Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that was going on inside himself.

He said, "My boy, the fight is between two wolves."

That certainly got the boy's attention.

"One is evil," the old man continued. "Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego."

"What of the other, grandfather?" the boy asked.

"The other is good," he said. "Joy, Peace, Love, Hope, Serenity, Humility, Kindness, Benevolence, Empathy, Generosity, Truth, Compassion and Faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Do we all have such wolves fighting inside us, grandfather?"

"Yes," the wise old man said.

"Then, which wolf wins the fight?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Thankful!

Late this morning, after a very nice brunch of pancakes, eggs, coffee and hot chocolate, we headed out into the Juniper forest east of town for a photo shoot. We loaded up in two Explorers; Jean and Jim, Colin and Melissa, Colin’s Mum Barbara, and Jude and Zane. And Buddy the Dog! And away we went.

We were all bundled up because the temperature was only about 38F and a cold wind was blowing gusts of chill on us. Cold as it was, we pressed on because we needed some holiday photos and were taking advantage of the opportunity of having Barbara Blackett here, completing both sides of the family.

We found a great spot with old-growth junipers and some great lava outcroppings for backgrounds. I did the photos with my digital SLR, Christmas gift from Jean last year and great inspiration to my interest in photography. Got some good shots that will go in scrapbooks and may well show up on family Christmas cards this year. Fun!

Then I thought about the fact that at this time last year Jean was limping badly from a knee injury to her left lateral meniscus that would require surgery the 3rd of December and was giving her a lot of pain. Buddy the Dog was lame from an injury to his left back knee that had torn his meniscus cartilage and partly severed his ACL. He would have surgery on December 4th just after Jean’s surgery, and have his leg repaired with monofilament nylon line. Does that make him a fishing dog?

Jean was off her feet for over a month, then for the year since the surgery she has had almost constant pain, worsened by walking. Today in the desert, she walked pain-free for the first time in over a year.

Today, Buddy the dog ran and sniffed and leaped up and down among the lava outcroppings and had such a great time. This evening he is limping slightly, but how great that he can still run and climb! He had a couple of doggie aspirins and is resting comfortably in front of the fire this evening.

I am so thankful for Jean’s and Buddy’s recovery. And that God provided the money for us to have the surgery done on him and that God provided the health insurance that allowed for Jean’s surgery and recovery!

I am so thankful for God’s faithfulness through this roller-coaster year of major changes we’ve come through. I’m thankful for continuing purpose, abundant provision, and a heart full of hopeful expectation for the year that’s just around the corner.

I’m thankful that Wednesday, November 11, my country and my community honored those of us who have served in America’s military forces in war. I’m thankful that I got to have a free lunch at Applebee’s restaurant on Veteran’s Day because I’m a Vietnam veteran.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to serve God and his people. I’m thankful for the way God has patiently and firmly led me through the dark valley between my then and my now.

This is the day I have been given. These are my thankful thoughts.

A Father's Laws

A Father's Laws Concerning Food and Drink

Household Principles

Lamentations of the Father

by Ian Frazier

Of the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the hoofed animals, broiled or ground into burgers, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cloven-hoofed animal, plain or with cheese, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cereal grains, of the corn and of the wheat and of the oats, and of all the cereals that are of bright color and unknown provenance you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the quiescently frozen dessert and of all frozen after-meal treats you may eat, but absolutely not in the living room. Of the juices and other beverages, yes, even of those in sippy-cups, you may drink, but not in the living room, neither may you carry such therein. Indeed, when you reach the place where the living room carpet begins, of any food or beverage there you may not eat, neither may you drink.

But if you are sick, and are lying down and watching something, then may you eat in the living room.

