TW: death of dog, grief

Buzz was put down today. We'd known it was coming for a long time - he'd been rescued from a kill shelter (where he'd been sent for aggression), then lived with a trainer for several months before we adopted him. We knew there was a risk of him reoffending, but saw no sign of it for the first few months. Then he attacked two of our kids' friends, and we started looking for a new home for him.  We found nobody. Then he started guarding me, protecting me from my own kids and Eevee, and it was too dangerous to wait any longer. But we still waited, and he grew more and more aggressive.

This week he really ramped up the guarding and lunging and we knew it was too risky to wait any longer. I spoke with the vet and we decided today would be the day.  I kept the kids home from school so we could have one last glorious truly happy day with him.

We fed him meatballs for breakfast, and Vava and Pascal and I bundled up to take him and Eevee for a walk in their favourite woods. After that, we planned go come home, get the other 2 kids, and take the dogs to the drive thru for puppaccinos, before giving Buzz his chill meds, having one final cuddle, and taking him to the vet.

The woods were so beautiful it hurt. We found a clearing and unleashed the dogs to romp. I took pictures of the kids. The dogs ran in and out of our sight, but stayed nearby.

Then Eevee came back, and Buzz didn't. He kept barking an urgent call, three short loud barks followed by a higher pitched yelp. It didn't sound like pain, exactly, but something was off. I shook the treats in vain - nothing was luring that dog away from wherever he was. 

So we braved the branches and got as close as we could, and saw that he had treed something - something biggish, and trembling - and then we saw Buzz's face.

He hadn't just treed the porcupine, he had taken a bite of it too. He looked like some sort of horror movie monster, forepaw and muzzle all a-snarl with quills.

He did not want to leave his porcupine, but when he saw us coming after him he limped in our direction. I tried to carry him but it just made him overflow with fear. So I called the vet, who told us to bring him in and they would move up his euthanasia.

He did so well, walking to the van. He didn't cry or howl, just wobbled along on three paws and occasionally stopped to paw at the quills.

We video-called Sam and Kachi so they could say goodbye, and then we drove to the vet. The kids stayed in the van with Eevee while I took Buzz in. 

I held him while he received his injections, and he laid his head in my lap while his heartbeat slowed and then stopped. His body remained, but he was gone.

I went outside and asked the kids if they wanted to say goodbye, and they did, and we brought Eevee with us too. We all trooped in and they asked me questions while Eevee walked around the room and sniffed. 

And then we went outside to discover that Pascal had been playing with the van's locks and the keys were locked inside.

The porcupine, the euthanasia, and now the locked van. We cried while we waited for the tow truck.

It was a grey and tearful afternoon.

Tonight, though, when we were going out for groceries, Vava and I ran into her teacher.

"I'm going home to light a candle on my -" he prompted.

"Menorah!" Vava filled in. And she told me about Hanukkah as we loaded the groceries into the van and drove home.

And on this sad and hard day, it was very strengthening to be reminded of the miracle of light: one day's worth of oil that burned for eight days. Hope, and comfort, and God's care. 

I needed that.

I pray for the same for my kids as we grieve. For inexplicable light in the dark, and for God's comfort in sorrow, far beyond what we expect. 

And for you, too - may his light shine in your darkness, for days and days after your own has gone out.

Happy Hanukkah, friends. 

Xo.

PS did you know Jesus celebrated Hanukkah in Jerusalem? Check out John chapter 10, verse 22.

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free

Today at school I was helping a little boy put on his shoe. I can't even remember why it happened, because we have no Ollies in our class, but I said "Ollie Ollie" and he singsonged "Oxen Free!" in reply.

And while my body was a 41 year old teacher, for a moment I was a kid running through my neighbour's yard, playing hide and seek in the dark, shivers screaming down my spine as I tried to get Home without being tagged. It will surprise zero percent of you to know I was not a fast runner, not good at evading whoever was It. Once they spotted me, I was lost. My only hope was being a good hider, and hope that whoever was It didn't come close enough to hear my asthmatic accordion breathing.  The sweet call of Ollie Ollie Oxen Free was music to my ears.

We had lots of fun and old fashioned phrases in our family, but Ollie Ollie Oxen Free wasn't one of them. That one, we learned in the neighbourhood. Whoever was It would sing it out after they'd caught everyone they could find, and everyone who was still unfound could come Home.

I googled it, and wikipedia says it may be derived from "all ye, all ye, outs in free." Everyone who's still out there gets to come home free - no tags, no loss.

I love kids games. I love how they can be complicated or simple, packed with repetition, and so arbitrary and serious.

This week our kids have had a screen break. They had too much screentime last week, and so we made them entertain themselves elsewhere this week.

