Looking For Kelly

The day before my dad drove away from our house, never to return, he bought us a dog who we named Kelly. It was an excellent trade. 

Hillpoint Shamrock Kelly was the Irish Setter of my childhood and oh, what a glorious life he led. In those days - the 70s - and in that place - the lake country of southeast Michigan - dogs ran wild and free. Sure, he had his hands full, keeping up with the four of us kids as we swam and sledded, mini-biked and mucked about on our endless outdoor adventures, but our Irishman had a rich life of his own about which we, his family, knew precious little. Kelly was a charmer, from tip to tail, and lived his life with a sweet swagger that's hard to describe. 

There are countless tales I could tell about his fascinating life - the time he fell through thin ice on the frozen lake and was saved by a neighborhood dad who happened to see him go under and rushed to the rescue, or the opportunity he took to father a litter of puppies with the only other purebred Irish Setter for miles around. But there is one memory that burns brightly among the others.

One day, my youngest brother came home with a prize he'd found in the woods. Now, this came as no big surprise as our woods were seemingly stuffed with endless treasures and this time it was a string of large wooden beads arranged in sets of different colors with a charm in the middle. My brother dropped the beads over Kelly's head and they settled on his sleek red chest as a perfect necklace. I was delighted with our dog's new bling but my mom was beside herself.

"Take that off right now!" she fumed. "Don't you see what that is?"

Well, no. We didn't.

She told us that it was a child's rosary - Catholic prayer beads, she explained, when my brother and I both drew a blank - and she made it crystal clear that God would not take kindly to a dog sporting a religious icon that should be devoted only to the most holy of worship.

So my brother took off the beads and that was that. But I considered that situation over and over again, and I could not figure God having any problem with two kids innocently dolling up a dog with some prayer beads. I didn't have much official schooling on God's ways at that point in my life, but I felt certain that he would choose love over judgment every time. Even for dogs wearing rosaries.

Life went on. I hit my teens and eventually went to college. Kelly continued to live a life of independence and intrigue until I was a junior, and his life ended. I grieved hard. And I worried about where he might be.

* * * * *

One night, several years later, I have a dream.

In that dream, someone tells me that if I want to, I can visit my dog in his new life. They give me directions which lead me deep into a forest and eventually to, of all places, a cave. 

A deep, dark, rocky cave. 

A creepy cave. 

Not the kind of cave where I want my dog to live for eternity.

I go into the cave and, much to my surprise, find it to be delightfully warm, cozy, filled with golden light, and furnished to proper human standards. And tucked into the kitchen at the back of the cave, standing behind a well-scrubbed and timeworn wooden table, I am shocked to see two nuns. In full nun habits. I mean, the long black robes and Flying Nun headpieces worn by the strictest of 60s parochial school-teaching and ruler-wielding nuns on record. But these nuns smile at me benevolently, as if they are not at all surprised to see me come waltzing into their cave.

"I'm sorry, I think there's been a mistake," I stammer. "I came here looking for my dog."

The nuns smile ever more sweetly. "We know. We've been expecting you. And so has your dog."

At that point, I turn back toward the mouth of the cave, and just as full of the Irish spirit and devil-may-care charisma that carried him through his life on earth, my good ol' Kelly comes strutting into the cave. Clearly, this is where he lives. He gives me a warm, wiggly welcome, as if he did indeed know that I would come looking for him. He walks on past me to accept routine greetings from both of the nuns, who love him up in full fashion. And then he circles back around the kitchen table to the mouth of the cave and heads out to continue on his busy adventures in the woods of eternity. 

* * * * *

I've treasured this dream for decades. To be honest, I have no clue what the Catholic symbolism represents, but thanks to my dream, I know one thing for sure. When I show up in heaven, I'll know just where to look for my good dog, Kelly. 

Traveling With Ranger

"Never go on trips with anyone you don't love." -Danny Thomas

^ An actual dirt road in Michigan. Throw in a few mud puddles and you've got an exact match.

I'm walking along a dirt road in the countryside. Tawny, hard-packed sand dotted with milk chocolate mud puddles, the ground under my feet looks like the familiar roads of my Michigan childhood, but the golden pastures behind me, outlined by ridges of soaring blue mountains, tell me I'm far from home. Judging by the beef cattle grazing nearby, I wonder if this might not be Wyoming or Montana.

Up ahead, I see that I'm coming upon a copse of trees, and I hear the rush of an unseen river nearby. As the trees close in on my path, it dawns on me. I haven't seen my dog, who is accompanying me on this journey, for quite some time. Has it been hours or even days since my dashing companion has run alongside me, traipsing through the underbrush, red tail flashing in the golden sun? All I know for sure is that some internal mechanism tells me I have ten more hours of hiking in the wilderness, and I'd really like to be sure that my dog is nearby.

