Here’s Looking At You – 2

This afternoon I’m getting my right eye fixed – another cataract surgery.  The left was done in early January.  It helped a lot.  I have 20/20 distance vision in the left so it will be interesting to see if the right eye does as well.

Betty wasn’t able to go with me last time because of her shingles.  However, she’s well enough this time to go and it will be nice to have her there.  The set up is such that they have a little room where Betty can actually watch the surgery.

Before we leave, our farrier is coming by to give Morgunn and Sugar a trim.  All in all it will be a full day.

I probably won’t be posting for a couple of days so be good while I’m gone.

Monday Video – Meet George

Betty and I used to have second Golden Retriever years ago named George.  We found George a new home because we didn’t need two Goldens and George was a hand full.

Here’s another George, the world’s tallest dog.

Enjoy.

Sunday Reflections – Companionship

But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship
as we walked with the throng at the house of God. (Psalms 55:13-14)

One of the definitions of “companion” is “a fellow traveler” – someone we trust who goes along with us as we travel.  If we’re fortunate, we may have a few people in our lives at different times who travel with us through the ups and downs of our lives.

A good friend when you’re young, a room mate at college, a fellow officer in the US Navy, a husband or wife throughout most of our adult life – all travelers with us, companions, through different parts of our travel through life.

For those who are fortunate to be found by God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit become companions in our journey through this life into eternity.

Betty and I have been fortunate to have two other companions through this latter part of our lives – Morgunn and Sugar, our horses.

If you know anything about horses, they are prey animals.  Their instinct is to first and foremost stay alive.  If a horse lays down it’s a sign she is at peace – feeling safe.  For a horse to allow a human to come up to them while laying down is a great sign of trust.

It’s this demonstration of trust that I witnessed this morning (and other times as well) between Sugar and Betty that made me start thinking about companionship.

 

Betty and I are fortunate to have Jesus, each other, and Sugar and Morgunn as trusted companions in the journey of our lives.

Saturday Prayer – Pain

Reflecting on the pain that Betty has struggled with over the past few months led me to this prayer from the book, “Praying Our Goodbyes.”  (Betty is getting better every day but here pain is still not completely gone.)

Prayer Of One Who Is In Constant Pain

God of oneness, wholeness, I hurt and I dream of a day when I no longer feel continual distress in my body.  I cry out to you to hear me, to stretch your arms of compassion to me and to embrace me with your comfort. 

My being needs to be filled with your spiritual energy.  I am weary with the struggle to feel well and to be in good health.  It is so easy to slide into depression and self-pity, to be impatient and despondent. 

God of the living, hear me.  Fill my empty places with hope.  Fill my life with a sense of joy in spite of this ceaseless pain.  Help me to fight that giant oppressor of spirit: discouragement.  Remind me often of the good people of my life and of all the blessings that are mine as I struggle with this pain which is ever present to me.  I praise and thank you for being a God who never leaves me.

I love you, God.  I know you are my inner strength, especially now when my body does not have the strength that I took for granted in the past.  God, my deliverer, I turn to you. 

Sometimes I feel that I do not want to go on.  I get swallowed up by the floods of self-pity and discouragement.  In my distress I cry out to you.  Reach out to me and rescue me from the enemy of pain.  Set me free of its grasp of resentment.  Fill me with courage.  When the darkness of constant pain threatens to overcome me, brighten the darkness with your presence. 

With you by my side I can go through this.  You are like a rock.  You will be my strength.  You are like a shield.  You can protect my spirit from being broken by my body’s pain.  I will keep coming to you, touching the hem of your garment of love and feeling the spiritual energy which you share with me.  I love you and I place my trust in you.

Amen.

Movie Review

Betty and I enjoy watching movies.  Some movies, such as “Avatar,” are best seen on the big screen and I like computer graphic and special effects as much as anyone.  I also like old movies like the ones you can see on Turner Classic Movies on TV.

Every once in awhile we run across a small movie that is something special.  We saw one of those special, small movies yesterday.

We went to see “Crazy Heart” with Jeff Bridges and I will say it’s one of the best movies I have seen in a long, long while.  It’s the kind of movie that Hollywood used to make more often – a movie about people.  No special effects, no car chases, nothing blows up – just an in-depth character study of the kind of real people who fill this world of ours.