This week, they've played a lot of boggle, sequence, and Monopoly. They've made posters, books, calendars, cartoons, lists. They've made snowmen and helped cook and read books and invented games and played Mastermind. Honestly, it's been awesome. They've worn out a brand new pack of markers and are having a hoot together.

I woke up one morning to hear them counting down in unison, Three, Two, One ... and then a cacophony as they each shrieked a colour. If any of them happened to yell the same colour as another player, they won.

Tomorrow, we'll have to play hide and seek so I can teach them to call Ollie Ollie Oxen Free.

Christmas is kind of that same sort of cry. All ye, all ye outs in free! Jesus came for all the outs - not for the healthy, wealthy, and wise. He came to the lame, the poor, the helpless. He came for the wheezy kid who was no good at running, and for the kid who could run but was too shy to play. He came in for all the outs. For those with no home. For those with unsavoury ancestors. For those from small towns in the middle of nowhere (He came for Smiths Falls!). 

He came to invite us all home.

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free!

xo.

In a dream

When Joseph found out Mary was pregnant and he thought she had slept with another man, the Lord sent him an angel in his dreams.

When the wise men had found Jesus, the Lord sent them home via a different route, by warning them in a dream. 

When the wise men left, an angel of the Lord warned Joseph in a dream to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt, and to wait there until he told them to come back.

While they were gone, Herod executed an evil plan to kill any baby who was born around the time of the star's appearance. When Herod died, the angel told Joseph to return to Israel.

When they got back to Israel, he was warned again, not to go to Judea but to Nazareth, and so they settled in Nazareth.

Can you imagine the excitement? The way that would make you feel about sleep? "Gonna fall asleep later; might chat with the angel of the Lord, idk." 

Joseph and Mary weren't priests, they weren't prophets, but they received and accepted the word of the Lord.

And I just love that God soaked this story with examples of himself reaching out to people directly, without the aid of a priest or system. He met them in their dreams - so personally, so intimately. Because that's what he was showing us with Jesus, with His Word made flesh and dwelling among us: this is who He is, and we do not need any other priest when we have His Son who tore the veil away and gave us all intimate, personal access to God. 

Merry Christmas, friends. 

And sweet dreams :) xo.

Someday you will

And someday you will.

All the times you've squirmed with a sense of injustice and if only -

The way you've longed for a place you've never seen -

The moments when it seems so close and just out of reach, like the real world when you're trapped in a dream and you know it's not right - if you could just wake up -

And someday you will.

Like a child on a still-dark Christmas morning, you will wake up.

And you will step hesitantly onto the landing of forever. You will listen, and pause, awash with hope and so incredibly ready for joy.

And your heart will have reached its long home.

The medium is the message

One of my singer-songwriter friends recently shared one of her new songs with us. 

It's gorgeous.

The lyrics are about looking around, and looking inward, and then looking at oneself with compassion and grace and forgiveness.

The music starts out slow, then picks up speed, and then weaves multiple tunes over and under one another - the rhythm and tune evoke the feelings of rumination, of understanding, and then illumination. 

Marshall McLuhan would have loved it. "The medium," my favourite Canadian philosopher said, "is the message."  

I love that phrase because it's so deliciously true.

The medium
is the message.

And it's not just an alliterative, cutesy phrase - it really is the way we receive information, its the way we learn and make sense and categorize things in our heads. 

The medium matters because it IS the message.

When someone yells at you, the message you're receiving is that they think you deserve to be yelled at. No matter what they're saying, you get the message.

When someone offers you a kind compliment in a joyful, warm manner, the message you receive is the warmth that they're offering. If they said something positive about you in a curt tone or snide voice, you would receive the message loud and clear that they hold you in disdain. The medium - the way they convey their message - is the message. 

And tonight when I was awash in shivers at the gorgeous confluence of music and lyrics, I was asking myself - why is this so right? Why does this touch my soul so deeply? And it was exactly that: the medium matched its message exquisitely.

And Jesus - 

He is the medium, and the message. 

God said "I am with you."

And dwelt among us. 

My heart reverberates with the joy and the beauty of it.

God with us. God with us. God with us. 

Merry Christmas, dear friends.
xo.

Straw

The envy of kings

The starriest thing

The babe that sent wise men a-wandering

The one who was odd 

Born of a woman and God

And set prophets and priestesses pondering,

They laid his sweet head

In a haphazard bed

While a star shone afresh in the night sky.

He nestled in straw

Did they sleep? Did they aww?

Did his dad stay awake to shoo fruit flies?

Was there a line of onlookers

Or some Bethlehem hookers

Bringing his spent mom a hot plate?

Did she curl up on the floor

And sleep deeply and snore?

Or did she worry, and hover, and stay up late?

