Labradoodle News

Good news this morning on the "dog front." Scout labradoodle is feeling a lot better. She's still wimpy, not motivated to walk more than about a mile, and completely uninterested in her toys - but she's definitely on the road to recovery.

Yesterday's vet visit was a little scary, as Dr. M's eyes got big the moment he saw her and he was obviously very concerned. "I'm very concerned," he said, and went in to full examination and diagnosis mode without any of his usual preliminaries.

"This is a massive allergic reaction," he said. He went on to explain that the response was systemic, and that Scout's entire body was reacting. Consequently - and we'd seen this - her skin was bright read and "angry" absolutely everywhere. Even her paws and the pads were inflamed. Ears, belly, eyes, between her legs - everything was reacting. The reason she was panting was that her airways were restricted by internal swelling - and her heart was racing because she could hardly breathe.

Scout spent the previous night keeping us awake because she literally couldn't find a comfortable position. She'd lie down, but had to get up in five-ten seconds. Then she couldn't walk on those sore feet, so she'd try lying down... and the process repeated. She felt so bad she cried - more of a whimper - all night long.

At one point I found her in the guest bath tub!

Well, the vet gave Scout a huge dose of epi-something - a shot, and she started feeling much better withing a half hour. She's stopped biting herself and - by late afternoon yesterday, she could lay down on the floor and actually snooze.

Today she's all about resting. Actually, following me around the house and then resting wherever I happen to be. It feels good just to see her relax.

Three years ago, when Rebekah bought her home ("Hi Derek, guess what I've got in the car...") I wrote a couple of labradoodle columns for the Tribune. If you haven't read them yet, I've posted one under today's sign-off. This one is about the last time she was really sick...

Love and blessings - DEREK

Something new every day
Derek Maul
The Tampa Tribune
September 6 2006

What I really want to talk about is the new puppy. Yes, the past month has been instructive in so many ways. Who knew one innocent bundle of fluff could have repercussions on so many levels. Pandora’s Box comes to mind… Tornado Alley… Holy Jihad… Chaos Theory… Katrina. What was it that finally came along and chased off all those dinosaurs? Maybe now we know?

“Scout” is a great name for a labradoodle, but last week she ate half the contents of the living room and ended up in surgery for the consequent intestinal blockage. So I’m thinking maybe we should call her “Chapter 11,” “Second Mortgage,” or simply “Visa.”

This dog is going to be huge. At four months she now weighs 30 pounds and her feet are so big she could wear my tennis shoes. I’m wondering if there was a mix-up at the breeders and they really sold us a rare labra-pony by mistake.

On the plus side she’s got me off my duff in the best possible way, two or three 45 minute walks daily plus regular playtime. Additionally we enjoy several unscheduled episodes of chase around the family-room so we can discuss details such as the, “Do not grab things off my desk and run like crazy” rule.

So, rather than “Scout” I thought we could well have named the labradoodle “Lifestyle Family Fitness,” “Shapes,” “Workout Express,” or simply “Gym” for short. I kid you not I’ve now lost 11 pounds in the past month. Pre-puppy I was 186 drifting helplessly toward 190. Today I’m well on the way to my idea 172.

Here’s how a puppy is actually better than a gym.

1. When you wake up at six and don’t want to work out it’s easy toskip some sweaty treadmill four miles away. Puppies bark in your ear and slobber on your face until you get out of bed and walk.
2. Large energetic distractible squirrel-chasing puppies with long legs and insatiable curiosity provide the complete workout. I can burn more calories on a short excursion to the mail-box than thirty-minutes rotating muscle-groups in a fitness center.
3. Puppies are portable. You can exercise where you want. Why fight traffic when you can wrestle a large dog for your cell-phone, circle the couch at speed 23 times in order to retrieve an overdue bill, and work up a good sweat just attempting to attach a leash 15-30 times each day?
   

Need I say more? The weight is off, it’s staying off, I like how I feel. I have reconnected with a fundamental principle regarding general health that had somehow become lost in the pile-on of
important yet sedentary events. Constant and varied physical activity is not only good but essential. Thanks, Scout, you may actually be saving my life.

Corollary benefits abound. Two and a half miles at six in the morning is an amazing opportunity to get myself dialed in for the upcoming day, especially now that the whole leash-training fiasco is pretty-much out of the woods. Supplementary pluses include spiritual and metal clarity too.

