Being still- key to intimacy

All believers that want to enter into a more intimate place with God in their relationship find that there are two major obstacles continually holding them back: Distraction from without and distraction from within. Both are enemies of intimacy because they are voices external and internal that call to us so loud that we cannot hear the still small voice of God. Stillness is not the the goal, but the means to the goal of knowing God's heart and the way he gently moves and prompts. In becoming still we are not trying to do anything, but be in touch with God through Holy Spirit at a moment in time without forcing it or being in a hurry and without an agenda. Most of us have made several attempts to have a "quiet time" only to be overcome with the distractions either outside or inside and so in effect we become discouraged and give up and try to serve the Lord in our busyness. If we are serious about being intimate with the Lord we will have to overcome the distractions. Even if we are able to get away from television, telephone calls, computers and children and minimize the external distractions, the chaos in our minds and discomfort and confusion of solitude make us eager to get busy again. The outer noise is used as a shield sometimes to keep out the confrontations we go through internally. Like anything, the good habits of stillness and solitude can only be built by continued practice. If we take care of setting aside the time and getting away from the external distractions, then half the battle is won and here are some thoughts on eliminating the internal distractions:

1. When the "list" of unfinished tasks comes into your mind, write them down.
2. When the enemy reminds you of your sinfulness or unworthiness, confess and put on Christ's robe of righteousness.
3. When your mind is flitting all over, focus on a vision in your mind of Jesus with you
4. Spend time with him when your mind is still because of engagement in automatic activities like driving, bathing, exercising etc.
5. When not "feeling" anything, begin to sing and listen to the spontaneousness of your heart.

*Waiting on God is never a waste of time, more is accomplished in our stillness than all of our best efforts combined. What is important is not where you are, but the fact that you are moving forward into greater intimacy. 2 Cor. 10:4-5 says that we can take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. Through patience, persistence and discipline on our part and the power of the Holy Spirit, over time we are able to break up the foundations of how our mind operates and re-establish and rebuild the process and new thought patterns. This is what Paul had in mind when he talked about being transformed by the renewing of our mind in Romans 12:1-2. Also in Phillipians where we are encouraged to put on the mind of Christ, as we are in him, we begin to see and think the way he does.

Our goal in all of this is nothing less than intimate communion with the father and the son. (summarized from writings of James Goll- practicing his presence)

Pet Stories

Most of us have great and vivid memories of the pets we grew up with. We see their smiles, if that is what you can call the faces that say they are so happy to see you. We hear their purring or glad barks that we can distinguish from their mad barks. We can still feel their fur, and remember their passionate slobbering licks. When we spent time with our cats and dogs we felt accepted, loved, wanted, needed. Some of them were so special that we still mourn their loss and can tear up at their memory even to this day.

Some pets defy explanation as to their behavior and motivation. They are as individual and unique as any human person with idiosyncrasies and personalities that are expressed in the most peculiar way.

My family’s first opportunity to have a pet larger than a hamster was when we moved from an apartment to a house. Taz was already a one year old adult, but with some puppy still left in her. Taz was a very large, powerful, beautiful black and brown Sheppard/Rottweiler mix and for the most part a very normal dog. We didn’t get to keep her long as we had to move suddenly, but her memory will forever be etched in my oldest son Jordan’s mind since he was catapulted into the giant thorny rose bush by an affectionate leap Taz made to lick his face.

Then there was Angel, the little Lhasa apso. I found out this breed was used as Turkish guard dogs although I can’t imagine any bad guys who would be deterred by them. We took her in from some friends who were moving and I quickly came to despise this dog. She was about the size of a loaf of bread and maybe weighed all of 10 pounds soaking wet. Angel, who was not an angel, was a small grey and white curly and long haired primadonna with a jutted out jaw bearing the bottom layer of teeth similar to a boxer or bulldog. Like all those fufu types of dogs, she had a continuously wet and saliva soaked chin.

