Spreading love, joy, peace, faith & unity

Archive for August, 2018

Partners

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PARTNERS

Partners add dimension

To our self-focused lives.

They draw us out

To form a bigger circle.

If we are blessed indeed

With a loving partner who

Accentuates our strengths

And helps us build up

Our areas of weakness,

Then we have cause to

Celebrate with abandon!

Everyday is a gift

Of celebration with

My life-time partner,

Bob!

I wish for you
the blessing of
a “Bob”
in your life!!

It’ll Be Greater Later

I just heard Comedian Michael J say,

“It’ll be greater later,”

And I thought, “Wow!

What a great way to approach difficulties.”

Are you going through a trial period?

Michael J. suggests that we

Fast forward to the end of the story.

Imagine a positive outcome.

Find the good that can come of this.

Tell yourself, “It’ll be greater later.”

When I was in enormous pain

Following knee replacement surgery,

That mental attitude would have helped me.

The message was delivered to Pastor Ray

On his Facetime with Michael J

And it was broadcast via YouTube

On the daily Bayside Church devo called ReFuel.

Check it out!

Every day this week Pastor Ray,

Who just had knee replacement surgery,

Has interviewed a different joy-filled guy.

Inspirational ideas for how to find

Joy in the midst of pain

Have been shared by great guys like

My favorite joy-filled person:

Bob Goff (of “Love Does” fame).

“It’ll be greater later!”

Believe it. Hang in there!

Quote

Gifts Give

via Gifts Give

Gifts Give

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Gifts give to Giver

Gifts give to Receiver, too

Give to see gifts give

A Love Affair with Bostons

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Do you have a dog who has captured your heart?

TazE is our little Tasmanian Devil with an E for Ears. When she was a puppy in her kennel in Indiana, the folks there named her “Ears” because that part of her anatomy seemed to overpower everything else. All you saw were those enormous appendages sticking up on this wiggly little Boston Terrier. Living in a remote part of Montana, Boston Terrier puppies are nowhere to be found. So, I searched on-line and saw a picture of a batch of five sparkly, bright little pups all lined up in a row. The middle one had ears that stood up like antennae while the two pups on each side of her had the typical floppy puppy ears. It was love at first sight. We needed another Boston. We had just lost our five year old pup to cancer.

Following a long and grueling battle with cancer, Angela joined our Buster and Benjamin in the clover fields of heaven. She left a hole in our family that only another Boston might partially fill. If you’ve ever owned one of these little American ladies (or gentlemen), you’ll understand what I mean.

There is a part of my husband’s personality that only emerges when he has a playful black and white (or brindle and white) terrier to play with. He thinks Bostons are the only dogs that count. He wouldn’t consider another breed! When he was in high school, his girlfriend’s family had one. He remembers the dog always had a ball in his mouth, asking to play catch whenever Bob went to visit. That’s when his love affair with this breed began.

Before TazE, we had owned four Bostons in the 54 years of our marriage.  Each time one of our little angels died, that playful part of Bob died with them.

The first one, Buster, lived 13 years. His face was the kind only a mother could love: one eye surrounded by white hair was constantly bloodshot. The other eye, surrounded by black hair looked off to the side rather than straight ahead. His typical Boston nose, pushed in, looked like he’d been hit head-on by a truck. But, our son, Ty, and daughter, DeAna, loved him as much as Bob and I did. He was the family’s little king – and grew to a husky, muscular, strong little gentleman. He ruled the roost on Yale Drive in San Mateo, California.

At about the age of eight, Buster moved with us from the mild temperatures of the San Francisco Bay area back to our roots in California’s San Joaquin valley. To go for a swim, he didn’t even need the prompting of a tennis ball thrown in the pool. He had his own doggie door, so he’d exit the house into the fenced-in back yard and dive into the pool to cool off during the triple digit summer weather. Whoever was pool-side then endured his splashes because he insisted on coming right near the sunbathers to shake off!

We had a black and white cat to match our Buster. Tootsie and Buster usually played beautifully together, but sometimes Buster would get a bit too frisky or play a tad longer than Tootsie wanted. So she would tell him, “Enough’s enough” in no uncertain terms. Once her claws caught Buster’s blood-shot eye. It wasn’t healed yet when he walked into a rosebush and the eye was damaged further by a thorn. It got infected and wouldn’t heal. The vet finally decided to remove it. Having only one-eye didn’t slow him down, however. Buster and Tootsie were quite a pair! I think she died of a broken heart less than six months after the September morning when he dug under our fence, tried to follow our kids to school, and was hit by a car.