Scout is providing a gift I was otherwise passing up - the occasion to pray my day into focus and to clear the cob-webs from my brain, to breathe in spiritual fresh air along with the balm of early-morning peace. It is easier to engage the dealings of the impending hours from a positive and a healing view-point when my business is prefaced in such a manner.

So maybe I should call her “Providence,” “Perspective” or even “Refocus.” Because even though this dog is turning out to be one immense pile of work and has inserted her lovable self into every conceivable corner of our lives… well… she has also turned out to be one more way that God is constantly teaching me how to live. I may be getting older, but I still learn something new every day.

Rob Bell and my foggy brain (not neccessarily related)

This morning this computer is functioning a lot like my brain - foggy, slow and stuck in "delay" mode. I'm sure you recognize the situation; it goes like this:

A: I begin to type the thought that's running around in my head.
B: I glance down at the cursor and there's nothing happening.
C: About two seconds later - after I start re-typing the phrase - the original letters begin to appear on the screen.
D. I stop typing and wait, watching characters appear all by themselves, in little spurts of activity, as if by magic.
E. I launch into the sentence again, backspacing enough - I hope - to obliterate the mistake I made when I started over in the first place.
E. The result looks something like this. "This morningthecomputthis mornining a lotlikecomputeris functioalo ng thecomp uterisfunctiot like my..."

Great. Sum total of coherent thoughts = zero.

I read some research a couple of weeks back that predicted - sometime in the next ten years - a computer capable of approaching the computing power of the human brain....

...Well I've got news for those folks over at M.I.T. or wherever. They reached my processing threshold around twenty-five years ago when the early "Tandy" boasted a mean 64K and could play two-person "pong" without freezing over!

BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS:
But, seriously, it's been a foggy morning for my brain because Scout (the wondrous labradoodle) was sick all night and that meant close to ZERO sleep for me.

In spite of the fog, my mind has been overstimulated and active today, in large part in response to the Rob Bell "Drops Like Stars" lecture we attended last night.

I commented to a friend this morning that it's refreshing to attend an event - particularly a Christian event - where the central appeal is the presentation of fresh and challenging ideas... rather than a glitzy "Praise Show" used as dressing to spice up loud, politically charged sermons short on substance.

Don't get me wrong; I play acoustic guitar in a praise band, and I seriously love contemporary worship music. But Rob Bell's two hours involved 120 minutes of ideas and intelligent analysis.

Now I'm used to engaging ideas and world-shaping vision at my home church every Sunday - but Rob Bell's approach is almost unprecedented on the big public stages in a high-profile religious landscape still dominated by televangelists and professional hucksters.

More later, when I've had a chance to further digest the evening's content.

Meanwhile - and I'm serious - please pray for Scout (the labradoodle) she is miserable.

- DEREK

Blogging from the kitchen...

(Blogging photos brought to you by the miracle of the "delay"button on my nifty camera!)

This morning I'm blogging at the kitchen counter. It's become one of my favorite venues for general "hanging out". I love cooking in the kitchen; I enjoy reading the newspaper at the counter; I like it when Rebekah sits in the deep rattan easy chair and we talk while I'm preparing a meal... There's a real serenity here.

Admittedly, choosing this venue to write sometimes might have something to do with the sorry organizational state of my study (the picture demonstrates it's not too bad but certainly not what it could be!). But I think it's more that this kitchen has become, architecturally, what it always has been, spiritually. And that's the epicenter of a home that's held together by a lot more than trendy terms like "Feng shui", or "ambient tranquility".

There are a lot of reasons we didn't go ahead with our epic kitchen remodel until our 30th anniversary. Most important was the absence of disposable dollars - going into debt for your feng shui would be counter-intuitive on so many levels.

There's a sense - I believe - in which good architectural design can only enter into a relationship with what already is...

I can't help but think of the systemically unhappy people we know, who built or remodeled a "dream house" with the idea that it would create happiness, or peace, or calm; or add structural integrity to a shaky marriage or a family torn apart by mistrust. As if physical space could heal aloofness, arrogance, infidelity, distance, bitterness, meanness and disappointment.

Then there are the families living in cramped quarters with scant resources - yet experiencing unity, love, support, peace, cooperation and joy; people whose homes radiate self-giving love and mutual respect; families barely making ends meet yet rich in all the ways that count.

I'm no architect (although that was one of my "wanabe's" in high-school days) and Rebekah is the expert imagineer here at Maul Hall. But I do believe that I understand the philosophy of design that works. Design that works has to interact with the spiritual truth of the people who occupy the space.

