I always miss Faulkner so badly during our vacation, and so I’m always hungry for vacation dogtime. (The timid dog I had befriended and helped tame, at the first camping stop, just hadn’t “done it” for me. Oh, those “borrowed” dogs seldom do, but at least I can feel fur to hold me over!) So I thought the zoo might give me some reminders of old Pleasant Valley days, volunteering at the demonstration farm. It did, and then some!

As I careened past the empty ticket booth, I saw a sign for an otter show– just started. I managed to slow down enough to arrive at the middle of that, and hung over the rail with the other “kids” watching my cousins play and oodle their way thru grass and pool. The presenter answered ALL our questions. I thought this was what I had come for. It would have been “enough.”

But the show ended, there were still about 20 minutes of time before closing, and I had my camera. It had  been pix-pix-pix all day– so off I went. I met deer, llamas, emus, and more, in quick-mode– chirping and whistling to them for good camera shots, and communing briefly. The lesson I’d learned earlier that day– slowing down if I want to try to catch butterfly pix– combined well with “farm sense” about not coming up on critters faster than each one can comfortably handle.

I was able to adjust that farm-sense to scooter-speed management. So, ‘Whee!!!! What else lives here?’ was well tempered with, ‘Those peacocks don’t seem to like this speed….’  And it was then, just after noting their drab peahens camouflaged in the bushes, that I fetched up suddenly in front of a caged timber wolf.

I knew at once what it was, before I saw the sign, tho I had not at all expected to see a wolf at this facility…. he gave me a good look at I paused but he didn’t stop pacing restlessly. And I read unhappiness there. I can’t capture all the cues I read, but the bottom line was clear. On farm chores, those cues would have prompted me to set down the pitchfork, delay the chores pending, stop for a visit to see what was needful, and address the need.

On a farm the contunnuum of the visit-check includes stepping in to run a hand over the critter. ON someone else’s property that’s not good manners unless dire injury indiocates immendaite intervention…. and oh yeah, this was also a wild animal. All I could do was sit, make sound and ody language, and look with attention. My picture-taking plan suddenly slowed to nature-time speed like a scooter’s holdback brake kicks in as soon as the power lever is released. I had slipped thru to the the spirit world, one leg in each reality, as surely as sometimes happens in ministry moments with human beans. A smooth mental skid to just the right speed of knowing.

During that  l o n nn g g g  moment while my “inner tourist” collided with my “inner whisperer,” there was time to realize that I wasn’t sure if I should even take out the camera. It just seemed wrong to take a picture of unhappiness. It seemed like disrespect to catch him (I somehow knew it was a male) at a weak moment in his life. But there he was…… and he wouldn’t look me in the eye again…..  but he was whining a little, softly, as he passed….I paid out the line of attention, trying  to understand…

In an effort to preserve that moment for my failing memory– to  be able to see him as he was and not in imagined recollection– I snapped a few shots. I didn’t stay long. I looked around to see his setup– it’s a large, quite roomy enclosure with some natural features…. didn’t see any company with him…. I left his area resolutely, out of an uncertain but strongly directive respect.

I haven’t been able to look at the pictures yet. It was that kind of restlessness you see in the lion house at even the best zoos, from the ones who have been there too long. And this IS a GREAT little zoo.

Well, before we left I encountered the zoo owner, and learned that this is a knowledgable fellow-student of animal behavior, whose zoo is there to teach families a better way of being with animals and their environment. It’s not a “petting zoo.” It IS a “touching zoo.” From the fingertips, all the way down to the deepest part of the heart. So despite the urgency of closing hour, the owner was quite pleased to discuss the wolf.

I learned that he does have a companion wolf I hadn’t been able to see, and regular playtime. When I mentioned the unhappy whining, the conversation stopped cold. For a very brief moment he looked a tad gobsmacked. (I thought I had offended him.)

He said, “That sound wasn’t unhappiness. That was wolf talk for ‘I like you and I want to be with you.’ Something in you touched him. That doesn’t happen very often, even here.”  He kindly gave us some extra time before closing up, to talk wolves. He said that when the wolf’s companion beats him to the cool den on such a hot day, it makes him unhappy.

But I awoke the next morning full of understandings from that last-day activity, which had come to me in sleep. The whole time we were rush-packing to get on the road for home, I was standing against a gale of emotion pushing me back to the zoo. It was much stronger than the sterotypical Chicago street-corner gale-fight one sees on the Weather Channel!