Laws When at Table

And if you are seated in your high chair, or in a chair such as a greater person might use, keep your legs and feet below you as they were. Neither raise up your knees, nor place your feet upon the table, for that is an abomination to me. Yes, even when you have an interesting bandage to show, your feet upon the table are an abomination, and worthy of rebuke. Drink your milk as it is given you, neither use on it any utensils, nor fork, nor knife, nor spoon, for that is not what they are for; if you will dip your blocks in the milk, and lick it off, you will be sent away. When you have drunk, let the empty cup then remain upon the table, and do not bite it upon its edge and by your teeth hold it to your face in order to make noises in it sounding like a duck; for you will be sent away.When you chew your food, keep your mouth closed until you have swallowed, and do not open it to show your brother or your sister what is within; I say to you, do not so, even if your brother or your sister has done the same to you. Eat your food only; do not eat that which is not food; neither seize the table between your jaws, nor use the raiment of the table to wipe your lips. I say again to you, do not touch it, but leave it as it is. And though your stick of carrot does indeed resemble a marker, draw not with it upon the table, even in pretend, for we do not do that, that is why. And though the pieces of broccoli are very like small trees, do not stand them upright to make a forest, because we do not do that, that is why. Sit just as I have told you, and do not lean to one side or the other, nor slide down until you are nearly slid away. Heed me; for if you sit like that, your hair will go into the syrup. And now behold, even as I have said, it has come to pass.

Laws Pertaining to Dessert

For we judge between the plate that is unclean and the plate that is clean, saying first, if the plate is clean, then you shall have dessert. But of the unclean plate, the laws are these: If you have eaten most of your meat, and two bites of your peas with each bite consisting of not less than three peas each, or in total six peas, eaten where I can see, and you have also eaten enough of your potatoes to fill two forks, both forkfuls eaten where I can see, then you shall have dessert. But if you eat a lesser number of peas, and yet you eat the potatoes, still you shall not have dessert; and if you eat the peas, yet leave the potatoes uneaten, you shall not have dessert, no, not even a small portion thereof. And if you try to deceive by moving the potatoes or peas around with a fork, that it may appear you have eaten what you have not, you will fall into iniquity. And I will know, and you shall have no dessert.

On Screaming

Do not scream; for it is as if you scream all the time. If you are given a plate on which two foods you do not wish to touch each other are touching each other, your voice rises up even to the ceiling, while you point to the offense with the finger of your right hand; but I say to you, scream not, only remonstrate gently with the server, that the server may correct the fault. Likewise if you receive a portion of fish from which every piece of herbal seasoning has not been scraped off, and the herbal seasoning is loathsome to you, and steeped in vileness, again I say, refrain from screaming. Though the vileness overwhelm you, and cause you a faint unto death, make not that sound from within your throat, neither cover your face, nor press your fingers to your nose. For even now I have made the fish as it should be; behold, I eat of it myself, yet do not die.Concerning

Face and Hands

Cast your countenance upward to the light, and lift your eyes to the hills, that I may more easily wash you off. For the stains are upon you; even to the very back of your head, there is rice thereon. And in the breast pocket of your garment, and upon the tie of your shoe, rice and other fragments are distributed in a manner wonderful to see. Only hold yourself still; hold still, I say. Give each finger in its turn for my examination thereof, and also each thumb. Lo, how iniquitous they appear. What I do is as it must be; and you shall not go hence until I have done.

Various Other Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances

Bite not, lest you be cast into quiet time. Neither drink of your own bath water, nor of bath water of any kind; nor rub your feet on bread, even if it be in the package; nor rub yourself against cars, nor against any building; nor eat sand.

Leave the cat alone, for what has the cat done, that you should so afflict it with tape? And hum not that humming in your nose as I read, nor stand between the light and the book. Indeed, you will drive me to madness. Nor forget what I said about the tape.

