Memorial Day

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at its testing point.” – C. S. Lewis

Sunday Reflections – Exceptional People

He was born in a Greek city of Tarsus which is now the Southeast coast of Turkey.  His father was a well to do Jew who was able to ‘acquire’ a Roman citizenship.  The father may have been able to buy his citizenship, but that would have come at a high cost.  He also may have given some exceptional service and been granted citizenship.  We don’t know but in any case, he became a citizen of Rome.

This meant that his children were also Roman citizens.  One of these children was named Saul (literally means ‘asked for’).

At age 14, Saul was sent to Jerusalem to study under Gamaliel, a respected member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jewish people.

He was a good student and eventually joined the Pharisees, a Jewish sect that believed in the resurrection. 

In Saul’s later 20’s, there was a new sect called ‘The Way’ and it was proclaiming that it’s ‘leader,’ a man named Jesus, was the Messiah.  This same man had been crucified and his followers were proclaiming that he had resurrected and was now alive, living in heaven alongside the right hand of God.

This was too much for the Pharisees and they began to persecute these radical followers of Jesus.  They found a willing tool in young Saul.

He was present at the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr, and he even held the cloaks of those doing the stoning and gave his approval.

Saul was so well thought of by his superiors that he was given a commission to travel to Damascus to continue the persecution of these so-called Christians.

Saul must have been an exceptional person, right?

In the eyes of his world he was considered an exceptional person.  In the eyes of God he was a failure.

It took an encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus to strip the worldly parts of Saul away so that God could reform him into a truly exceptional person – now called Paul (literally ‘little’).

I have learned three things about exceptional people from the life of Paul.

1. God starts with unexceptional people – God needed to strip Paul down to be able to start over and mold him into the man that God needed.

2. Exceptional people are focused – Paul was focused on only one thing – Christ crucified and risen.  He was given the task of taken the good news to the Gentile world and he stayed focused on that task until the very end.

3. Exceptional people are tested – In Paul’s own words he was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, in danger from his own people, in danger from the Gentiles, gone without sleep, and burdened with the problems of the churches he started – plus much more.

4. Exceptional people persevere – Despite all of his hardships Paul never gave up.

Given what I have learned about Paul, the most exceptional person I know is my wife, Betty.  She’s the third of four children and, by most measures, has lived a good life.  She is the most focused person I know in staying in and growing from reading and studying God’s word.  And she has certainly been tested in her life and has never given up.  She hasn’t given up on riding horses even though she went through a horrific horse accident.  She doesn’t give up on people when they come up short.  Most importantly, she hasn’t given up on God despite all she has been through.

I am blessed to be her husband and friend and if I can emulate her in any way I am fortunate.

(The above is a short synopsis of the message I gave at our church today as part three of Exceptional.)

Spook-Proof

There’s no such thing as a spook-proof, bomb-proof horse.

However, we can work with our horses to help them deal with unexpected things in a way that’s safe for them and for us.  The horse’s natural reaction is to get the heck out of Dodge.  What we want is for them to ‘spook in place.’  That is, when something unexpected happens, they should stand in place and wait for us to direct them.

Betty and I have been doing this kind of training with Sugar and Morgunn this past week.  Sugar needs it more than Morgunn, but it’s still good training for an old hand like Morgunn.

This kind of training starts with ‘layered desensitization.’  In other words, you start with something that is familiar, such as their grooming brush.  You brush it all over their body and swing it around them, especially their head.

We’re using clicker training to do this.  When the horse responds correctly, that is stand there relaxed, then you click the clicker and give them a treat.

Then you move up to more and more threatening things.  We went from the brush, to their saddle blankets, to tail wraps, to a plastic sack, to a blue tarp, and finally to an umbrella.

We’ve done this twice with both horses.  The only real spook I got from Sugar was when I put the tarp over her side for the first time and shook it.  However, she eventually settled down and didn’t respond when I did it.  Yesterday, when I did it again, she didn’t respond at all.

From here we’ll move to some ‘layered desensitization’ under saddle as the next step.

Here are some pictures of Betty working with Morgunn yesterday using the blue tarp.

When all is well, then the treat comes.

Friday Funny – Iron Baby

I ran across this video yesterday and I couldn’t wait to show it to you.

If you saw the movie, “Iron Man,” you’ll enjoy this trailer for “Iron Baby.”

Memories – Fire

We recently had a fire in the Bosque, the woods along the Rio Grande River, in the Southern part of Corrales.  About 17 acres were burned.  Quite a few families and animals were evacuated, but fortunately no homes or animals were hurt by the fire.  We’re in the Northern part of Corrales so we were never threatened.

The fire brought back two very vivid memories for me.

The first is from our college years.  My roommate and I were driving back from campus to our apartment that was on the other side of town.  Betty was with us.  As we topped a hill we saw a lot of smoke coming out of a large, industrial building that we later found out was a tobacco warehouse.  We stopped and, while we watched, flames started showing up through the roof and out the windows.

Shortly after we stopped several fire engines came rolling up and they started to fight the fire.  Unfortunately, there was a New Mexico type wind blowing that day and the fire was growing exponentially out of control.

There was a row of two-story wood frame houses across the street.  As we watched, the wind-whipped flames continued to spread.  We could see black spots begin to appear on the side of the closest house.  Within a minute or so, it burst into flames from the intense heat.  Within a matter of just a few minutes more, the houses closest to it began to darken and then burst into flames.