I took a few stolen minutes to whip out the laptop and send a quick email to the owner about a return trip. My view was that since his wolf had invited me, I would have to be allowed in. Even on my crazy schedule, and maybe outside zoo hours. I would have to accept the invitation to continue the wolf’s  conversation– with the owner present to interpret (and maybe learn from) my interaction with this wolf. A sense of incompleteness– a work to finish.

I was not looking for this. But when the wolf Calls you– and you hear it– believe you me, you cannot shut it up again.

I already know what my next reply to him must be. And it needn’t wait till I can drive back there. While wolves don’t do email, I bet they read scent messages quite clearly. :~) Maybe I can Skype with him, too!

~Susan

An appropriately-garbed fellow (reminded me of our son Mike) came up to the porch mos’ ‘speckfully just now (I was proof-listening on my new laptop to an AfAm volunteer audio-book recording of a public-domain Spurgeon work). This fellow, who I later learned is a PhD, was asking about getting onto the farmland behind, uphill, which is owned by our landlord Bruce.

Kevin is from PAF: The Public Archaeology Facility (PAF) is a research center within the Department of Anthropology specializing in Cultural Resource Management. PAF’s primary goal is to train archaeologists to be field and research specialists within a cultural resource management (CRM) framework.

PAF’s research focus is the Northeastern United States with an emphasis on the Susquehanna, Chenango, and Chemung Valleys of New York and Pennsylvania. Students receive intensive mentoring in the legal, administrative, and research management of archaeological projects through a variety of grants and contracts awarded to PAF.

http://paf.binghamton.edu/community_CGI.cgi

[my paraphrase of a long chat] “Oh, well, we just want to post flags every 50 feet to dig test pits in the wetlands, to be sure that if there are any archaeological sites under all that fracking, we can make them go around them and then we can look into them or at least record their locations for other diggers. But we don’t want the cows to get sick eating our flags. Are they good cows to go among, is there another pasture they can go into when we dig, and who owns the next piece over ‘there’ and ‘there’ and ‘there’?”

So of course I hooked him up (TBTG for cell phones), but how cool is THAT!??! His “farm manners” were exquisite, and I was in my jammies, totally OK having him set a spell to tell me what-all they do.

Nice peeps. Even in a yellow shirt too much like the frackers wear, but it’s for their safety I am sure. I hope the kids he supervises will stop in for a sip of water, even if we are not home- I’ll ask Greg to set out the big yellow cooler full of Potter-county, NFU water). And they can park here, too!

Dogs liked him. Almost as good as seeing Mike in his plant-conservation days.

BOLO, so you can make these folks welcome if you see them on your place!

~Susan

I think that we Episcopalians sometimes think that as long as we are still “thinking,” as I assured her I would be doing for some time, we have done no real harm. (She was not an Episcoplian, and she was having as hard a day as I was, I am sure)…. I could trace back the “reason” for my rudeness all the way back to the strokes that slowed my response when she quietly tried to tell me of my mistake… but I’m pretty sure that even if I hunt that rabbit to the farthest end of the hole (“I just should have stayed home!”), I was in the wrong.

How could she have known what I went through to get to that workshop? Or what it really cost me, on so many levels, to be there? Or how many people had made it possible?

Why was it her responsibility to realize that in a thoughtless moment, I was unconsciously following norms established at another, similar workshop she had not attended? I was so hungry– but if her weak health that day was invisible to me, why did I assume that she might see mine?

A friend likes to send me inspiring emails. Today’s posed a neat “case study” in moral vs. ethical theology:

Subject: THE BRICK

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars, and slowed down when he thought he saw something.

As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag’s side door!

He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid, and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, ‘What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That’s a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?’

The young boy was apologetic. ‘Please, mister…please, I’m sorry but I didn’t know what else to do,’ he pleaded. ‘I threw the brick because no one else would stop…’ With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. ‘It’s my brother,’ he said. ‘He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can’t lift him up.’

Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, ‘Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He’s hurt and he’s too heavy for me.’

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay. ‘Thank you and may God bless you,’ the grateful child told the stranger.

Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: ‘Don’t go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!’

God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don’t have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us. It’s our choice to listen or not.

===

It IS a neat story…. and for a minute, I felt better about that lunchline thing. But somebody still has to fix that car. Someone still has to repair the budding relationship I harmed. And that would be…. whoever has the first chance to do it.