Or, put another way. Physical space has neither the power to make us happy nor the potency to dampen positive spirits. However, spiritual vitality can work with good design to create dynamic results that bring both elements together.

Most of us remember the classic TV commercial that has a trendy couple present the high-end architect with a faucet and say, "I want you to build a house around this!" My take is more along the lines of "Take this family, its years of commitment and faith and mutually submissive love..."

Now, truthfully, we really don't need much of anything else.

Blessings - DEREK

World Communion/Communion of the Saints

From the prayer at the end - "This is not a feast of insider secret knowledge; it's an invitation to join Jesus at the table..."

Yesterday was "World Communion Sunday." What that means (for readers who aren't involved in church) is that Jesus-followers from all over planet Earth celebrated "The Lord's Supper" with a sense of awareness that we are all united around a common table. World Communion means that, despite different understandings when it comes to many of the details, we share the same faith. And that, in this symbolic coming together - eating the bread and drinking the wine - we stand in common affirmation of good news worth celebrating.

So this morning I have been thinking about "Communion". It struck me, for the first time, that I have included a story about bread and wine in each of my first three books.

In "GET REAL" I shared about playing Amazing Grace on the guitar while the bread and wine were passed, looking into the congregation at all those people who loved and cared for me, and being unable to do anything about the tears streaming down my face.

"In My Heart I Carry a Star" included a glimpse into Christmas Eve services; the extension of communion where the church is completely dark and then candle light is passed, one to another, the symbolism of light conquering darkness and the irrepressible nature of love.

Then, most recently, I devoted an entire chapter of "The Unmaking of a Part-Time Christian" to the Lord's Supper. My personal theology evolved - is evolving - in the context of community. Here are a couple of paragraphs from the section about a communion service in England, when I was a young teen:

"Communion seemed like the sum of everything, a kind of cumulative truth. The heartbeats of the people, the color of the hymnbooks, the solemnity of the scripture reading, the hands shaken, the hymn singing, the porcelain trays designed to catch the drips from the umbrellas at the end of each pew...

"... I shared that service of pilgrim covenant with my wife Rebekah – whom I did not yet know, with my grandparents – who were in another town, and with their grandparents from a by-gone age. That first occasion, my initiation into bread and wine, would have been a meaningless rite outside of the framework of love and fellowship and commitment that was and is the cornerstone of my ongoing faith journey.

"My small group of friends, the collection of people I love so deeply here in my home church today were, by extension, linked with me in Christ – all those many years ago. Rebekah, David, Karin, Stan, Carolyn, Peggie, Gerard, Christine, Sandy, Ben, Lynn, JoEllen, Steve, David, Carrie, Peter and Dawn. I felt my own lips move in silent prayer, as I do even now."

So this is my prayer today - and I beg the indulgence of those of you who do not share my faith perspective - in fact, I'd like to invite you to join me:

"Thank you, awesome Creator, for the potential for unity that is made possible when we understand exactly what you accomplished when you broke the bread and poured the wine. This is not a feast of insider secret knowledge; it's an invitation to join Jesus at the table. Amen."

Alice, Lewis Carroll, Wonderland, IKEA

This weekend I'm wondering about my "spatial awareness." I've always been fairly confident that I have beaucoups and to spare of this quality. Mostly because I always rock at anything involving hand-eye coordination - especially if there's a ball in the mix.

I have a good grasp of three-dimensional space. Heck, I can even parallel park, under pressure, on a busy street.

I remember those IQ tests they used to give us when we were kids. You know, where they'd show the picture of the odd-shaped colored blocks and I'd have to replicate the set-up while some psychologist held a stop-watch, muttered to himself, and wrote secretive little notes. I was always fast, and they'd want me to do it again because it wasn't what they were expecting from the grades on my report card.

But then IKEA invented a new test and kicked my confidence to the curb. All I can say is if I'd gone to elementary-school in Scandinavia I'd still be trying to test my way out of third grade!

Yesterday, Rebekah and I went to IKEA's big blue box to purchase a new office chair for my study. I found the chair I like, located my version of said swivel seat on aisle 45 and in bin 26, carried the box home, poured the contents out onto the living room floor, and proceeded to royally fail two hours of Spatial Awareness 101.

And I thought I was good at this. But it was like, spatial awareness out the window:

• "Sayonara, suckah"
• "That's all she wrote!"
  
• "In our world, 2 + 2 sometimes = 3.7."
  