I don’t remember if anyone was hurt or not, but there was a lot of property damage that day.  That memory, which is over 40 years old, is still very vivid for me.

The second memory is when I was in Navy Officers Candidate School.  We had to take basic firefighting training.  That meant we had to go into a compartment with burning oil and the smoke was black and thick, very similar to the picture in this post. 

We weren’t given any breathing equipment so we could experience the smoke and fire as they might occur on a ship.

I remember the instructor telling us to keep low and breath shallow breaths through our nose as we worked our way through the thick, black, oily smoke.  At first it was a very terrifying feeling.  You didn’t think you could get a breath at all, but you could if you did what you were told.

The other thing he told us was to get to the fire as soon as we safely could.  The fire was drawing all the oxygen to it and, as we got closer to the fire, there would actually be more air to breath and less smoke – and he was right.

It was quite an experience and gave us a lot of confidence we could deal with a real shipboard fire if it ever happened.  Fortunately, I never had to deal with that in real life.

Fire is scary.

Cover Up

Just before we left for Hawaii, we decided to finally order a new cover for our hot tub.

We really enjoy our hot tub all year – especially on a cold, clear winter night.  We get in and watch all the stars.  However, our cover has seen better days.

You can only do so much with duct tape.

We picked up our new cover today and planned to put it on the tub later this afternoon.

As we went out to put on the new cover, I saw something in the water.  At first I thought a bird had somehow gotten into the water.  We have a lot of birds at our bird feeders which are pretty close to the hot tub.

However, it turned out not to be a bird… it was an antelope squirrel that was frantically swimming around.  It looked like he had been in there for awhile as he looked pretty tired.  I used the skimmer to get him out.  He was very water-logged.

We dried him off and put him where we know they hang out – behind the heater for our hot tub.  Hopefully, he’ll be OK.

(No, we don’t know what kind of stroke he was using.)

Monday Video – Cuddling

Normally, I’m not a fan of treating wild animals like they’re pets.  It’s dangerous in my opinion and can set the wild animal up for problems from other humans with more evil intent in their heart.

However, this encounter between a human and an elephant seal is so unusual and cute I couldn’t pass it up.

Sunday Reflection – Sorry

I’ve been kind of busy lately so blogging has taken the back seat to other things.  I had to do a newsletter for our local horse association – CHAMP (Corrales Horse And Mule People) that I got out this afternoon.

Now I’m working on a message that I will give next Sunday at church.  Our senior pastor takes Memorial Day weekend off each year and he asked me to fill in for him while he’s gone.

He’s doing a series called Exceptional – about the people who in the Bible did exceptional things through and for God.

I’m going to talk about Paul and the journey he walked from exceptional Pharisee who persecuted Christians to exceptional follower of Christ who brought many, many people to Christ.  Does God have a sense of humor or what?

So, hopefully, I’ll be back on track soon.  Keep checking back (operators are standing by).

Friday Funny – Nerd, Geek or Dork?

Ever wondered if you’re a nerd, geek or dork?  Here’s the answer…

Gettin’ Over Jet Lag

There is something about flying East instead of West that affects the body – biorhythms and all that, I guess.  I don’t understand it, but Betty and I can sure feel it.

We have been worn out since we returned home on Sunday afternoon.  We’ve slept hard and, when we could, slept long to try to catch up, but we’re still not there.  We’ve both been a little head-achy which may be jet lag or allergies or both.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t stop while your body tries to recoup from a long trip.  Today, we gave Morgunn his summer, full-body clip.  It’s getting near 90 today and tomorrow and his coat was still pretty thick.  Now that’s he’s clipped all over he’ll feel a lot more comfortable in this kind of weather.

My blogging may be kind of spotty for awhile as we get back into the norm of our lives post Hawaii.

Final Hawaii Post

Here’s a hodgepodge of pictures from our last couple of days in Hawaii, plus our underwater pictures.

On our supposed last day in Hawaii, Friday, May14, we checked out of our hotel.
We had lunch at Rocking Joe’s, a seaside restaurant in Kona.

After lunch we had a shave ice with ice cream and this little character visited the stand while we were there.

Then we drove down to a National Historical Park where we knew we could see some sea turtles.
While we were there a wave came in and flipped one turtle over.
With a little struggle he was able to get himself back up right.

Then we drove to Jamesons by the Sea, our favorite restaurant in Kona for a supposed last meal in Hawaii.
Then we headed to the airport, but as you may know, our flight was canceled so we were put up in another hotel on the sea, the Keauhou Bay Resort Hotel.  It was an older hotel, but still nice.

Then we headed back to the airport and found out our flight had been canceled again.  We were in the process of getting our vouchers for another stay, when an earlier flight said they had some seats still open so we were able to get out on it.

Before closing, here are some pictures from our disposable, underwater cameras. First, enjoying the beach in Maui.
Some of our snorkeling pictures on Maui.
 
An eel.
Hawaii’s state fish – the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa.

Finally, some pictures from our dolphin swim.  If you recall, the boat positioned itself ahead of the pod of Spinner dolphins so we could get in the water.  As they approached they swam under us.

Thus ends our Hawaii posts.  I guess all good things must come to an end.