God or Coincidence?

Life is full of those weird moments when you wonder what the heck is going on - like when a friend calls on the phone at just the moment you were thinking about them, or you find $20 in the washing machine as you are whining about no money for that cafe mocha from Starbucks, or the perfect song plays while your ipod is on shuffle, or there is a snow day at school on the only day that you have not finished your homework. I think you get the picture. The question is, are these occurrences happenstance or are they the work of the Divine hand? I suspect that at one time or another, everyone has entertained this question. What do you think?

The youth minister at our church has been called to another position so as the kids begin the new year, they are without a youth minister. In the interim, four of the teenagers will unite to lead the group until the position is filled permanently. One of the things that the youth group does when they gather on Wednesday evenings is direct theological questions to the youth minister. He answers and then entertains discussion in the group. He is now trying to prepare the four youth leaders to respond to such questions from their peers.

Erin is one of the youth leaders and her question this week dealt exactly with the question at hand - is it coincidence or is it God? She responded by saying that if you are always looking for God then you will always find him/her. If you're not looking then you won't. Does that then make it coincidence? If you believe in the power of God can anything be coincidence?

Coincidence is defined by dictionary.com as two or more events occurring at the same time presumably by mere chance. Presumably? That does not help us here. Why is that word "presumably" even in the definition? Presumably means that I have to presume that things happened due to mere chance. Presume based on what? Based on the fact that God is too busy to worry about manipulating the shuffle on my ipod, too busy to make sure my kids leave their money in the pocket of their jeans rather than in the wallets, or too busy to keep track of my neediness factor so that He can nudge a friend to call at just the right time? What if I don't presume anything?

To presume means to take for granted or assume without any warrantable evidence. What am I taking for granted if I assume that something is purely coincidental? There is a God? There is no God? This definition of coincidence conjures up more questions than answers.

The academic in me loves wallowing in the questions, but the realist wants some answers, some good answers. What information do I need to determine if something is God or coincidence? As I sit here thinking about this, I realize that there is no information, or studying, or innate knowledge that will help me make sense of this question. Proof, one way or the other, does not exist.

In the absence of concrete data, I have to turn to faith, faith in a divine being, faith in God. Once I rely on my faith, the answer seems so simple. Nothing happens without God's hand setting it in motion. Therefore, unless God is out sourcing and the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing, for me, there is no such thing as coincidence. These strange occurrences now become not coincidences but signs from God. Perhaps they are like those orange road signs that say Caution. Work Zone.

Life With A Math Nerd

Every parent has experienced at least one of those moments when their child says something that makes you think what the heck is wrong with that kid. Did I do something to damage this kid's psyche so badly that she feels that these things are normal? The bizarreness of such things is multiplied logarithmically when the kid is a math nerd masquerading as a drama queen. Or is it a drama queen masquerading as a math nerd? Honestly, this really doesn't matter. The upshot is still one peculiar teenager.

Here's the proof.

NUMBER ONE
Me: You need to reset your alarm clock. It is not correct, probably because of the pwer outages last night due to the storm.
Nerd: There's nothing wrong with my clock.
Me: Yes there is. It is two hours and fifteen minutes ahead.
Nerd: I set it that way.
Me: Why?
Nerd: Because I like to do the mental math to figure out what time it really is when I wake up in the morning.

NUMBER TWO
Nerd: Will you turn the radio up?
Me: Can you really not hear it?
Nerd: Yes, I can hear it, but it is set on "4".
Me: And . . .
Nerd: It bothers me when the volume is not set to multiples of five.

NUMBER THREE
Nerd: Can I order two pancakes?
Server: They come in orders of three or five.
Nerd: But I only want two.
Me: Well then just eat two.
Nerd: I like my food to be served in twos.
Me: Like Noah's ark?
Nerd: Exactly. Forget the pancakes. How many tacos come in an order?
Server: Three.
Nerd: Can I have a turkey sandwich cut in half?
Server: Mayo or mustard?
Me: Or both?

Around here we have five animals, two kids, and a DVD player that constantly blinks 12:00. Does any of this make me responsible for the idiosyncracies of my little math nerd? I'm proud to claim her and all her weird numeric eccentricities.

Is It Real Or Is It A Bad Dream?

Sometimes the stars in the heavens align and there are strange intersections of thoughts and images. So was the case this morning.

Here is the background. My younger child has been in Cozumel, Mexico for nearly a week on a mission trip with our church's youth group. Most such trips are geared towards humanitarian aid. This one, however, is focused on environmental issues. They have cleaned up beaches, helped build for the local SPCA and, the highlight of the trip, rescued sea turtles. (I hope to post some pictures from her trip when she gets home tomorrow.) The kids have been sharing their adventures through daily blog posts. I, like most of the parents, have been reading faithfully and turtles are on my mind.