• "Welcome to Wonderland, Alice."

And it wasn't as if there were that many parts. It's just that the pictures - and that's all there were - all looked like optical illusions. I could look at the diagram, I could imagine my pieces setting together like that... But then there was what actually happened, when I attempted to unite the parts in some kind of a meaningful relationship. A three-dimensional chair? Something that looks like the picture in the catalog? I don't think so!

Eventually, more by a process of elimination than anything else, my chair "found itself" in some kind of existential moment of self-affirmation.

I, on the other hand, am still scratching my head.

Veritas super omnia (Truth above all else)

Today the house is wide open, probably for the first time since sometime in March or April. We'll have to close up and put the AC back on by lunch, but the refreshing nature of the air this morning is inviting and delicious. After six-plus months of air-conditioning everything gets stale - no matter how well ventilated the house is.

Yesterday I drove all the way back from Gainesville with the roof open and the windows down, so I'm doubly grateful for the brief respite from oppression. The weather-people promise 91 degrees and high humidity again tomorrow. Ho hum...

Shuttered eyes, closed minds and filtered media:
It occurs to me that many of us try to arrange the world of news and ideas the same way that we manage our physical environment. Tightly shuttered windows, closed doors and predetermined ambient temperatures for our houses... and then similarly engineered, sealed shut, and "contaminate free" exposure to the world of ideas. Shuttered eyes, closed minds and filtered media...

We select narrowly focused information to fit neatly with conclusions we have already decided are true or acceptable or comfortable. A huge number of Americans launder their awareness of the world via pre-conclusive and prejudicial commentary to the extent that they listen to, read, circulate, and talk - exclusively - about a set of neatly cloned ideologies they did not even reason their way to themeslves. Over time, and the more they repeat the process, even patently fabricated theories and assumptions and widely circulated myths soon morph into "fact".

There's nothing wrong with opinion so long as it is understood as opinion. But there's a lot wrong with the dissemination of untruths under the guise of fact.

BUT - and this is hugely important - lies only gain traction with the cooperation of the hundreds of thousands of people who pass them on as "fact" simply because they support the point of view to which they already subscribe.

Jesus said a lot about freedom and he said a lot about truth. In one telling moment he brought the two together when he said the following. "The truth is going to set you free." Here's the thing: people who push lies on the American people are not lovers of freedom. People who pass on lies are working against freedom.

• Every deception and lie that is passed on, and advertised as fact, becomes a blow to the ideals this nation was founded on and is sustained by.

When anyone begins an argument with the assertion that , "They" are taking away our freedoms... and then goes on to tell a lie - Well, it's fairly obvious who is taking away freedom, and who is the real threat to America, isn't it?

Veritas super omnia - DEREK

More Gardening with God

Late post today. I got up extra early to hit the road for Gainesville and a morning meeting; I interviewed some more cool Methodist gardeners. The lead picture was taken about 45 minutes north of Tampa. It was the first cool morning of the fall and this thin layer of mist clung to the ground as I looked toward the east. So I pulled off the highway and took a few photographs.

My last Methodist news story covered several churches (Orlando and Miami) who are reaching their neighbors via large community gardens. The projects have been designed to feed the hungry, to recalibrate a core sense of mission, and to make better use of unsightly land going to waste.

Today's church garden, however, is blooming in one small corner of a beautifully developed 66 acre campus. The congregation (Trinity UMC) is already dynamic and mission oriented, so the project emerged from a completely different place.

One man, a Geography professor at the University of Florida, developed a small plot in order to teach grade-school children about creation. He quickly discovered that the children loved to get their hands dirty and that they are fascinated with the contrast between shrink-wrapped produce on grocery-store shelves and gently pulling a ripe tomato from the vine.

The project, actively encouraged by the mission and outreach ministry staff liaison, has grown some over two years. But is still much smaller - not so much smaller in scope as smaller physically and in terms of raw numbers. This emphasis is more of a microcosmic representation of what is possible, and it's about the lessons resident in understanding some basic dirt-based truths - such as the relationship between toil and production, nutrition and spiritual insight, God's ongoing impetus and our commitment to participate in creation... that kind of thing.

What interests me is the way God is nurturing - or cultivating - inner truth in thoughtful people via simple things such as planting and weeding and harvesting and sharing...

I have a pile of work to do with what's left of today, so I'll simply leave this post with a picture of the happy gardeners.

Love and blessings... and please pass this blog around to your friends who might be open to conversation about eternal truths - DEREK