Complaints and Lamentations

O my children, you are disobedient. For when I tell you what you must do, you argue and dispute hotly even to the littlest detail; and when I do not accede, you cry out, and hit and kick. Yes, and even sometimes do you spit, and shout "stupid-head" and other blasphemies, and hit and kick the wall and the molding thereof when you are sent to the corner. And though the law teaches that no one shall be sent to the corner for more minutes than he has years of age, yet I would leave you there all day, so mighty am I in anger. But upon being sent to the corner you ask straightaway, "Can I come out?" and I reply, "No, you may not come out." And again you ask, and again I give the same reply. But when you ask again a third time, then you may come out.
Hear me, O my children, for the bills they kill me. I pay and pay again, even to the twelfth time in a year, and yet again they mount higher than before. For our health, that we may be covered, I give six hundred and twenty talents twelve times in a year; but even this covers not the fifteen hundred deductible for each member of the family within a calendar year. And yet for ordinary visits we still are not covered, nor for many medicines, nor for the teeth within our mouths. Guess not at what rage is in my mind, for surely you cannot know.

For I will come to you at the first of the month and at the fifteenth of the month with the bills and a great whining and moan. And when the month of taxes comes, I will decry the wrong and unfairness of it, and mourn with wine and ashtrays, and rend my receipts. And you shall remember that I am that I am: before, after, and until you are twenty-one. Hear me then, and avoid me in my wrath, O children of me.

[The Atlantic Monthly; February 1997; Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father; Volume 279, No. 2; pages 89-90]

My First Haiku - by Buddy the Dog

My first Haiku…
By Buddy the Dog

Dead bird in the sand
I roll luxuriantly

Boss will be so proud

Praying for Peace - Thomas Merton

Praying For Peace
Quoted from Thomas Merton
Seeds of Contemplation pp 117-118
Written in 1961

The principles which govern personal moral conduct, which make harmony possible in small social units like the family, also apply in the wider area of the state and in the whole community of nations. It is, however, quite absurd, in our present situation or in any other, to expect these principles to be universally accepted as the result of moral exhortations.

There is very little hope that the world will be run according to them, all of a sudden, as a result of some hypothetical change of heart on the part of politicians. It is useless and even laughable to base political thought on the faint hope of a purely contingent and subjective moral illumination in the hearts of the world’s leaders.

But outside of political thought and action, in the religious sphere, it is not only permissible to hope for such a mysterious consummation, but it is necessary to pray for it. We can and must believe not so much that the mysterious light of God can “convert” the ones who are mostly responsible for the world’s peace, but at least they may, in spite of their obstinacy and their prejudices, be guarded against fatal error.

Touching Elephant Story

Elephant Story

In 1986, Gary Williams was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Gary approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Gary worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Gary stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.. Gary never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Gary was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Gary and his son Josh were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Gary, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Gary couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Gary summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Gary's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly. Probably wasn't the same elephant.

Jo Ellen

Sunday morning I preached at a church in Boise, Idaho. A lady with multiple sclerosis, bent in her wheel chair, sat in the front row, as attentive to my words as her condition allowed. I could tell when my message really connected with her because her head bobbed back and she smiled. Often.

When the service finished, I went to her and introduced myself and asked her name. Her name is Jo Ellen. She lives in a body that keeps her alive but isn’t able to allow her to do all she’d like to do or express the thoughts and ideas of her excellent mind. How frustrating that must be!

Jo Ellen had some helpful and encouraging comments on my sermon! She didn’t speak very loudly and it took her a long time to form and speak her words. I leaned in close to hear her whisper and to watch her mouth shape the words so I could understand. I was glad it wasn’t as hard for me to say the words of the message as it was for her to express her thoughts about it. I don’t have the stamina or the courage.

As I listened carefully to Jo Ellen, I wondered how many times Father God has bent down close to me and watched my lips forming the words with difficulty and heard me struggle to speak my heart to him. How he loves us!

I can’t imagine life in Jo Ellen’s wheelchair. She’s a hero. I can imagine, however, my own God-aware spirit living in a body of flesh that so often refuses to cooperate. My spirit wants to do the good and noble and my body of flesh is so stubborn and uncooperative. My spirit has kind and wise things to say and my body of flesh mumbles and stammers and sometimes doesn’t speak at all.

I’m so thankful for that brief conversation with Jo Ellen on Sunday. She’s an excellent teacher!