So I call. I hear my voice booming out into the quiet woods, sharp cornered consonants and wide open vowels, as I call my dog's name again and again and again.

I keep walking, my eyes scouting for a splash of that signature red fur. The roadway bends from west to north, and now I'm walking along a high bank that runs parallel to the river maybe ten feet below. Through the lacy yellow-tinged leaves of the deciduous trees growing at the edge of the bank, I catch glimpses of the racing water, and see the wide drifts of flat grey stones that pile up along the water's edge.

And that's where I finally peep my dog, happily wagging at the sound of my voice as she dashes across the rocky shore and bounds up the steep bank to meet me on the sandy path. My heart overflows as we greet each other. I call my dog's name again and again and again, but this time with relief and delight. Apparently, my dog is equally pleased to see me; circling around me and wiggling excitedly from head to toe, I understand that our joy is mutual. 

"We have ten more miles to go today," I explain, and with a stab of concern, I wonder when was the last time my dog had something to eat. In an instant, I slip my backpack off my shoulders and unzip it to slide out the package of pepperoni sticks that I carry for moments just like this one.

"Hey, look what I've got for you!" I pull one stick out of the package, snap off a piece, and offer it to my dog who sniffs once, twice, and then turns away, uninterested in the snack.

And that's when I wake up. 

* * * * *

^ Ranger was always down for a romp in the wilderness. 

My dream beats in my head like a pulse, and immediately I understand. The dog in my dream is not the current redhead in my life, darling Gracie. 

No, this dog is Ranger. Lying awake in bed, I can feel the shape of his name in my mouth, having called him again and again and again in my dream.

And to remove any shred of doubt, the architect of this dream knew that Gracie would gobble up any food offered to her, but during his life, Ranger wasn't interested in eating anything but his basic kibble. The instant my dream dog turned up its nose at the pepperoni stick, I knew who he had to be.

^ " I will not eat your pepperoni sticks, woman. Not in this life, not in the next. "

^ The wilderness is fun, but nothing beats the heavenly comfort of a soft, warm couch. 

My heart expands and tears fill my eyes as the meaning of the dream settles into my soul. Ranger is with me. Even when I can't see him, he's always close by. And though I still have more of my life's journey ahead of me - hopefully more than ten hours but one never knows - Ranger will be traveling with me till the very end. 

Easter: Learning To Love

"I really do believe that God is love, one of deep affection and grace and forgiveness and inspiration.' -William P. Young

Easter dinner: Spinach salad, deviled eggs, grilled salmon, grilled flank steak, and scalloped potatoes. 

Easter confuses me.

Yes, it's meant to be the day of all days when we bask in the assurances that God loves us. 

I'm good with that idea.

But God's way of proving his love to us is to hang a mortal human by nails and leave him to die?

And then to claim that this man is bearing the punishment that we deserve for our mistakes and missteps in our own lives?

Ugh. That doesn't feel like redemption to me. Sometimes, Easter feels like violence, gore, and a sickening disregard for human life. 

It feels, in a word, like suffering.

As Easter once more whirls around, I find myself struggling knee-deep through this same familiar swamp of confusion.

If God loves us so much, why does he allow us to suffer?

* * * * *

Mmm, let me start at the beginning. Here's what I think I know:

This life is not meant to be a picnic in the park. 

That's what heaven is.  

We'll get to that lovely life after this one is done.

But this life is for learning to love. 

I do believe that's true.

And while suffering is not the same as loving,

Suffering is very helpful for learning to love. 

Stick with me. I'll explain.

* * * * *

Easter dessert: Pound cake, whipped cream, strawberries. 

After what was supposed to be a quick and easy half-day dance through laproscopic gall bladder surgery, complications in my case landed me in the microscopic 3% minority and a bed upstairs in the main hospital. I was in absolutely miserable pain. Like a wounded animal, I craved dark and cold; I demanded that the curtains and shades be pulled to seal off every trace of sunlight, and a window opened to let in a steady blast of cold winter air. I lay in an agonized heap in my bed, listening to my phone blow up with text messages about the latest mishaps in my mother's Lewy Body Dementia-driven life - and yes, I really did have to read and respond to them. I could not eat, could not sleep, and for the next 12 hours, did not respond to the pain meds. 

In a word, I suffered. 

Several hours into this nightmare, the door to my room swung open. The light from the hall stung my eyes as I glanced over to see a vaguely familiar face. Ugh. My surgeon. I had no desire to talk to anyone, much less the person who had dealt me this misery, and I determined to get rid of him as quickly as possible.

"Oh, wow!" he chattered cheerfully. "It's like a cave in here! Aren't you freezing?"