Ah well, next time maybe there will be room at the lady’s table for me to sit down and talk it over. Or better yet, listen till she’s done telling me how bad she felt when I did that.

I hope THAT part of the story is covered by the email’s second section:

“If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring. He sends you a sunrise every morning Face it, friend – He is crazy about you!  God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, or sun without rain– but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.  If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.”

Please God, help me if I get another chance with that beautiful woman. Help us all! We’re all holding bricks, seen or unseen, and we’re all falling out of our chairs at the same time, seen or unseen. And no one I know is driving a Jaguar, but by golly, bricks are bricks!

~Susan

I had a moment to reflect on that Scripture again this week, in the checkout line today– the current Time Magazine cover.

Osama (quite a beautiful man physically: intelligent, liquid eyes, sweet mouth)– with a big, red, dripping X over his image. I thought, well, it’s a better image to insta-burn into my mind than the killshot video going viral right now, but I wonder what my new friends over at the Islamic Society feel when they see this? I do not KNOW.

It’s a new friendship… so all I really know so far is that their lives probably changed that day… and that those things have changed in a way that means my loving but weak hello message did not get a reply. Race/class, culture, and tech toys– oh my!– all colliding in one Crosswalk.

Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some. Hebrews 10:24-25

~Susan

I’ve been gathering workshop songs, too, to enhance the facilitation of AR and other workshop topics.

Hope to see you, soon!

~Susan

• “At first, I was kinda scared about what you suggested. Then I realized, “Hey! Susan loves me! She wouldn’t hurt me!” (Same input from two independent sources, in the same words!)
• “Hey, you are not a princess!”
• “When you speak, your voice has a lot of power.”
• “You always shoot straight.”
• “I thought about what you said, back when…. and I realized recently that….”
• “Where’s she going now?”
• “I need a support group for People Loved by Susan.”
• “What am I gonna do with you?”

Now, these were all helpful opportunities to focus my thinking and my attention, at the time…. but they do not mention Jesus.

That is clearly something for further formation!

~Susan

Others referred to it as “bitter,” “never-ending,” and “unforgiving.” Amen– it was all that! I fled it for the south– not too far south, but a state or two more southerly than the nexus of cold and snow I came to know as my home this winter.

I thought maybe it was just me– new meds/dosages make me so cold– but the oldest of the folks, here, whose wisdom I trust, said that it really was the worst they could recall– and their memories are purty good, still.

This also, for me, was a winter of discernment. (For folks who do know know what that means in the Episcopal Church, small-d discernment sometimes leads to big-D discernment, and I was doing both.)

Big-D Discernment means considering whether one has a collar of ordination in one’s future. Some of this blog’s readers have been part of an opportunity to participate in that Process, while I took our Diocese’s year-long Exploring Your Ministry course where Discernment begins. In that class we are directed over and over again to look at our selves. We have one class meeting to go, in May, and the outcome of this class started to tune on for me as winter wore on.

What I came to discover was that my Call is, essentially, more diaconal than priestly in nature but not, right now, in role. St. Paul reminds us to remain in the sate in which we already are– when we receive our Call. For me, that is the state of being an intentional Presbytera, and it trumps all other roles right now because it includes, defines, and structures so many other roles.

It is a lay role, professionally though it may be carried out, in the Episcopal Church.

As I told my Bishop and my teacher Kate, I have no doubt that a collar is there waiting for me, down the road, and I will joyfully accept it when it appears… while not specifically seeking it in the near future.

I know also that I am ripe for more education, and healthcare I need, in more structured settings than I might have envisioned several years ago. I can undertake that, and will enroll next year in the same school that educates our deacons. I expect God will continue equipping and forming me for that role, so I will accept invitations to any deacons’ events to which I am invited. I will preach diaconally while not expecting the “rights and privileges” accorded deacons. Kate asked me about an internship. I suppose if logistics allowed I would undertake one of those, though I have already done a series of them as well as a series of diaconal projects much the way our Process defines them.

In the end, all I need to do is “Be Susan who is seen as Being in Christ.” And I need to work on that, quite a bit.

