered in fur, hair and lots of fresh dog spit. Oh boy.

I don’t know how else to describe to you what I’m watching except with the words: “unabated delight.” I’ve watched them play like this for several times now. And each time I watch, I can’t help but wonder… am I somehow peering deep down into the Design of God itself, seeing something of the sheer grace and delight with which God created His world, that’s woven into the very fabric of every part of His creation? And most of the time you and I just miss it because we’re enslaved to the Task Lists that we’ve fabricated from our own creations? It makes me wonder.

Day 27—Early Surprise

It all started with a simple phone call. Our son suggested that he come home and stay overnight so he could take Mom out for Mother’s Day. Great idea! Then his mother decided—why not see if Grandma is free and they can both ride down together and we could meet them halfway. Great idea! Then she decided—Hey, maybe the other Grandma is free and we could pick her up and meet the others for the Mother of all Mother’s Day’s Dinners! Great idea!

There are approximately 2.5 million people living in the Twin Cities area. Since it was raining out for most of the day, I think everyone else in the Twin Cities had the same idea. Because as we opened the door to the restaurant we were confronted with a solid wall of human flesh. It took us five minutes just to push our way up to the reservation desk. And it was still early! Already the first round of Mother-Diners was finishing up and little old ladies with big smiles on their faces were maneuvering their walkers to mow down the crowds that packed the entryway as they made their way out with new energy, fueled by their renewed sense of strategic importance in the world!

After our 58 minute wait in the entryway, packed together like sardines, the initial conversation at our table felt more like we were sitting down to a mother-in-law dinner than a Mother’s Day dinner. But once we got our drinks and downed a couple of cheesy-biscuits a piece we morphed back into the delightful smiling mothers and children that we came in as. It was then that my son turned to me, once all the turbulence had died down, and said in a low voice… “I just made a simple phone call to see if I could take Mom out for dinner tomorrow.”

Which just goes to show: “No good deed goes left unpunished.” Maybe next time he'll just send a card. (just kidding, honey)

Day 26—A Higher Purpose for Toast

I strained my eyes to see it. The vet-doc pointed to an area on the x-ray that—quite honestly—looked no different from any other part of cloudy images of light- and dark-gray shades and shadows that covered the film. “Kind of…” I heard my wife and I mutter when the vet-doc asked us if we could see the tiny hairline darker-gray shadow within the larger lighter-gray shadow area. “I think that may be a fracture” she said, pointing to a spot of light gray shadow … “and if it is, that would be causing her enough pain to make her limp around on it.”

We’ll know for sure in a few days. The vet-doc is sending the x-ray to a radiologist. In the meantime, we’re giving our 16-week Golden, “Limpy,” a little extra TLC. (Her real name is Toast.)

Now—you may think what I’m about to tell you is weird, so I’m not going to tell you exactly what we did, but—last Tuesday night our small group gathered together in our house. Near the end of our bi-weekly meetings we always share prayer needs for our various family members, and any other needs, and then enter into a time of prayer. Sometimes, when one of our members is in need of specific healing, we’ll lay hands on them while we pray. I’m not going to tell you exactly what we did that night but our limpy dog conveniently sat in the center of the room (like she always does) while we prayed. The prayers that were offered that night covered a little broader range of the population than usual.

It was a little weird, I’ll admit. But that kind of ministry might actually bring some animal lovers into the Kingdom when nothing else would reach them. Who knows. Maybe Toast has a higher purpose!

Day 25—(part 2) “Faith” (or A Ride on the Steel Viper)

(for part 1, see below on Day 24)
Now, what do you suppose prompted my friend’s former colleague to phone-call him, on this particular day? Ten years later? Without any previous communication or contact between them? Just out of the blue? And here’s an even deeper wrinkle… why this particular person, for whom the life situation was just the reverse ten years earlier? Why not just a close friend?

I know it sounds flaky and half-baked to say that God’s hand was in this. I know that it doesn’t stand up to reason. I know that there’s no way to “prove” it’s not just a coincidence. (Which is why it’s called faith.) But, on the other hand, there’s no way to “prove” that gravity exits either, except by observing its effect on certain objects in relationship to other objects. Because of the way that objects interact with one another we conclude that there must be a “force” that causes this particular interaction even though we can’t directly see “gravity.” And there’s no way to “prove” that quarks and neutrinos really exist either. No one has ever actually “seen” one. We commonly accept that they exist because of the way particles behave and don’t behave when certain forces are applied.