Angel didn’t like me either and would torture me every chance she could by escaping and running down the street. As I would call her name and run after her, she would stop, turn around and give me a coy glance then toy with me by running just a little further. As I approached her almost close enough to grab her, she would take off again and repeat the cycle until I was screaming at her and putting on a show for my family and neighbors that was quite entertaining.

Angel was always nervous and twitchy like an ex-convict and if she felt cornered or threatened in any way she would snap and growl at me, but of course no one else in my family saw that side of her until one day her true colors came out. The day of my liberation from Angel was after she bit the finger of one of our close friends, drawing blood. Nancy was holding a piece of chicken in her hand and as she was talking angel leaped up and devoured the chicken and one of Nancy's fingers.

My idea after that experience was to get a real dog, a black lab! We got Kawika (Hawaiian name) as a puppy, but unfortunately couldn’t see him into adulthood. We didn’t have the skill set at that time to help him with his addiction problem and it overwhelmed us. As is common to the black lab, Kawika was a chewer and after what seemed like 100 pairs of slippers and shoes and anything wood or plastic was destroyed he moved up to the insulated wiring and the side of the house.

We weren’t having much luck with animals, but that was about to change. My boss at the time asked me if I wanted his dogs. My boss was an eccentric Chinese national who had decided to get a dog from several Asian nations; including a Chinese chow, a Korean shin do and a Japanese Akita. Then I guess he changed his mind. I decided we would take the Shin do and the Akita, but not the Chow. The shin do name was Foxy because of its reddish fox-like appearance and the Akita’s name was Snowball. Snowball was as her name suggested, gleaming white like mountain snow with the sun shining against it. She almost looked like a German shepherd that someone had painted white. Strong slender jaw, but with a pink nose and thick fur, she was breathtakingly beautiful. What I wasn’t told, but soon learned was that both breeds were extremely territorial and these two fought with each other all night until I threw them both in the garage with the light off so they couldn’t find each other. The fight started again immediately as I opened the garage and so we had to choose one or the other, but not both.

We decided to keep Snowball and give Foxy back to my boss. I found out later that Foxy became a junkyard dog at a Korean auto repair place. We loved Snowball and she loved us, especially me. Whenever we took her for a walk or someone came over to the house they were struck with her regal beauty. She was peaceful, confident, friendly and playful. As I went through her paperwork (which was written in Japanese), I came to realize the magnitude of the gift that I had been given. She had been specially bred from strong lines of a distinct group of Akitas that were medium sized Japanese mountain dogs and she was very valuable. Another added bonus, besides her temperament is that she was already trained.

Snowball very soon became Papa’s girl, almost as precious to me as one of my own children. Speaking of the children, they coined the name "How" for Snowball because of the noise she would make when she got excited or was playing with us in the backyard. It actually sounded as if a human being in a loud low pitched tone was saying the word “how”.

I didn’t ever have to chase her down the street, like I did Angel, in fact she always stayed close to my side on or off the leash. Even when I let her run free through the orange groves behind our house to catch rabbits, she would always look back and make sure that I was close by.

Snowball’s absolute most favorite thing in the whole world was to go on her daily walk and she knew it was time when I said the words “bye bye”. If I even whispered those words, she went Auggie doggie on me and ran around the back yard with lightning speed and then stop on a dime and do amazing 360’s at blazing speed and then reverse 360’s better than a pro skateboarder.

After her walks and the time I looked forward to the most, I would sit outside on the barbecue pit and she would lean all of her 75 lbs into me while I petted her thick fur as if she were telling me she loved me and thanking me for her walk at the same time.

I knew something was wrong when she stopped eating and started losing weight, but I wasn’t prepared for the shock when the Veterinarian told me she had a large tumor and not much time left to live. We got Snowball when she was two years old and had her for 8 more years ( her birthday was the 4^th of July), but now that I only had her for a couple more weeks I was a mess. I knew this day would come eventually, but it seemed to soon. I couldn’t concentrate at work, my emotions were all over the place, but I had to be strong for her and for my family. We made her last two weeks as comfortable as possible with medicine and special meals like Steak and cheeseburgers, but I knew it was time when she couldn’t do the thing she loved the most, to run through the orange groves.