"This is how I like it," I muttered into my pillow. 

"Alright, fair enough," he agreed, stepping to the head of my bed and pulling up a stool. "Tell me how you're feeling. Let's talk about what's going on."

I talked while he listened.

He talked while I listened.

He couldn't do anything right then and there to ease my pain, he admitted, but he was going to get me through this misery. He took his time to carefully explain what had gone wrong in my procedure, and what he was going to do to fix it. He promised to keep adjusting my pain meds until I felt better. And he promised me that he was going to stay with me until we got through this. Together.

And, you know what, that's exactly what he did. 

Over the course of that afternoon and early evening, he checked in on me multiple times. With just the right balance between cheery confidence and respect for my agony, he delivered the message to me over and again: We were in this together. I was not alone. 

All of my doctor's promises eventually came true. Sometime around midnight, the pain medications finally kicked in. He instructed the nurses to bring me food whenever I was ready to eat, and even at that late hour, they rustled up a lovely assortment of jello and applesauce cups. And the next morning, as I headed back into surgery, he stopped by to explain that he was leaving me in the capable hands of one of his team members, and if all went well (it did) I would never have to see his face again (I didn't.)

He is risen indeed.

And now, ten years later, I look back at this wretched day in my life and I smile. 

Yes, I suffered. 

But in my suffering, I wasn't alone. A fellow human being came alongside me and showed me love in the most direct and concrete ways. He brought me to a new, deeper understanding of compassion, and his care has left a mark on me to this day.

Now here's the fifty-dollar question: Could I have learned these same lessons without the ugly suffering I endured?

Maybe.

But without the darkness of my pain, my doctor's gifts of light and love would have not shone so brightly.

I know that sounds corny, and maybe even a tad masochistic, but I think it's true. 

Suffering sharpens our ability to experience love, and to learn from it.

And for that, dear God, I am grateful.

A Celebration of Thrills

"The thrill isn't in the winning. It's in the doing." -Chuck Knoll

Leave my house, drive down the hill, hop on the Whidbey Island ferry, and drive north up the island for an hour. 

And then you will come to a breathtaking, awe-inspiring sight. 

Deception Pass is a slim slice of water that teems with wild tides, unpredictable currents, and gorgeous churning waters. She's a danger, and looking out across her deceptively pretty green waves will send a  a shiver down your spine. 

Now, if you dare, walk out on the bridge. Go all the way to the middle of the span, where the winter winds whipping off the Strait of Juan de Fuca hit you square in the chest. Let the spattering raindrops pelt your face. Look down on that turbulent water, and gauge the sturdiness of that thin railing, the only thing that keeps you from falling a long, long way down. Feel the bridge rumble and roll under your feet as the unrelenting traffic hurtles by just inches behind your back. 

Recognize what an incredibly risky thing you have chosen to do, and bask in the thrill of it all. 

^ She's actually two bridges - totaling about a quarter of a mile - and this is the southern section. Trails and stairways make it possible to explore under and around the bridge without having to step onto the roadway. 

^ Gracie's interested in hiking down to the beach but today we are focusing our efforts on the bridge itself. 

^ Sidewalks line each side of the roadway, complete with barriers on both sides. And while gorgeous views are afforded to the east and the west, we opt for the Pacific-facing west side. 

^ As we step out from the forest that surrounds the approach to the bridge, the view opens up. Lush forest, rocky beaches and headlands, emerald green water, and astounding views down the Strait toward the open ocean blow my mind. 

^ Uhh, looking straight down to the water 180 feet below is not for the faint of heart. Do it anyway. 

 

^ Stepping out toward the middle of the span, the winds take my breath away as the ever-present rain slaps my face. She's a challenge, this bridge of ours, and she literally makes me tingle from head to toe.

^ The open vista to the north showcases the softly rounded foresty bumps of the San Juan Islands, and beyond them, beautiful British Columbia, Canada. 

^ And when our terror at the bridge loses its fiercest hold over us, Gracie and I find other places to lend us some new thrills. 

* * * * *

As the waves of adrenaline shoot through me and I feel the lovely sensation of intense thrill all but sweeping me off my feet, I think about Christmas.

Baby Jesus wasn't born for a life of lullabies, angels, and visiting royalty. 

He came to turn the world upside down,

to tend to the weak and poor,

to heal the sick and make the lame walk again

to care for the widow and the orphan,

to tell the rich and mighty that their titles and treasures mean absolutely nothing. 

He came to blow powerful winds of change into our faces, and rain down on us his radical ideas of love and mercy.

Christmas is a day that should send a shiver down the spine of us Christians.

As a person who follows Jesus, I realize what an incredibly risky thing I have chosen to do, and I bask in the thrill of it all.