Our second Boston was Benjamin. He was brindle and white, with a lot of brown showing through the places on his torso where Buster had been a pure shiny black. His eyes were marked perfectly with black around each and a “monk’s cap” of white on his forehead. He loved to go with Bob out to our Bee Farm and ride with him on the truck to locations where the hives were placed in fields or orchards to pollinate the crops and gather nectar and pollen. I was teaching full time, Ty and DeAna were preoccupied with their high school activities, and Bob was busy as a beekeeper, so no one took the time to properly train Benjamin. “Come” was not in his vocabulary, nor was “Sit” or “Stay.” In spite of a collar and leash, he would somehow wiggle out of them to jump out the truck window if he saw a jack rabbit or something else he wanted to chase. More than one summer afternoon while Bob was working the hives, Benjamin would manage to free himself to chase something. Usually, he’d come back to where Bob was. Other times, however, he did not return. It seemed like Bob spent half his late afternoons looking for the dog before coming home dog tired. One time he came home without Benjamin. The next day he put up posters and put an ad offering a reward in the local newspaper near the spot where Benjamin had disappeared. He made the hundred mile round trip on the third day to look some more. No luck!

We always have our dogs spayed or neutered and have a chip inserted in case they should ever get lost. Our hope was that Benjamin was still alive and whoever found him would go to a vet who would check that chip. Sure enough, three days later we got a call. A farm family had found Benjamin, brought him to their local vet who read the chip and called us. The vet had seen the ad in the newspaper. The family wanted to keep Benjamin rather than receive the reward. No, we weren’t ready to give our pup away! In retrospect, however, maybe he would have been better off. He needed to be in some wide-open spaces where he could run and chase squirrels and rabbits to his heart’s content. He needed that young family with children who’d tussle with him daily. He met his demise one afternoon when a pack of stray dogs ran through our orchard. They were savvy. He wasn’t. They ran across the busy country highway avoiding the truck traffic. Benjamin didn’t. He was only three years old.

I knew we should not get another dog before I was free to go to Obedience School with the pup. It was unfair to have one if you didn’t have time to train him properly. Bob had said, “No more dogs… I can’t go through this agony of losing them anymore,” but I knew he missed having one as much as I did. Once you’ve had a Boston, life is incomplete without one. So, when summer came and I had three months when I could devote time to proper training, I found Angelo in a newspaper ad. It said there were Boston puppies six weeks old, born on a farm less than twenty miles from us, ready for adoption. I picked the friendliest one. He came bounding over to me, licked my face, and captured my heart.

Angelo had a long and happy life. He lived through many transitions, including our retirement. He died a natural death of old age. After Angelo came Angela, the one who died of cancer. But, like I said, if you have a part of your happiness wrapped up in your relationship with your dog, it won’t be long before you have to find another.

TazE came via U-Ship.com from Indiana. She’s was a wild and crazy, frisky puppy. I was determined to have an Angel. That was what I called her after I bought her on-line, before she arrived here. As soon as I met her, though, I knew she was no angel! She’s a little ball of energy and has a mind of her own. Taz for the Tasmanian Devil… that’s her! At eight years of age, TazE has calmed down some. She stops jumping with excitement about ten minutes after she receives company. Come visit! You’ll see. And she’ll capture your heart, too.

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Remaining Useful

When your hair is sparkling silver

And your chest is wrinkled skin,

How can your life be useful?

How can you keep your grin?

I’ll tell you all my secret –

It’s not too hard to know.

You have to find your niches

And stay useful as you grow.

You can’t let age impale you

And make you feel extinct.

You have to keep on growing

And keep your life distinct!

So find out where your passions

Lead you to volunteer –

And soon skin and hair tone

Will bring you cause to cheer!

It’s only when we’ve given

A life of service sincere

That we can join the chorus

In a heartfelt round of cheer.

We must resolve to remain useful.

We must share our time with glee.

Then the outer image fades away,

And our joy is all they see!

Unconditional Love

U ntil

N eeds

C olor

O n-going

N atural

D ecisions,

I t’s

T ime

I

O wn

N earsightedness

A nd

L earn

L ove

O penly

V isits

E veryone.