The only details the story gives us are these: 

She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. (Luke 2:7)

If I was writing this, there are so many more things I'd want to include. Who helped at the birth? Was Mary terrified? Did Joseph faint like the dads in those 1930s movies, or was he helpful, or nowhere nearby at all?

Bethlehem was crowded, and there were probably lots of other people who couldn't find a place to sleep too. Did they get in the way? Did they share food? Did Mary tell any of them about the angel's visit and her cousin's baby?

 

But Luke, instead, just tells us this.

He was wrapped in strips of cloth, and he was laid in a manger.

When I am grasping at straws

It shifts something in me

To remember his first sleep

Was on a bed of straw.

The one who won't break a bent reed

Bent, himself, so low

To say lo, I am with you

(I am! with you!)

Always.

With Our Real Eyes

I've been feeling cranky and harried lately, rushed and scowly and looking at the sour side of things. I mentioned it to a friend and she sympathized. "I know that feeling," she said, "when you just need more Jesus." 

Every now and then, when we're talking about Jesus, Sam will sigh. "I just wish I could be one of the people that got to see him. Not with my heart" -- he adds quickly, knowing what his predictable mama might say -- "but with my actual eyes."

And if I'm smart, I don't say anything else at all.

I don't tell him that Jesus called us blessed (those of us who believe without seeing him).

I don't tell him that having the Comforter - unbound by flesh and blood and omnipresent, always - is better.

When I'm paying attention, I don't say anything at all.

That longing, this longing, this feeling of needing and wanting more, is universal. It's not satisfied by platitudes or metaphors or substitutions -

We live in a world that teems with life and glory. Just think of the softness of a newborn puppy.  The wonder of northern lights. The crash of an angry sea against sharp rocks, the purr of a rushing tide. The scent of wild violets, the smooth tumble of lupins against your palm. The slap of a beaver tail in the water, the papery rustle of old cattails in the breeze. The joy of loving and being loved, the fireworks in your heart after shared laughter, the sheer relief of fresh air when you step out of a stuffy room ...

The world is full of wonder and delight and awe, and yet - 

We long, we ache, we pine.

When I am at my best, I let him sit with that longing, because it's beautiful. It's the longing of generations. 

It's the longing that we remember every time we mark advent: the longing of a world waiting for Jesus.

From the first sigh that spilled out in sorrow, to Zechariah's song of hope*, we have longed for our Redeemer, our rescuer. 

We long for him still. We long to see him with our real eyes.

Merry Christmas, friends.

Xo.

* the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace. (from the book of Luke, chapter 1, verses 78&79)

A Love Note

A little girl ran up to me and crushed a paper into my hand. "Read it," she begged, covering her eyes. "It's so inappropriate!"

I unfolded the looseleaf.

I was holding a real live love note. A billet doux. Blue ink scrawled across the top half of the page, boldly unveiling the raw depths of a beautiful heart.

Its enormity was not lost on me. It was breathtakingly sweet.

"How is this inappropriate?" I asked gently.

"I'm way too young for falling in loooove," she moaned, "and he is TWO GRADES ahead of me! And - just - ew!"

I offered to deliver her definite no in person, which gave her unsettled feelings relief.

He took it well, and, understanding that a coerced consent is no consent at all, did not bother her again.

As for me, it's one of the loveliest things I've ever read. It echoes in my heart often, and I repeat it to Patrick and the kids whenever my heart overflows.

Tonight, I learned that the writer of the note died today as the result of a car crash. He leaves behind a young wife and two small children. He leaves behind siblings and parents and family and friends whose hearts are flooded with grief and longing and loss.

And he leaves behind this beautiful line -

 

Your face is the sunshine to me.

I think he might also take it with him, and speak it aloud when He sees the son of God. 

Your face is the sunshine to me.

May your hearts be full, and may your lips be bold to speak the words you've been given, on earth and in heaven. 

Merry Christmas, my friends.

Xo.

For freedom

A gazillion years ago (or probably 16), our friend Dan recommended a series of books to Patrick. He started reading them, then I joined in halfway through the second book, and together we read through the series of thirteen books.

Recently it's been made into a show, and we've been watching the second season.

In the episode we watched tonight, several characters had some enormous realizations about themselves - about who they are. One tempest-tossed character had no memories of himself, of his actions, and walked in fear of what his inner qualities might be. Does he land on the side of good or ill? Is he a bad guy, or a good guy?  And, not knowing, he is scared to act and possibly wreak evil on the world.

And in tonight's episode, when his memory is restored, he realizes he has all along been good, and he is flooded with joy and purpose. He runs. He fights. He rescues.

It reminded me of that scene in Moana, where Moana and Te Ka realize that Te Ka is not actually a monster of fire and lava, but a creature flowing with life - only, her heart had been stolen and left her aching and raging. She isn't Te Ka at all, but Te Fiti. She needed to be restored to her true self.