* * * * *

 Read more about my 2022 Christmas celebrations. 

A Celebration Of Love

A Celebration Of Peace

A Celebration Of Thrills

A Celebration Of Growing

Crying At Weddings

Just as you'd expect in the moments before a wedding, the air was electric with joy. 

Bridesmaids chattering with giddy excitement, 

mothers of the bride and groom beaming as their dreams were coming true; 

fathers of the happy couple puffed up with pride, 

and hundreds of guests caught up in the beautiful celebration of love.

Certainly there were many tears. Tears borne from the overwhelming emotions that a happy wedding brings forth; tears of happiness, tears of anticipation, tears of relief, tears of love. Tears of joy.

But as the wedding party gathered at the altar and the ceremony began, one person's tears captured my attention. He was crying - the groom's brother, his best man - with a quavering smile on his face, much like everyone else. But his tears, I noticed, were different.

They were tears of joy and delight, to be sure, but they seemed to be mixed with tears of more complicated, raw emotions

of pain,

of loss,

of the certainty that life will never again be quite the same. 

* * * * *

Later, during his toast, the groom's brother acknowledged his tears. He cracked jokes, made light of his intense emotion, and then helped us understand why he cried. 

He and his brother, the groom, had shared a bedroom for many years. As the night owl of the two, the groom's brother was usually awake as his brother slept, and he often glanced over to see his brother's sleeping face, night after night, year after year, in their room together. 

He spoke of this simple, comforting habit that held his brother's life to his.

A habit that was now, for the sake of his brother's marriage, about to fade into memory.

Dying so that something new could be born. 

And this, at least in part, was why he cried.

* * * * * 

My heart beat fast as he spoke these words. I was touched by his courage and honesty, his willingness to name this vulnerable feeling of pain, in the midst of so much joy.

Because this is the truth of life. Yin and yang. Sunshine and shadow. Death and resurrection.

We can't take one without the other, but in the "positive vibes only" mode of our world today, we often overlook what we assume to be the down sides of our lives. We brush past the darker, more difficult moments quickly, hoping, I suppose, that they won't taint our happiness, won't subtract from the joys of life.

But if we are bold enough, as this groom's brother was, to name our pain and to set it alongside our joy, to acknowledge them together, our lives are enriched by the beautiful synergy of these two complementary forces. 

Now I understood why the groom's brother cried. Why he was still crying.

And I cried too. 

Three Dreams

Dreams can be silly things, and as much as our own dreams may fascinate us, they often come across as tedious to others. 

Rarely do I dare to share mine.

But in the past few weeks, I've been enjoying some fantastically vivid and thought-provoking dreams, and in the interest of preserving them for my own enjoyment, I share them here.

And if you don't want to read them, I understand. Feel free to scroll on.

* * * * *

Layers

Five years have passed since my mom died, and I've finally found the keys to her home. 

In real life, my mom did indeed move out our of my childhood home about ten years before she died, to a calm and cultivated condo in town.  

But in the dream, I realize that I have been fooled by this decoy home.

I am discovering that she'd actually moved just a few houses down from our old lake house, and as I push open the front door, I'm shocked to find that this place is a proper rabbit's warren. Jumbled rooms sprawl this way and that; small flights of stairs lead to a dozen different levels; one room spills into another and much to my surprise and horror, every inch of every surface in sight is covered with stuff. 

At first, I think all the stuff is garbage - old magazines, empty boxes, wire hangers from the dry cleaners, that sort of thing - but as I poke around and begin to sort things out, I find some surprises. On a cluttered table near her front door, buried under a heap of junk mail, I pull out two vintage hardcover books in sweet shades of faded blue; I prop them against an old artichoke finial, and stand back to survey them, astounded at their beauty. All around me, I realize that there are countless lovely objects, obviously collected with great care and eye for detail, hiding under a superficial layer of rubbish.

And in a flash, I realize that this house is teaching me something new about my mom.

* * * * *

In The Weeds

After decades of long distance friendship, my old work bestie and I are visiting face to face. 

In real life, back in our early twenties as young public accountants on the rise, she and I were the jokers, the pranksters, the hilarious comedy team of our office, ready to lighten up every work-related situation we encountered with our own brand of wacky antics.  

And now, many years later, our dream selves are settling back into a living, breathing friendship again, and not quite sure how to proceed.

My friend breaks the ice. "Here, let me show you this pic I sent my sister today." 

Though I didn't know her well, real-life Sister Susan was the closest thing my friend and I had to a third wheel, a soul sister who parried with the same blade of humor as we did. 

Dream-me leans into my friend's phone with great interest.

What I see is a photo of a beautiful, traditional two-story white house with shutters standing at attention, a glossy black front door, and a gleaming brass door knocker. 