Even in my frustration, seeing my granddaughter doesn’t always insist that my great-grandson wear the glasses designed to correct his lazy eye problem, I must check my own vision. Am I so nearsighted that I fail to see her unconditional love? Am I so blind that I can’t recognize the fact that she’s doing her best? Am I so oblivious that I can’t observe her own struggles? Am I too judgmental to tilt the scales toward compassion? Lord, I hope not! What needs need to color my observations? What “natural decisions” need to be modified by unconditional love?

Maybe all of them. You think?

Sit down and play with those thoughts for awhile.

Teaching Children to Trust

Teaching Children to Trust

Intermountain began in 1909

And 900 children nowadays

Are daily helped by them

In a wide variety of ways.

Healthy relationships

Are the focus of the school.

Children learn to love –

Not just to obey each rule.

Children are taught to trust.

Often they’ve been mistreated.

They’ve missed stability;

Nurturing wasn’t meted.

Toxic stress causes many problems

As the child grows and learns.

Often root causes are not addressed.

Stability is what the child yearns.

Substance abuse is a symptom

Of an underlying cause.

Look behind the behavior.

Stop, think, pray, pause.

These are the notes I took as I listened to a message this morning in church from an Intermountain of Helena representative, Kathy Ramirez. She shared some information with us that I found surprising. Among the facts: the brain of a healthy, nurtured, loved three-year-old is 3x larger than the brain of a 3 yr. old who has not had a nurturing, loving environment.

A study recently conducted asked a group of prisoners to acknowledge whether any of these ten items had been a part of their early life:

1. Emotional abuse

2. Physical abuse

3. Sexual abuse

4. Observing abuse of a loved one

5. Substance abuse

6. Mental illness

7. Parental separation

8. Household member in prison

9. Physical neglect

10. Emotional neglect

Kathy revealed that 58% had one to three of them occur in their early life. There were 16% who had experienced four or more of them.

What does this tell us about the effects of trauma and toxic stress in children’s lives? And what can we do about it?

Places like Intermountain in Helena, MT provide safe havens for children. Education, counseling, unconditional love, and safety give children from abusive or neglectful homes a chance to learn to trust again.

Intermountain also provides in-home counseling. It works to help parents learn to live their lives in a way that makes them and their children safe and healthy.

What can we do? Find a place like Intermountain in your community and support their efforts. Every child deserves a safe, loving, healthy start in life.

If you were blessed with such a start, don’t forget to thank your parents. And pass it on!

95 Years of Life Lessons

Living Fully Every Day

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My 95 years young friend, Carol, was in the hospital. Her face lit up when I walked in. It was a joy to see her. We chatted about her recent birthday, the family who came from far and near to celebrate with her, and about my trip this year to visit our daughter and grandkids in Switzerland. I shared that one of my grandsons may come to live with us for a time – and how Bob & I look forward to sharing life with him for awhile.

I told Carol, “With eight decades of living under our belts, we find joy in sharing some of the pearls of wit and wisdom we’ve picked up along the path.”

I asked Carol if she would share some of her life lessons with me. I don’t think I was prepared for the depth of her sharing. But, as soon as she began, I knew I was in for a treat. I grabbed a paper and pen and asked her if she would mind if I took notes. Carol used to be a writer, too … but she finds it hard to set pen to paper these days. So, knowing I love to write, she grinned widely, and nodded.

“Here are some things I have learned as I’ve grown older:

  1. Life softens.
  2. Things aren’t so urgent.
  3. I can fall in love at all ages.
  4. Life constantly changes – be open!
  5. It takes judgement to realize the possibilities life holds.
  6. We’re happier if we count our blessings.
  7. Our lives become more dimensional with years.
  8. Love is huge!
  9. We all must take responsibility for ourselves and our actions.
  10. . Life comes together in a natural and beautiful way.”

I read her list of life lessons back to her – choking up more than once in the process of doing so. Such wisdom! Such articulation!

“I want to be you when I grow up,” I told her. “I hope I can learn and internalize those lessons as beautifully as you have done.”

Carol and I hugged – and as I left her, she called after me, “It all comes down to living fully every day.”

May you, my dear blogging friends, live fully every day, too. Reach out to a loved one and ask, “What have you learned as you’ve grown older?” Their answers may surprise you.

Share one of your life lessons with me today.

Venture Out!

Doors and gates are ways

To enter and to go out –

Don’t remain inside.

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