Here is another piece of necessary information. Contrary to what my pantry fridge looks like, we are not big drinkers around here. Because my house is often the locus for informal gatherings to which people bring their favorite spirits and neglect to take them home with them, there is no shortage of alcohol around here. Rarely do I indulge, but last night I did. Because I don't drink very often, it doesn't take much to do me in. Suffice it to say that I had several cans of beer and I was not anxious to get up this morning.

The important information here is turtles in Mexico and not being terribly coherent early this morning.

The dogs wanted to go out a little before 8:00. I figured they would run around for a while and then scratch to come in. That always wakes me up so I went back to bed once I had let them out. But, it was not the dogs wanting in that woke me up. I had this sense that someone was looking at me. I rolled over and sure enough looming over me was my older daughter, who appeared to have a turtle in her hands. For a brief moment, I thought I was dreaming until she said, "Mama, I rescued a turtle!" Sure enough, the rescued turtle was now looking me in my bleary eyes. Once i realized that this was not a dream, I became fully engaged in this turtle's plight.

Seemingly, Brooke heard a funny noise outside. It turned out to be the dogs, two of ours and the neighbor dog who thinks he lives here, playing Keep Away or some other canine playground game with a turtle. It is not uncommon for the dogs to fetch empty turtle shells from the pond, so Brooke assumed that this too was an uninhabited shell. When she removed it from the dog's mouth, she saw moving legs and turtle eyes, which I must say were much more alert than mine. For some reason, she left the dogs outside and brought the turtle inside to consult with me about what to do with him . . .or possible her. (I'm not sure how to tell with a turtle.) All three dogs were waiting on the deck for Brooke to return to them their morning catch. That was not going to happen.

I let the dogs in one door and she and the turtle went out another, headed for a place of turtle respite, the pond. In the time that Brooke was gone, the dogs settled down and went back to sleep as did I. I'm not sure how long I had been asleep when Brooke again waked me to tell of all her experiences while shepherding the turtle to safety.

She told me about the sounds of many unhappy cows. The cow noises were accompanied by howling so I suspect a pack of coyotes was looking for a Big Mac for breakfast. She also found a partially gnawed on femur, which she assumed was from a previous cow. Then there was the tree frog that hopped across her path. I guess that while living in the big city of Chicago she had forgotten all the wonders of country life. This morning was a reminder. The ironic thing here is that it is usually me who is up early and her that doesn't realize that the morning has hours that are followed by "AM".

All in all, this was a strange picture of happenstance.

Disappointment

I went to Austin Friday afternoon for a meeting that started this morning. Austin has some wonderful restaurants and bookstores so a little extra time in our capital city is aways enjoyable. Austin is also known for having the largest urban bat colony. At dusk, millions of bats emerge from under the bridge in the middle of the city creating a black cloud on the skyline.

I have seen the bats fly several times before so I decided that this weekend I was going to go to the lake Friday night and take pictures. By 8:30 I was among many others with cameras waiting to photograph this amazing sight. As dusk approached, I could hear parents telling their fidgety children to keep watching. The bats would fly any minute now. At the far side of dusk, we began to see a few bats move from under the bridge. With that, cries of "their starting" came. The entire crowd watched and waited, and waited, and waited. The sun had completely set and dusk had officially turned to night. No bats. No pictures.

I really was not in the mood to be disappointed, but that is exactly where I found myself. I took a lone stroll along the edge of the lake and stared across at the Austin skyline. It really was beautiful, but I wanted to see the bats. That was not going to happen.

Before I gave up, I took this picture.

I wonder, was he as disappointed by the absent bats as I was?

Equality

Not long ago I was knitting with a relatively new friend (we have known each other since January) and I made some comment about my house being covered in dog and cat hair. She stiffened her back and said, "I didn't know that you have a cat. All you ever talk about is the dogs." The truth is that I have three cats (only two dogs) and the dogs do get more air time. This speaks well for the cats. The dogs usually get more air time because they always doing something bad.

Whatever the reason, I am going to try and give the cats their due time. Like I said, I have three - a female that we got from an adoption event and two male litter mates that Brooke found as tiny kittens abandoned on a soccer field.


This is Blair, one of the boys. He is shy but affectionate. Blair spends most of his time in my closet nestled in the sweaters. He greets me every morning in the bathroom while I get dressed and again at night when I get ready for bed. He is definitely a hider. Every now and then he ventures into my office where all the other animals hang out. Even then, as you will notice in these pictures, he still doesn't want to be seen.