Some things I heard loud and clear this year, from folks around me, because I was taking this class:

Susan said: …. if there is any confusion or stupid thinking in my vicinity, the chances are nearly 100% that I am not the source of the confusion… I will still, 99 times out of 100, turn out to have been the best hope on deck to reach an elegant, simple solution incorporating the whole magilla.
Allison responded: Great insight- and often, though not the source of the confusion, your presence may act as a kind of catalyst to bring out the truth in others in its various guises- I’m not sure what I mean by that, but I have a vision of others rising up to reveal themselves, warts and all, and hopefully learning from it… It seems you are in a place of awakening to awareness of things that have been floating around for awhile. At some level(s) you have known they were there, but as we float down de Nile with our eyes open we can see them and greet them when they bob to the surface, and bring them, dripping, to the open air and deal with them as needed…. you are a powerful presence wherever you go, and power gets a reaction, one way or another. There are those who will find you a sanctuary, others eagerly come and learn, but others will re-act out the baggage that comes up for them, whatever it will be.

Susan said: If I get quicker at declining the power battles, the safety will go up and then it’s on THEM.
Allison responded: … just before I re-read that sentence, I thought of “Shields Up,” a phrase I’ve been using since the turmoil of my first marriage. I taught it to my kids as well. The [stuff] will be flung- that we can’t control. What we can control is how we deal with it. First step is to let it splatter against the shields of our own inner confidence. Then shine your light on it to see if further needs to be done to deal with it. Oh, and a good pair of rubber boots is very useful for wading through and moving beyond it! You are a light-bearer…

In succeeding posts I will share what others have said this year, that resonated through months of wintery prayer and reflection. This post is long enough, and it’s too much Susan and not enough Jesus. And I have a hungry hubby due home soon!

A blessed Holy Week,

~Susan

Oooh! Oooh! Oooh!

Here’s a tip– vertical boondocker storage! (Google boondocking if that word is foreign to you)

LOL, I been trying to get outta Dodge since Sunday AM, but a surprise car repair delayed me– till I got the pieces RIGHT!

Too much stuff, too much stuff, too much stuff…. gotta sleep in there….too much stuff…. gotta sleep in there….too much stuff…. gotta sleep in there….

Oh. That closet rod, NOT the more-usual deep laundry hamper that usually starts each trip full of clean stuff and ends it full of stuff to wash. Where I’ll be staying is where it’s warm enough to use the van as the closet– step out each AM and grab the day’s clothes. ‘N I kin sleep under that pole-full, so I’m hanging everything so it’ll hang “high” (pants folded). Just in time for hubby to hand things out to me to hang!

Because there is a solid reason for each and every item I am taking (long trip, lotta ministry/music opportunities as well as a training I’m attending and the people I have plans to stop and meet for anti-racism program contacts). I’d already miniaturized each kit as much as I could, and it’s STILL “too much stuff” (including a huge and heavy sculpture-gift to deliver to one relative who’s putting me up). But now it’s just the right amount of stuff!

TBTG for sunlight to get my brain into REAL travel-gear. I almost left last night in not-ready mode– whew! Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! Now I WANT to go!

~Susan

PS clothes inside OUT so they look clean when you put them ON.

=================================

OK– here’s a long story better told over lunch. Here goes.

Tom Petty sez “you don’t have to live like a refugee.” But as long as yer young enough for the hardships, one can of course CHOOSE to do it in small increments.

And even LIKE it.

“The churches” are just people who do what you do– there are usually little or no hotel bucks for ministry travel.

I’d rather explain over lunch… but the short course is, imagine how many times I have left the Y’s gracious pool passes unused, and what a pain in the patoot THAT is for the nice people who leave them for me. That’s about how often I stand up nice spare-bed hostesses who go to a LOT of trouble (I’d rather have the mess and dirt really.)

Understandably, it gets old. But in MY life, plans can change in a heartbeat, and often do– and I refer to these missed meet-ups as “casualties of ministry.” Even my best friends get frustrated with it, eventually. Thus the number of open beds tends to reduce rather than increase.

And thus– I prefer to keep friends from getting into that loop of prep/frustration by sleeping in my van which is tricked out as a mini-camper. If it were tall enough to stand up in (to use the portapotti), then I’d even figure out how to HEAT it. (Besides the electric blankie.)

But the Y’s have VERY nice showers, not to mention a pool. See?

I guess I am occasionally homeless on purpose for a night or two. My longest trip has been… oh, about 6 weeks.

Thing is, I “specialize” in starting NEW things that have no budget, till they get big enough to generate support for a budget. By the time I am done building that critical mass (God does it of course), I am bored enough (and Called enough) to move on to the next zero-budget challenge.