My wife Lesley and oldest son Jordan went with me when we put Snowball to sleep and spoke our last words to her. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do and I am not ashamed to say that I cried in anguish and pain at the greatest loss I had ever experienced up until that point.

Snowball’s ashes sit in a wooden box on my mantle and I keep an 8x10 of her with my financial documents to remind me how valuable she was and is. Her absence has left a void that will never be filled by any other person or pet ever again. She was unique and special and if you have ever had a pet like her you know what I mean. I know because I studied theology in college that she probably wont be in heaven waiting for me, but I also know that my God loves me and maybe he will make an exception.

As you can probably tell I am partial to dogs and we have had a few more since Snowball, including Bella the bull-English Bulldog and Randy (couture) the diarrhetic boxer, but we have also had some cats.

Cats are different animals altogether and it seems to me you are either a cat person or you’re a dog person. I always thought that all cats were pretty much the same. Growing up, my mom was a cat lady and today she is a cat lady on steroids. All of her 10 or 12 cats are loving, like to be petted and will curl up in your lap. So when my family decided to get a cat, I just assumed that’s the way our cats would be as well, then we got Titus.

My daughter Jillian was probably about 5 years old when she got that hankering and just had to have a cat, a kitten to be precise. Lesley and I finally gave in and took her to our local pound to save one’s life.

Being a dad and knowing all there is about animals and also being a male and wanting to go in and make the transaction as quick as possible and not let it turn into a shopping experience, I convinced my daughter to pick out a certain kitten. There were two kittens left from the same litter in one cage, they were both white with some grey ears and paws, but that is where the similarity ended. One of them looked like it had been drugged and didn’t respond to us at all and the other was very playful and active. I encouraged her to choose the active one, wrong decision.

From the moment we got home our lives had become a living nightmare. We were prisoners in our own home and feared and loathed by all the neighborhood children because of this cat Jillian had prophetically named Titus, who I believe was a bloodthirsty Roman general. Had we been tricked? Did they pull a switch at the last minute and give us a feral cat from the barrio of south central? Titus lived up to his name, he had only one modus operandi which was to attack and destroy. Maybe it wasn’t his fault that he had cat A.D.D. ,maybe some crazy German scientist had performed experiments on him or he was force fed red bull energy drinks.. Titus had a crazy look in his eyes that scared you no matter how small he was. His light blue eyes were contained by eyelids that looked as though they were held open by invisible vice grips or as if Titus had just watched the scariest movie ever. He was on full throttle and you knew that when he crashed it was not going to be pretty.

You think I am exaggerating, I am not. At first we thought how playful as he dug in his little claws and bit with his little razors into everyone and everything that gave any kind of motion. After a day or two we realized we had invited an unholy terror into our home.

My poor daughter Jill took the worst of it. Titus would lay in wait under her bed and as soon as her foot touched the ground in the morning to get up for school, Titus latched on with his claw daggers and little teeth and held on like a pitbull. I was gone to work already by that time, but my wife would hear the blood curdling screams throughout the house daily and know that Titus had struck again. I didn’t really think it was that bad and kind of assumed they were exaggerating until the day I answered the door to a terrified neighbor child with disheveled hair who couldn’t speak, but only pointed towards the playground across the street.

There were half a dozen children screaming in terror and a couple of adults with helpless and condemning looks on their faces as they stood on the seats of the swings and on top of the jungle gyms. Titus had two of them trapped on the swings and was swinging his claws feverishly trying to latch onto a prize. I had to get my leather garden gloves so I could pick Titus up and save these poor people.