Cambridge is the one female. She is almost too affectionate, always wanting to be in your lap or on your shoulder or in your face, especially when you are trying to sleep. Any time I am at my desk she is right there overseeing everything that I write.
She is also the one who is responsible for all typos and extraneous characters in any of my blog posts. She likes to have control of the track ball. You should try working while the cat is moving the cursor and stepping on the buttons. There are days when what I write looks like some language that has yet to be discovered. Maybe that's it. Cambridge has the next great novel inside and is looking for help to get it on paper.
Spencer is Blair's litter mate. Like my kids, they are like night and day. Spencer is without question an "E" on the Meyers-Briggs. He has to be in the middle of everything - the table, the kitchen counter, the dogs, knitting. He loves hand knit things. When we are sitting at the table with a project spread out, he pulls a little corner for himself to lay on. Wool is his favorite, but in a in a pinch any fiber will do. He loves to play with the dogs. It works OK because if the going gets tough he can always retreat to higher ground. I think that he may have been a dog in a former life because he has more dog traits than cat.
Spencer has a beautiful face. He does not like full body shots because he had an unfortunate encounter last year when he, an inside cat with no front claws, decided to try his luck in the outdoor world. That didn't work so well for him. Spencer found himself about 15 feet up in a Mesquite tree but not before a dog had stripped about a third of his tail. He

ended up with half of a tail. Fortunately he has suffered no self esteem problems.

So, that is the feline family. Equality has been restored.

The Writing On The . . .Collar

After the surgery on my arm last week, I was sent home with a list of instructions, some of which pertained to the day of the surgery and others were more long term. Some of their suggestions were:

• Rest as much as possible in the first 24 hours
• Don't make any important decisions in the first 24 hours after having anaesthesia
• Don't get the wound wet for 10 days
• Don't lift anything over ten pounds for ten days (until the stitches have disolved and the steri-strips are removed
• Stay out of the sun

Some around me may try to convince you that I am not a very good patient, that I don't follow directions, and that I am stubborn. I don't know how I gave anyone these impressions. I did my best to follow all of the doctor's orders. Really. I did.

When we got home from the hospital I settled myself in the recliner with the hope of watching a little TV. (Obviously I don't watch daytime TV enough or I would have known that this was an ill-fated plan; there was absolutely nothing worth watching.) After Jeopardy, it was downhill. By the time the final jeopardy question had been answered everyone at my house but me was asleep. I did what anyone would do in such a situation. I turned to the Internet for a little retail therapy. I did this in an effort to follow doctor's orders. Let me explain.

The surgeon basically said that any direct exposure to sunlight was too much for me. So I decided that I needed some long sleeved shirts that did not make me look like I was "climate challenged". I am particularly fond of a specific brand of linen clothing. I have bought a few of their pieces in local retail shops, but I wanted to see the whole line. We all know that the Internet doesn't disappoint. I found a great website with exactly what I what I was lokking for. So far I have not violated any rules given to me by any member of the medical establishment. Using the computer requires no lifting. SInce the surgery was on my left arm and I am right handed, the arm in question was able to rest comfortably on a pillow with its form-fitting velcro ice pack attached.

In placing my order, I did not force myself to make any important decisions. Instead of troubling myself with choosing between two colors of shirts, I just ordered two. Decision making process averted!

The shipment came at the end of last week, and weighed less than ten pounds, so again I was well within the established guidelines when I carried it from the front porch to the table to open it. When I pulled the shirts from the box, I instinctively looked at the tags in the collar to make sure that they had sent the correct size, which they had. I noticed that in addition to the label that had the brand name, fiber content, size, and laundering instructions, there was a second tag. It read, "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams." This is one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite authors, Henry David Thoreau. I was pleasnatly surprised to find these words of wisdom bound in the neckband of my shirt, but I did wonder when this company started doing this. None of their other pieces that are hanging in my closet have such tags. Or do they? I headed for my closet just to see. (Note: This is seven days after my surgery so rest is no longer being perscribed.) I was wrong, They all had one. Little did I know that each time I have worn these things, I have carried with me a few gems of wisdom. The sayings include:

• "Simple is superb."
• "I am not stuck with anything unless I stick with it."
• "I am legendary."
• "Love prevails."

Now I notice these tags as I am getting dressed. As I make my way through the day, stopping to breath and reflect on the words in the day's collar helps me to refocus in moments where my mind is wandering. On laundry day, while folding and hanging, I have another chance to savor these thoughts.

Most of us were taught of the necessity to read the care labels on our clothing when we left home. Instructions such as DRY CLEAN ONLY, wash with similar colors, lay flat to dry, wrinkles are a natural element of this fabric, are essential to the proper care and feeding of your wardrobe. With my new favorite clothing manufacturer, reading the labels is also essential to the proper care and feeding of the soul and spirit.

An Amazing Poem

This poem is also from Jeff Rockwell's book
Making Friends With The Dust.

One thing at a time

Our progress will never make it possible
for us to fly with our arms open
flapping in the air.
What it can do, however,
is inspire us to do
one
holy
mindful
thing
at a time.

Nothing more needs to be said here.