Clearly, this is Susan's home. 

And all along the front edge of the gorgeous house, where surely the original photo had captured an elegant bed of manicured evergreen shrubs skirted with a row of flourishing annuals, my friend has Photoshopped in a tangled mass of overgrown weeds, flopping this way and that along the front of the house in complete disharmony. And Photoshopped into the midst of that unsightly mess, as if they'd been tossed tail over tea kettle into the scruffy brush, lie several large plastic children's toys - a playhouse, a doll buggy, a small slide - their bright colors faded from the sun; a red rusted wheelbarrow crash landed on its side; and several other garish castoffs. 

I look from the phone to my friend's face which has lit up with a fiendish smile. "Susan's preparing to sell her house," she whispers, and with a finger, points my attention back to the caption under her masterpiece: "Ready for Zillow."

We both double over in laughter. 

* * * * *

Negative Space

I am chatting with a man I've just met, and we discover a mutual passion for international travel. "Oh, tell me where you've been and what you've seen!" he encourages me. So I launch in. 

Somehow, I manage to describe in accurate detail the actual countries I've visited in my waking life, and some of my favorite real-life adventures. I talk about motorbiking the streets of Vietnam, drinking coconut milkshakes in Malaysia, learning how to haggle with auto rickshaw drivers in India. 

My new friend listens with rapt attention while I wear myself out. Then, politely, I ask, "What about you?"

In a voice that sweeps over me like a cool ocean breeze, he calmly and steadily replies, " My wife and I are interested in visiting not the land of new places but the water. We fly into a new city and travel straight away to the water's edge, where we arrange for a boat or a ship to take us out to sea. And we spend all of our time in the water - swimming, scuba diving, that sort of thing. We visit the water, not the land."

As he speaks these words, in my mind, I see my mental map of the earth transformed. The continents, normally illuminated as the objects of my attention and dotted with the cities, mountains, and points of interest that have always seemed so important to me, suddenly dull and fade away to formless grey. 

At the same instant, the oceans and seas of the planet, normally colored a uniform, flat blue, come alive. Shades of blue intensify in different regions - polar seas take on an icy silver hue; tropical shallows warm to turquoise, the vast deepness of the western Pacific hums dark navy - and the entire body of earthly waters begins to glow as if lit from within.

In shock and amazement, I look back at the man, and carefully, he looks at me. Then we smile, and I know that we understand each other. 

* * * * *

More dreams that I've dared to describe in detail. Who knows? You may just find them interesting. 

Three Dreams

My Mother's Voice

A Dream {About Ranger}

Be Careful What You Wish For

E A S T E R

Happy Easter. He is risen!

Today, along with other Christians, I celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. After spending three days dead, he emerges from his tomb with an remarkable message: “Hey, everyone! Death is not the end; it’s the beginning of a new life that’s even better than the first and you are going to absolutely love it.”

And while I joyfully celebrate this good news, I get even more excited when I consider the bigger picture here. The Easter story reminds me that our God is a God of incredible power, outlandish creativity, and a mind-blowing capacity to surprise us. He doesn’t wait until the end of our earthly lives to knock us off our feet; God can use any minute of any day to draw us closer to him. All we need to do is pay attention and watch to see what he’s doing. It’s almost always something good. 

So as I enjoy my Easter festival, I’ll certainly reflect o on the gift of eternal life. But my mind will drift beyond that ancient tomb to this very day, and I’ll roll back the stones of my own limited thinking to watch for God’s cleverness playing out in my day-to-day life. 

He is risen indeed. 

I Pray For Ukraine

"If I fall, pick up the flag, kiss it, and keep on going." -Omar Torrijos Herrera 

"A true flag is not something you can really design. A true flag is torn from the souls of the people."

 -Gilbert Baker

I pray for Ukraine.

I pray for Russian guns to fall silent. 

I pray for missiles to lie still.

I pray for invading soldiers to turn around and go home.

I pray for the streets to ring with the beautiful sound of silence.

I pray for the people to come out

From the places where they have been trapped.

I pray for food and water,

First aid and warm clothes.

I pray for hugs and tears of relief and joy.

I pray for electricity and charging cords.

I pray for phone calls to loved ones.

I pray for blue skies and sunshine.

I pray for peace. 

I pray for Ukraine.

* * * * *

Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes! More stories about an unjust war:

I Pray For Ukraine

Life of A Math Teacher: Unifix Cubes

Mariupol Basements

What’s Real

^ At the jetty in Langkawi, an island playground in Malaysia, with my friends, Izzah and Nana.

Do you believe in God?

I do. 

Though I will also be the first to say that many days, I wonder. 

I wonder why the world must often be such a difficult and dark place. 

