Meandering Moments by Elsi

Ah, there’s something about the sight of a beagle in a graduation cap …

Yes, that actually happened last night, when Sallie graduated from the Beginner Education class at PetsMart!

She did sit and down on command. She showed she could wait and stay (in fact, she stayed almost three minutes before she decided I’d forgotten about her). She chased through PetsMart to find me when I called, “Sallie, come!” She barked only a little at the guinea pigs while we were walking.

And in return she got a certificate, a photo op in her cap, a teddy bear wearing a cat sweater, and a pig’s ear to chew.

It was a very satisfactory evening. Good girl!

We just had the first Sunday in Advent. We lighted the candle of hope in church, and Mark Scott preached on Jesus, the I AM.

Mark also pointed out that God didn’t give us presents. He gave us His presence!

Today I received in the mail an example of creative giving. A member of the A Capella choir, Webster Groves (Missouri) High School, class of 1965 sent everyone from our class a CD of the music from Vespers—the traditional Christmas choir program. What a splendid way to keep those memories bright!

I looked him up in my yearbook, but the picture didn’t spur any memory. Nonetheless, Tom Ely from New Jersey, I thank you for a wonderful Christmas gift!

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done, in Whom His world rejoices!

The hymn was first sung in the 1640s. I was singing it this morning as I worked with the timer for the lights, compiled my family’s traditional Spinache Elegante’, and put on my new slacks and shirt before going to Tim and Traci Schoeneweis’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. How gracious of them to include me … what a blessing to be part of God’s family!

And then, at the end of the day, to come home and see my lighted figures in the yard!

By my family’s rules, Thanksgiving is now over, and it is officially time to start Christmas! Let us begin …

I put up my outside lighted Nativity scene figures this afternoon … at least, BobbiJo and her mother put them up, under my direction and encouragement. We don’t have them plugged in yet, nor are the gutter lights up (that will require a man and a ladder). But the figures are in the yard, and there are lights strung through the maple tree and across the bushes.

We varied the arrangement this year: The kings are coming in from the south, with one king and the camel across the driveway. The shepherd and sheep are in the larger part of the front yard. Mary, Joseph, and the Baby are to the north of the door, with a star hanging from the gutter. The donkey is in front of the living room window, and the angel is coming around the side of the house.

I will figure out how to set the timer and plug everything in tomorrow, so the lights will be on when I come home from Thanksgiving dinner. I can’t wait to see them!

How do you decorate for Christmas?

And what, I asked the young people at the Family Learning Center elementary school class this morning, is Thanksgiving about?

Thanksgiving is when we all eat lots and lots of turkey!

And the turkey’s in the middle of the table with other food, and we all sit around the table.

And it’s a special day, just for being close to your family.

Yeah, we go to Grandma’s, and the kids are too noisy and messy. So we go to the basement and play Chuckie.

Because it’s a special day just for God’s family to be together.

Yeah, and Christmas is God’s birthday, too. And I’m God. I mean, God is everyone’s real dad. And the Virgin is our mom, too.

And on Thanksgiving, I’m going to a park with a purple slide in the middle!

And Thanksgiving is a real special day for people who want to celebrate and be with their families.

Sallie here:

Mama and I were just out walking. People are funny … they don’t know how to walk! They want to keep on going, or they want to stop and chat with other people. And sometimes Mama wants to play sit and down and stay, right in the middle of a walk!

Mama also has this thing about barking. Now, I know my job description, and I’m expected to keep danger away and to alert Mama to anything she might need to know about. And how can I do that, unless I bark? After all, she might miss that squirrel, or jogger, or skateboarder! Without my help, she wouldn’t notice the bicycle, or stroller, or headlights-going-by-after-dark!

Anyway, today we were walking around the block, and my intense beagle nose started twitching, and I tuned up my beautiful beagle bay, and … oh, wow! Mama told me to leave it. Mama yelled at me. Mama pulled me away.

I ignored her.

And finally, she looked and … she saw! She did! So we stood a long time and watched. She didn’t want me to keep barking, nor could I go over and say hi, but I was allowed to stare and stare. And, a few steps farther along, I scented where it came from! Oh, my … we need to go on more walks if there are critters like that around!

Dolphin thinks it was an elk, but his description of tree branches on the head isn’t quite accurate. Mama says it’s a mule deer. Whatever it was, I’m sure I could learn to hunt them. And then we could be friends, and it could live in the backyard and sleep in our bed … oh, yes, what fun!

I just got home from the movie theater, and I am in shock. I’d read the book, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a couple weeks ago, when it was reviewed in the paper. It’s a fairly horrifying book, powerful, extremely well done. At the end, after the book club questions, is an author interview, which is enthralling. So I was fascinated by the book, both because of its topic and because I was analyzing the author’s approach and style.

Um, am I ahead of myself here? Perhaps you haven’t heard of the book and movie … It’s a short book, written from the point of view of an eight-year-old boy whose daddy is commandant of Auschwitz. The child has no understanding of what’s going on at the “farm” he can see from his window. He makes friends, through the fence, with a child his own age, a child wearing what Bruno perceives as pajamas. The end … well, I won’t tell you the end. I will say that it’s not just what happens to Bruno, and his friend, that had such an impact on me.

I wasn’t sure how they could do a movie; it would be hard to keep the child’s point of view. And the movie is different from the book, but true to it. Darker. Just … just amazing. Don’t miss it. Don’t take pre-high school kids, either. It’s hard to watch, hard to think about.

The author said, in the interview, that this is more than history. Our world is doing it again, in Darfur … in Sudan … in so many places! Dear Lord, loving Father, protect us, protect Your children!

Don’t miss it.

F is for Faithful
1 John 1:9—If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

O is for One
Deuteronomy 6:4-5—Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

R is for Redeemer
Isaiah 47:4—Our Redeemer—the LORD Almighty is his name— is the Holy One of Israel.

G is for Good
Mark 10:18—”Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

I is for I AM
Exodus 3:13-14—Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

V is for Vine
John 15:1—I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

E is for Emanuel
Matthew 1:23—”The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emanuel” —which means, “God with us.”

N is for Name
Philippians 2:9-11—Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

E is for Eternal
Jude 1:21—Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

S is for Savior
Luke 2:11—Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

S is for Son of God
Romans 1:1-4—Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Sallie and I (and our obedience school trainer) played hide-and-seek in the PetsMart last night. After running Sallie the length of the store a few times (”Sallie, COME! Good girl!”), Morgan sent me to hide somewhere and call Sallie. Sallie was pretty good at chasing me down, charging up and down the aisles, tail wagging and ears flapping.

Morgan’s trying to teach her to crawl, too. She’s apparently too fat to roll over easily, and they like to teach one trick.

I’m supposed to concentrate on stay and wait this week. “Stay” means not to move until you’re told. But “wait” only means, don’t go any farther … don’t go through this door or off the porch.

Next week is review. The following week is Thanksgiving, and then our last week (and test!) is the first week of December!

We’re getting pretty good at stay! I can walk out of her sight, and about 75% of the time she stays! Wow! What a good girl!

This was our topic in house church this evening. Brad Gefke led, as he does every other week. We only got through about half his notes, and will continue next week. It was clearly a hot topic, eliciting a lot of questions and comments from the adults in the group:

How do you forgive?
What do you forgive?
What do you say? I’m sorry … Please forgive me …
How do you accept an apology? I forgive you … That’s okay … No problem … Your apology is accepted …

A theme verse for me is Colossians 3:13—Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Easier said than done … but oh, so important!