I grew up believing worm theology - that I was bad and evil and full of rottenness, and I needed Jesus to give me His value so that I would be valued. But I now believe that was wrong.

I read a different story in the Scriptures.

We were created good. We were created with value. We were created to create and speak and sing and laugh and tell stories and listen. 

Sin steals our true hearts. It hides our memories and makes us afraid. It leaves us tempest-tossed and purposeless.

But Jesus came to restore all things. To restore. To redeem, to set right, to set free, to remind us of who we were created to be, and who we were created to be with. To replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh - warm and caring and beautifully human. Whole.

So writer, write.

Singer, sing.

Worshiper, worship.

Listener, listen.

Caregiver, care.

He has set us free for freedom. 

Go, walk in it.

Xo.

A Little Extra

It was a busy evening where I had multiple commitments all stacked atop one another after a full day of work, and lots of heavy feelings weighing me down. I was so hungry for some solitude and a good cry.

But my girl messaged me.

She had come home from a happy time at a friend's house, and in the first 10 minutes of being home everything had gone wrong, and her kind Papa had asked if she was okay.

"Okay?! Okay?!" she texted, "no, I am NOT okay!"

I don't always get it right. (I usually say the wrong thing that sends her upstairs to punch her pillow and scrawl furiously in her journal.) But God must have given me the right words because in a few moments she was in the driveway in my arms, and we drove out to Dairy Queen for a blizzard. Night had fallen and driving in the dark, even with a mouthful of ice cream, makes for good conversation.

When we got home, I had to get to work. Unprompted, she apologized to Papa for her storms, then pulled her chair into my room and we did our work side by side at my teensy desk.

"You are so precious to me," she said, leaning her head on my shoulder.

After a while, she went off to bed and I kept working. A few minutes ago I finally submitted my article, stood up, stretched, and noticed the two chairs at my desk. 

My heart overflowed.

My evening didn't go the way I'd expected, nor even the way I'd hoped.

It went, oddly, much better. 

I always crave ease or solitude when my heart hurts. But sometimes what it needs is a little shift of focus, a little extra tenderness, and a little extra ice cream.

Sweet dreams, friends.

A post in which I sympathize with a tree because I, too, like to be naked.

There's this one tree in the park that always changes colour in August, ages before we're ready to even think about the end of summer. 

It has always made me a little mad, to be honest - stop rushing into the sadness! I would think. The long bare winter will come soon enough; let's enjoy summer and fall a little longer, a little slower. Keep those beautiful leaves another month or two.

We're only midway through September and she's already half naked. But somehow instead of making me sad, it struck me that she was enjoying this.

You know that feeling you get when you're out at some glorious event, wearing your beautiful clothes? And it's wonderful and you're enjoying yourself so much, but also at the back of your mind is the knowledge that soon you will experience the delight of kicking off your pretty (but too squeezy) shoes. You will take off that dream of a dress and draw a breath of relief.

And it struck me that this tree might love losing her leaves in exactly the same way. 

Maybe she is stripping down and shaking free and kicking away her uncomfortable shoes in a glad little dance of bliss. Maybe she's glad to shake out those leaves like I pull out hairpins and let down my hair. 

Maybe she isn't sad that winter is coming - maybe she's looking forward to the brisk wind against bare branches, with nothing at all between her and the wide blue sky.  

And by this time of course I know I'm not thinking about leaves or a tree but myself, and maybe this is what I love about getting older, why I was so happy to hit 40 last fall --

Maybe as I'm older I'm glad to be a little more myself every year, to be a little less who I think other people expect me to be and a little more true to who I am. Maybe I'm kicking off the weight of expectations gladly, and maybe I, too, want to hold up my own undecorated branches just as they are in the light of the wide blue forever. 

Maybe stripping off the colours isn't sad at all. Maybe it's bliss. Maybe it's freedom.

I Saw Something New

I saw something new tonight,

Walking home at the end of a warm ramble.

A cool rain began to fall

And from the hot asphalt

Captured in the sweep of headlights passing

A thin and lacy steam rose slow and low

Like ghosts of mushrooms from the road 

An unexpected delight 

That I have never seen before.

Maybe it was just the right angle and

Just the right temperature of road and rain or

Maybe it's always been there and

Maybe I've always had my eyes closed

Dizzily inhaling petrichor,

But I would just like to write it down 

Against the times I am feeling like existence has grown stale,

And all its riches have worn thin, wrung out and been hung up to dry -

Right here on this street

With rain tunneling through my thick hair to kiss my head

With a wet dog panting and reeking beside me

With forty years streaming out behind me like a wrinkled cape 

With these same old eyes

I saw something new.