I wonder why we humans can be so blind and indifferent to each other’s suffering. 

I wonder why evil is allowed to not only exist but to flourish. 

And I wonder why, if God loves us as deeply as he claims to, he allows innocent children to suffer. 

^ Clouds over Kalaloch in 2011 with my two younger daughters and our beloved Ranger. 

So I wonder and I question and I doubt, but always I come back around to telling myself that I can’t make any sense of my life if it isn’t in the hands of a loving creator. I’d rather find out at the end of my life that there is no God and the joke’s on me than try to live with the despair and pointlessness of a life without God.

And I look, in my life, for signs of God’s presence, for proof of his being, for evidence of his love. 

^ January 14, 2022, in my front yard with Gracie at my side. 

Last night, I stepped outside and was immediately aware of being wrapped in a surreal pink glow. Every corner of the sky was flooded with rosy light, but to the west the sunset was cooking up a masterpiece. I have no words to describe the color, the texture, the overwhelming majesty of the clouds caught up in whatever atmospheric event was causing this beauty. 

And I felt God stir within me. 

“That’s me,” he whispered. And I whispered back, “I know.”

And that was lovely. But it was a few hours later that I felt the full force of God with us. In my social media streams, I saw photo after photo of these very same breathtaking clouds, captured over the heads of my friends and neighbors. And though no one said it in so many words, I’m pretty sure they heard God whispering in their ears too. 

Sharing God with one another. That’s what makes him real to me. That's why I believe

* * * * *

Sunsets are wonderful examples of God's fingerprints but they don't hold a candle to the holy power of the solar eclipse. Read my story of that amazing and life-changing experience here:

Experiencing Totality

Thank You

She is a magical lady.

I was having a rough time getting to sleep.

Tossing and turning, I couldn't stop the hurricane of heartaches whirling through my mind. Though I'm usually able at the end of the day to lay aside my troubles and find my peace, on this night, I was struggling.

Desperately.

As the waves of melancholy washed over me, I realized that I was out of my own depth and so I reached out for the last hand-hold of desperate people everywhere.

I prayed to God.

It was a simple prayer; childish, really. Sincere and direct. Unabashedly needy.

Please God, give me your peace.

Now, as I was swirling about in this sea of confusion and pain, my dog was busy with her own problems. Bless her heart, she was looking for a good place to lie down.

Normally, Gracie is not a cuddler. Undoubtedly, she loves me with every fiber of her being, and she keeps me locked in close visual range, but she has proven to have zero need to sleep in physical contact with me.

Which is a bit of a disappointment, because my previous setter, Ranger, was an A1 champion cuddler. Every night of his life, Ranger would hop up on my bed, curl himself ever so perfectly to the crook of my legs, and gently, comfortingly, rest his sweet red head across my knees. He brought me endless peace with this simple act, and in the way that only a dog can do, he eased my soul.

Anyway, with my mind bent round my troubles, I was only vaguely aware that Gracie had hopped up next to me and was circling around for the perfect spot. As I began my end-of-my-rope prayer for peace, I did not feel her curl up beside me, tucking herself perfectly into the crook of my legs.

It was in the exact instant that I spoke the word "peace" clearly and distinctly inside my head that her sweet red head came to rest across my knees. In a flash, my heart was flooded with peace, and my soul was eased. 

And to God, the architect of this beautiful relationship between human and dog, I whispered.

 Thank you. 

A Gift From My Mom

I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. 

They continue to participate in every act, thought, and decision we make.

-Leo Buscaglia

For Mother's Day this year, my mom bought me this plant.

Oh, I know. She's been gone almost five years now. 

Gone in a physical sense, that is.

But her voice inside of me is alive and well, thank you very much, and speaks out to me more clearly than ever.

Of course, it would be nice to communicate with her on human terms, but I'm not complaining. To be honest, I feel closer to my mom now that she's an eternal being, as if the static from a poorly tuned radio has finally been adjusted and the reception is crystal clear. 

And while I feel, in an indistinct, hazy, spiritual kind of way, that she and I are still very much connected and moving along together, there are times when I'd like to cement that sensation in a tangible, physical kind of way.

Now some people report that their dearly beloved ones leave them dimes or feathers, lead them to butterflies, or even appear as visions. And I believe that all those manifestations are real, though my mom has never chosen to communicate with me that way.

Instead, my mom buys me gifts. 

Oh yes, she does. 

It happened again this past week, just a few days before Mother's Day.

As my third and fourth daughters and I wandered around the indoor plant displays at Sky Nursery, I saw a hundred leafy lovelies and pretty planters that I wouldn't be mad about getting, but nothing really caught my eye. Shocked - and thankful to be getting out of there without spending a fortune for once -I sidelined myself into an alcove crammed with basic, boring terracotta pots to wait for my daughters to finish their shopping. I figured I was safe there from any further temptation. 