In a similar way when I observe certain coincidental events, or coincidental meetings between people, or coincidental experiences that are shared, I “see” the Spirit of God working. Answering prayer. Guiding and directing with counsel and wisdom. Planting thoughts. Opening our eyes of awareness. Softening hearts. Healing broken bodies and spirits. Shaping and forming a new Spirit inside the human heart—all because it was asked for in one way or another.

For me, I choose the way of faith as I interact with the world. Because I believe that God’s Spirit is still very much active in the world. I see evidence of it by Its effects on people and events. I observe it over and over, even though I can’t “prove” it, and even though I can’t “see” it directly.

The Bible talks about it this way, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1). Actually, this is really a perspective from which to interpret the world and make sense of life—a biblical perspective. It’s a way of doing life. A way of interacting with the world.

I love my life of faith. I find it to be very life-giving. I’m thankful to God for leading me into it. It allows me to catch glimpses of the divine mechanics behind the multiplex networks of life.

Day 24—“Faith” (or A Ride on the Steel Viper), part 1

Today’s surprise: a wild roller-coaster ride in the cab of life! Sparks began to fly (in a good way) in the middle of a meeting when a friend and I began to realize that our paths, and the paths of several mutual friends and colleagues, have been recently crisscrossing all over the place! We laughed and giggled like kids in a candy store the more we talked and shared a mutual vision for working together.

There’s a part of me that identifies this kind of thing as a movement of God, a brush with the Holy Spirit, a glimpse of the Grand Arranger for those who have eyes to see. Another part of me holds back though, wondering if I’ve just stumbled into a dazzling array of coincidences, looking for a pattern where there is none. At least, none that is intentionally planned. There’s no way to know for sure, is there? You can’t prove it either way. You just have to choose which way you want to go in life. And you choose based on what you believe, what you know, and what you’ve experienced.

One choice is often called “faith.” The other is often called “reason.” They’re not always mutually exclusive, but in this instance they are.

For me, I choose the way of faith. I choose to see the hand of God working behind the scenes. Bringing people together in one-off ways. Prompting long-lost friends to phone-call one another out of the blue… for no particular reason, at just the exact right moment. That just happened to a friend of mine yesterday. He hadn’t seen or heard from this former colleague for ten years. Then, on the very day that he needed a key word of encouragement and “sign” that God was still walking right beside him in life—he got a short phone call. From a long-ago friend. To say just what my friend needed to hear.

The timing could not have been more perfect if it had been scripted by Hollywood (where everything always works out just perfectly in the movies).

(See part 2, continued on Day 25)

Day 23—Ordinary Gambling

Today’s surprise: my son needed some reliable wheels to get him from MN to WA this summer, so he bought a truck this afternoon! (And Dad was there to help.) A 4-wheel drive somehow seemed to match his upcoming adventure working in the mountains and rain forest of Olympia National Park. The big decision was… how and where do you gamble your money to get the biggest bang for your buck?

Do you Shoot the Moon by going for a truck, knowing that the gas mileage won't be the best, but the purchase price will be great (as in “cheap”) because they’re a dime a dozen right now? Or, do you hunt and scrape for the better gas mileage wheels that everyone else is also after, knowing that you’re going to lay out a bigger wad for that privilege?

He opted for the truck. For a college student money is especially tight. Mostly you don’t have any. So here was the next line of betting… do you gamble with buying an older truck with more miles but has a greater potential for repairs and break-downs, but seems to run well, requires only half the cash outlay as the other one, and leaves you with a smaller loan total after graduating from college? Or, do you gamble with buying a newer model, with half the mileage of the other truck, half the likelihood of repairs and break-downs, also runs well, but requires double the cash outlay and increases your college loan totals?

Or, do you gamble that your ’92 Saab might actually get you out there?

Okay, probably not. We both were pretty confident that his Saab was not the most reliable vehicle for a cross-country trip. What if it broke down in the middle of Montana, for example? That’s a scary thought. The closest Saab dealer would probably be in... San Francisco—or Sweden itself. We figured that the tow truck driver would probably just take out his shotgun and shoot it to put it out of its misery.

Tough decisions today. Either way you try to play the odds that favor your values and goals. It’s the ordinary gambling that most of us engage in every day of our lives.