We never entered the house again without considering where Titus was. Everyone was apprehensive ready for attack at any moment. Titus had no fear and would leap off of a 10 foot stair if he thought he could get to you. Many times I had to peel him off of a screen door or my daughter’s chest or a neighbor’s stucco house. Titus was bound and determined to bust out and make a break for it and then one day he did it, he was gone. There weren’t any tears or signs posted in the neighborhood, but instead we all breathed a collective sigh of relief that we had endured and survived the demon’s short visit and we vowed not to look for him or ever speak his name again.

We had other cats too. There was chopsticks who just ran away or my daughter thinks was stolen. Then there was the cat who one day decided that he would start peeing on the stove burners instead of in the cat box. I couldn’t handle the urine smell when we decided to cook so I took him down the street to a kiddy playground and let him go (I know I am heartless) in the hopes he might find another home with a stove he could pee on. To this day my daughter accuses me of eating cat flesh.

Present day we have Sidney the Siamese cat and Meow Meow the long hair running (ruining) our lives. After several years Sidney has decided its time to start pooping in the bathtub downstairs when no one is looking, to go with her overeating and hicking on the carpet. Meow Meow coughs up furballs and hicks too. Neither cat will let you hold them or will sit in your lap, you have to pet them on their terms. They aren’t completely anti-social though, whenever we sit down to dinner in the family room, they come in and use the nearby catbox leaving us with an odor that is some cross between rotten thai food and dead animal. For the life of me I don’t know why we spend money on cat food and litter and carpet cleaning so we can have them around, but then again I am not a cat person.

Enough about cats already, I am getting mad. About a year after Snowball passed away I decided to surprise my wife of 18 years. She grew up on the islands and her family had Chinese pugs. She has hinted over the years that she would love to have one again some day and so when a new guy in my office said he had one he would like to give away I hatched a plan that would make me come out smelling like a rose. Paul was hired from a temp agency to come in and be our new data input guy. He looked exactly like Jimmy Smits from NYPD blue and I instantly liked him. I was going to come off as a loving and caring husband by getting my wife a pug and it wasn’t gonna cost me 500 dollars.

I asked Paul the details about the pug. Is it a puppy? Boy or girl? Fixed? Shots? How old? Paul didn’t out right lie to me, but he led me to believe that Penny the pug was a young female pug who had been fixed and who we was just trying to find a home for because his grandparents who owned her were getting too old to take care of her. I was excited to get my wife Lesley a present, especially one she really wanted and so I told Paul to bring her to work and I would take her off his hands. I couldn’t understand then why he hesitated and stalled me for a week, but it all made sense when I put the pieces of the puzzle together later.

Paul explained his grandparents lived a little ways out in the country and that they had lost her paperwork. Ok fine I said no problem we still want her. Paul waited until it was Friday at 3pm (closing time) to bring her into the office. I was in such a hurry to leave that I really didn’t think much about inspecting her, I was eager to get on the freeway.

What I did notice right away though was her terrible odor. She smelled like death and I wondered if she had ever had a bath. I drove home with the window down. When I finally got home holding my breath I let her go in the backyard and she instantly walked off the ledge straight into the Jacuzzi. After I saved her and dried her off I began to take a closer look. One of her eyes was messed up and she was obviously blind in it. she had grey hairs on her chin which led me to believe she was a little older than Paul suggested. Her nipples were elongated from being tugged on by I am now guessing several litters of puppies.

Lesley my wife comes in and all I can say is here is your pug, suddenly not feeling like it was a very good present. Penny was so happy to be in our home though we couldn’t help but love her. Even when she got excited and her snorting sounded like a three hundred pound drunk man trying to breathe or a herd of swine running through the house, she was very lovable and friendly and she was ours.

When I went to work on the following Monday ready to talk to Paul about this lovely gift, I found out he had given his notice and wouldn’t be coming in anymore. Maybe he didn’t want to risk me telling him we didn’t want her after all or he felt embarrassed about embellishing her stats a little bit. It didn’t matter though, blemishes and all we love Penny.