But what I didn't know was that tucked back behind the predictable rows of conventionally-shaped orangey-brown numbers was a vision waiting for me to happen upon it.

White,

textured,

patterned with circles and ovals, 

dancing around a happy shape,

the most beautifully perfect pot I've seen in quite some time. 

Picking it up and turning it round in my hands, I read a satisfying seventies vibe, and caught a flash of those years of growing power and success in my mom's life. 

I felt my mom's presence.

Carrying the pot in my arms, I headed back toward my daughters, who were still browsing, and asked their opinion. 

"Yes," my fourth born confirmed. "It's very you."

Now my attention tuned to finding a plant that spoke to the pot. 

A plant that would also speak of my mom.

And again, my fourth-born readily tuned into my wavelength.

"What about this one?" she suggested, holding up a darling schefflera arboricola. I gasped. 

My daughter had no way of knowing that for many years, my mom grew a huge schefflera arboricola in our front entry way, one of the few spaces in our eccentric little lake house that gave her a genuine sense of pride. 

It was the perfect plant for the perfect pot, and when I set the two together to get a glimpse of the total effect, I fairly vibrated with certainty.

This was a gift from my mom.

And I love it, in so many ways. Thanks, Mom!

Alive

"Here's a test to find if your mission on Earth is finished: 

if you're alive, it isn't." -Richard Bach

This painting came to me in a dream. It is a timeline of my soul's journey through this life.

On the left, the pink dot represents my soul on the day I was born, simple and small. The white space represents my earthly life, and reflects the way my soul has expanded and grown over the years. At the end of my life, as shown on the right side of the painting, my soul will transition into something new and different, much more complex than it was before, and will continue on in ways that I can't begin to imagine. 

When we are born, we come from heaven, and into our newborn bodies are planted our tiny souls.

We know this because we've experienced the incredible mystery of newborn babies. 

When we hold their tiny bodies and look into their searching eyes, we see

wisdom, 

truth,

eternity.

We are deeply and profoundly touched by the connection we feel through newborn babies to some sort of Great Power, and we don't need a formal religion to explain this to us. 

We experience a baby's spirit and we know that they - and we - must surely be creatures of some deep and powerful place, which we sometimes call heaven.

* * * * *

Yet we are also creatures of this earth. 

And so, from our very first days, we grow and learn and change in earthly ways - 

building up our biceps, 

losing our baby teeth,

learning to throw a baseball, 

as we journey toward adulthood and the full flowering of our earthly strength. 

If we survive, we hit our physical peak somewhere around age 25, and ride the top of the wave for maybe ten or fifteen years till we start the long slide toward middle age and the unspeakable beyond. Our bodies age and decline; our brains strain for telephone numbers and street names that used to pop to the surface in a snap, we do the horrifying math that tells us we likely have more birthdays behind us than we do ahead. 

* * * * *

Because I'll tell you what. Life goes fast. And if we're not careful, we can spend the later years of our lives focused on the decline of our earthly power - the falling arc of our lifetime's competencies - and waste valuable years of our lives feeling broken in body and declining in mind. 

I refuse to do that.  

I will not look upon my physical body as the measure of my life's work. 

I know in my bones that the real journey we take here on Planet Earth is more about growing our souls than our physical bodies. 

We're here to learn about

love and compassion,

loneliness and pain,

wisdom and joy, 

anger and grief,

and it's when we look past the limits of our earthly strength and into the depths of our souls that we can truly live. 

* * * * *

I believe that my soul will continue to grow until the very last breath of my life. 

And then, rich and full, my soul will return to wherever it came from. 

To heaven.

To the Great Power.

To eternity.

(I don't need a formal religion to explain this to me.)

And believing that this is true makes me very excited to be alive. 

One Thing About Kellen

Let me tell you some things I know about my friend, Kellen.

In many ways, he's a decent and fairly ordinary guy.

He loves:

watching professional sports,

listening to music,

swimming, fishing, hanging out on his cousin's boat,

playing tennis, working out, riding bikes with his uncle,

throwing around a football or a baseball, or kicking around a soccer ball,

eating,

cooking,

Jesus,

and spending time with the people he loves,

especially his nine-year-old son. 

Kellen and I have known each other for a year and a half now, and I can tell you for a fact that he is a deep thinker and interesting conversationalist, open to examining his own life and willing to consider new possibilities. 

He's also thoughtful, considerate, and devoted to being a good friend. I can always count on him to be honest with me, and to hear my blunt questions with positive intent. He says thank you a lot, and opens doors for me. 

Kellen and I are friends. Good, solid, tried-and-true friends.