What I do nowadays is email a bunch of friends when I have a trip pending, and hope one of them offers a no-fuss bed, unless it’s warm enough for campgrounds I can get for $20-25/night (no electricity). That comes out of grocery bucks– but then, I know how to eat cheap, too. :~)

Here at our house, the task of stowing 50 bulky gallons of water is underway in a way that makes it manageable for me (I can’t lift the 55-lb. jugs more than once, yet) and Greg (who has no time to help). I have several 2-1/2 gal and smaller containers we did not have last time we fetched home so much water…. I’ll have to juggle spigots (we have 3 for 6 jugs) and space to set up a pouring-off station like last time, but I’ve reconfigured the space a tad since last time… we have enough to last till the next fetching allows  porch storage, and I know where THAT can be managed…

So… I dunno who’s reading this; I know this, tho– if everyone had to personally lift all the water they drink, as some of us do, the water policies in the US would be hugely different. Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon! I’m grateful we have the experience to know how, and the water to do it with, but I leave a week from tomorrow on a trip. And I do NOT want these huge jugs in Greg’s way.

In the main house, plans move (slowly) forward to paint the lower level sometime this year. I’ve just about decided to retain one wall of the weird wallpaper that IS this house to many of its past occupants, our guests, and us. It’s the one wall which unknown 1970′s workers papered really well– laying out the geometric pattern so it’s centered on windows and such– which will not be substantially re-arranged, post-paint. If I leave it, the fabric we got for drapes will work, I think; after 15+ years here, I almost don’t totally hate the pattern as much as the overuse of it in a narrow space. If the fabric works (I have some to play with), leaving that one wall will actually look like it was papered on purpose to go with the room decor.

As I write, a sermon or meditation is shaping up in the background of my mind, for potential use in lay-preaching, and I might be doing a Good Friday meditation again this year. It’s from something that actually happened among a group I knew, about Star Trek as an example of myth: myth that weaves into belief that weaves into how one chooses to live and how one judges others’ choices… which we all do!

The sermon is about how easy the slide into/towards paganism really is–and probably was, for the OT folks in their time– and is for us, in our time.

Beam me up to the pulpit, Scotty! :~)

You could drop me a line, you know. :~) Then I’d be writing for you.
~Susan

Now if I can just keep it in the forefront of the week’s stuff, while I whip a swollen gland, a recurrent bladder infection, and work stuff…… well, I can plan: maybe I’ll actually get out there next week, which is STILL 2 weeks earlier than it needs to be!

Garden, here I come! (The materials are in Dog World.)

My particular sunlight requirements in warm weather are for filtered sun/shade, like impatiens love; so all these spaces have a mix of sun and shade built in. My summer settin’ (cooling) pond (in Dog World) has a shade canopy.

All the outdoor areas I established last year will take most of March and April to revive, given my energy level, strength, and endurance; but the pieces should all be there to work with– I’ll just need to buy some dirt and for that, I need to get the empty water jugs out of the van first. As soon as the road up to the spring in Potter County is open, that’s the next big thing on our list.

Improvements abound indoors, too.

• An air cleaner now eliminates the massive dog-dirt and dog-hair generated by Faulkner and his dog, Sadie.If they get a monthly bath, now, I will be able to say truthfully that I no longer live in a toxic science experiment, and add visitors to these outdoor spaces as they were designed to include.
• A new small fridge set up as a giant “crisper” is so neat, now that yesterday’s initial grocery-trip has begun to fill it. Produce, at eye level, on well-lit glass shelves– all set with the right humidity and temp to hold veggies for daily consumption.

We are blessed to serve a generous parish that bestows a ton of fresh produce on us all summer; to have a place waiting to put and keep things that used to be jammed into the nasty, dirty energy-hogging old fridge (circa 1970′s), where at least half of the bounty would soon become inedible… well, it reflects a huge change in our eating habits too.

Each night’s main meal component is a freshly-made veggie specialty. Of course we also eat small amounts of protein and starch, but they are no longer the focus of our thinking– or our dollars.

My hope for our garden is to grow what we can eat, and not worry at all about canning and freezing– just grow it and eat it up, in season, eventually. (A friend is a restaurateur who appreciates the occasional produce contribution.) In the meantime, I don’t mind practicing with store-bought goodies while we learn more about doing it ourselves.

Each shelf in that crisper has a different container for the goods– pretty, eclectic, stuff we already had on hand. All the shelves come out for easy washing. They may even fit in the dishwasher. I set some colorful plastic trays on top to make it easy to “shop the crisper” for each evening’s meal.

~Susan