It’s also a movie of redemption, but in a simple, true, and believable way.  No Hollywood visions of what redemption should look like.

It you like country music, this movie has some of the best you will hear and Jeff Bridges does all of his own singing and guitar-playing.  He has been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar and if he doesn’t win it will be a real shame.  It’s one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.

Finally, “Crazy Heart” was filmed mostly in New Mexico and it was fun spotting places we knew and places we have been.

Great movie – don’t miss it.

PS: It was such a small movie, shot in only 24 days, that it was originally considered to go direct to DVD until people started seeing it.  There was such a good response they made the correct decision to put it into distribution.

Memories -- A Boy and His Knife

While we were home for Christmas, we had a breakfast brunch for all the family who were in for a family wedding and I was helping getting everything ready.  Our niece and her husband were given the job of cutting up some ham to put into biscuits.  Tom asked if there was a knife and there wasn’t.  Without thinking, I said, “Here use my pocket knife.”  Tom was surprised that I had a knife on me.  He’s a young man and the idea of carrying a pocket knife was new to him.

I carry a knife at all times.  When I was a kid every man and boy carried a pocket knife.  My grandfathers did, my father did, my uncles did, and all my friends did.  We even played with our knives at recess almost every day – playing mumbly peg.

Mumbly peg is a game where the goal is to get the other person to touch the ground or fall down.  The two participants face each other.  I would throw my knife to get it to stick up in the ground to the side of the other person’s feet.  If it successfully sticks up in the ground then he has to stretch his foot out to that point.  Then he gets to throw his knife to the side of my feet.  If the knife does not stick up then you don’t have to move your foot.  This goes back and forth until one touches the ground with his hand or falls.  It’s kind of like Twister with knives.

The game combines not only precision in knife-throwing, but also a show of bravado – it’s a guy thing.  The teachers knew we were playing, but no one thought it was a problem back then.  It was just what boys did.

I carried one of three knives during my boyhood.  I had a knife similar to this – the basic  pocket knife which also works well for whittling.

Then for a while I carried a camper knife which came out of my experience in the Scouts.

The other kind of knife I had was a Barlow knife that I got from my grandfather.  A Barlow knife is not a brand name, but a particular type of knife with two specific types of blades.  It’s also a good whittling knife.

Today, I carry one of three knives in two types.

If I’m out and about I usually have my Buck pocket knife on me.  It has a clip and fits nicely in my pocket.  This is the knife I gave to my nephew to cut the ham.

When I’m around the house and any time I’m around our horses, I always carry a hoof pick knife in a sheath on my belt.  I have two – first a Case hoof pick knife.

My favorite is my MooreMaker hoof pick knife that’s made in Texas.

I have used the hoof pick for a lot of things besides cleaning hooves – opening the lid off cans, digging out a fossil from a hillside in Drumheller, Alberta, cleaning out most anything, etc.

I know things are different today, but I think boys miss out on a lot in our “safe” world.

Kamikaze Birds

We have some big windows in our living area – about 4’ wide and 7’ tall.  There are five of them across the front wall that allows us to look out onto our courtyard and further out to the Sandia Mountains.

We really enjoy them.

The only down side is at certain times of the day and certain times of the year the reflection is such that birds think it’s a way out.  So, we have birds occasionally fly into the windows.

Most bounce off and fly away.  A few are stunned and will sit in our courtyard until their senses return and then they fly off.  A rare few sustain life-ending injuries and they become food for the Roadrunners and Coyotes.

Most of the birds that fly into the windows are the small birds, Sparrows and Finches.

We usually wind up with little round smudges where they hit the window.

The other day a Rock Dove, otherwise known in the city as a Pigeon, flew into one of our windows.  He/she hit pretty hard, but did fly away which was good.

However, the smudge our Rock Dove left wasn’t a slightly larger round spot.  He/she left something much more definitive:

I guess that’s what you call giving it your all.

PS to Mark & TJ:  Lane Moore and his wife Margie are friends who own a ranch in Canada.  Lane is a barefoot farrier who holds seminars to teach others.  I set up a blog for them to publicize their seminars and I set up the profile with his name.  What I didn’t realize is that profile affected my blog as well since I was doing it under my account.  So when I commented on your post it showed his name.  I changed it back so it’s fixed now.  So, I don’t go by Lane at home.