And while all those wonderful things about Kellen are 100% factual and true, there is something else you should know. 

Kellen is a heroin addict. 

For somewhere around fifteen years, he has battled many demons: 

using pretty much every street drug he can get his hands on, 

stealing from the people he loves, 

committing felonies, 

running from the police, 

destroying relationships with his loved ones, 

living a life of utter chaos.  

He's gone to rehab, experienced horrible withdrawals, sobered up, relapsed, run back to the streets, more times than he can count or even remember. 

He's been arrested, convicted of felonies, and served time in prison. 

He's told a shocking number of lies, in order to save himself from even deeper trouble. 

He's turned his life over to Jesus, then fallen away, over and over again. 

And I will tell you the honest truth. Sometimes it is hard to be Kellen's friend. It's hard to see him want to do the right thing in his life, only to struggle and fall down, time and time again. It's hard to watch him make the mistakes that addicts make, and know that I cannot fix him. It's hard to remind myself, over and over again, that he has to figure this out for himself. 

But of all the things I know about Kellen, this is the most true.

God loves him.

I have never in my life seen so many miracles fall into one person's life. 

I have no words to describe the wild twists and turns that happen in Kellen's life every week or so, that allow him to keep walking on a path toward sobriety.

I have observed countless times that when Kellen makes even a tiny effort to do the right thing, God takes his step forward and multiplies it, many times over, to bring good into Kellen's life, right when he needs it most. 

Lord knows Kellen hasn't yet reached his destination of sober living. But God seems utterly determined to remove the obstacles in his way and give him the second, third, fourth...twentieth, thirtieth, fortieth chances that he needs to keep on walking in the right direction.

And so if there is any one thing I would like you to know about my friend, Kellen, it's this:

His painful, chaotic, off-the-rails life is living proof, right before my very eyes, that 

no matter what we do wrong, 

no matter how far we fall,

no matter how many times we screw up, 

God loves us, far more than we can ever understand. 

Reading Insights

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Can you ever truly go home again? That's the question this second-rate journalist from a third-rate Chicago newspaper attempts to answer as she heads back to her podunk Missouri hometown to investigate a string of murders. Camille's broken family relationships, tendency to over-drink, obsession with cutting herself, and predilection for falling into bed with the wrong men notwithstanding, she eventually shaves away the distractions and gets at the truth. 

* * * * *

Without giving away too much, let me say that one of the central themes of this story explores the human need to be needed, and what happens when that desire runs unchecked. 

Interestingly, this question has been bubbling up in multiple places across my life this past week; I've stumbled across books, movies, and TV shows delving into different facets of this overwhelming need to be needed. Thankfully, the sources are all works of fiction, but they pose chilling and intriguing scenarios of how far adults - especially parents - will go to keep children in a state of prolonged dependency so that they, the grown-ups, can hold onto the feelings of connection and intimacy that come from caring for their vulnerable charges. 

While our storytellers spin out dramatic tales of poisonings, deceptions, and murder, the truth is that most adults must face this same painful transition in our everyday lives as parents.

We bring helpless infants into this world, literally unable to even hold their own heads up, let alone fend for themselves. For the next two decades, we devote ourselves tirelessly to protecting them, providing for them, pouring our hearts out to give them whatever they need. 

And then, in what feels like a snap of the fingers to us parents, our children grow up. They become capable, self-contained human beings and they no longer need us. 

Oh, of course, they still love us and enjoy the security we represent. They like having us around and even come to appreciate the ways we cared for them back in the day when they needed us. 

But once they are grown, our children don't need us any more. And as this book and the other stories like it caution us, we parents must never ever fool ourselves into thinking that they do. 

So what are we to do, we humans who need to be needed, once our children no longer need us?

Here is the best answer I have worked out so far. With God's blessing, we set our children free, and we carry on with our own lives to see where else in the world we might be needed. 

* * * * *

P.S. In case you're wondering, I did not buy this book. I borrowed it from my first-born which just goes to show that sometimes, I'm the one who needs her. 

* * * * *

Read more about what I've been reading:

Reading Afternoons

Reading Mornings

Reading Children's Books

Reading Memories

Reading Recommendations

Reading Inspiration
Reading Insights
Reading At The Pool
Reading About The Desert
Reading On Repeat
Reading Natalie Babbitt
Reading The Truth
Reading Books That Are Blue

* * * * *

Read more about what I've been reading:

Reading Afternoons

Reading Mornings

Reading Children's Books

Reading Memories

Reading Recommendations

Reading Inspiration
Reading Insights
Reading At The Pool
Reading About The Desert
Reading On Repeat
Reading Natalie Babbit
Reading The Truth
Reading Books That Are Blue
Reading Mysteries
Reading About Walking