Sunday, September 28, 2014

Taking Care of MOM

Hello Friends.

This is how my MOM's work week starts out.  I know it's all awe and sweet and stuff.  And I love it.  Butt here is the facts.  I know I have mentioned my MOM works a lot.  And she does.  For over a year and a half she has worked 80 to 85 hours a week between her work at our church and her work at the homeless shelter.  (We havn't even had time to take our late summer backpacking trip.  Butt we hope to at the end of October.  Paws crossed for that my friends)  Don't misunderstand, she LOVES her work.  Butt she does get tired sometimes.  It turns out that the next couple of weeks she has some added responsibilities that will take even more of her time.   

What I am trying to say is if my MOM looks like this at the start of her week imagine what she looks like at the end of the week.  So it just might be for the next couple of weeks I might not get to blog as much.  After all if my MOM will be working even more I need to make sure she gets taken care of.  That's what I do.  I will do my best to pop around to visit ya all and MAYBE I might get to put up a post now and then.  Butt know I'll be back on track when these new responsibilities get taken care of.  Thanks for understanding my friends.
Blessings,
Goose

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

My Morning Thing

Hello Friends.

Yesterday I told you about my evening routine.  Let me answer one question first before I get to my post.  NOOOOO I do not sleep on the "dog" bed.  After I doze for about an hour, I get up, look at MOM, then head off to my REAL bed.  MOM says it's her bed, butt we all know the truth.  I share it with her, and let her make the bed, and put on different sheets.  Butt really it's my bed.

OK moving on.  So, do ya all have a morning routine?  I do.  It goes like this most every morning.  MOM and I get up (between 4 and 4:30am), I go outside, then I eat breakfast.  Then MOM and me do our morning devotion.

Then we head out for our morning walk.  It is very important to walk the humans, VERY.  It's still dark outside when we go for our walk so MOM uses my light-up leash, it's a safety thing. 
Then MOM takes a shower.  I wait for her to finish right on the bathmat.  MOM says there is not room for me to do that.  Our bathroom is only 5X6.5. 

Butt as you can see there is plenty of room for me.  No idea what she is talking about.  I stay in there while MOM blow dries her hair.  When she is finished...

I insist being blow dried too.  If she forgets I look up at her and sort of snort.  I just love being blow dried.  Then it's off to Bert's place so I can get some rest from my very busy morning.
Blessings,
Goose


Monday, September 22, 2014

Bed Time Story

Hello Friends.

Do you have a night time routine?  I do.  Most nights go like this: Around 9 o'clock MOM and I go for a walk (it's very important to walk the humans).  Then when we get home MOM gives me a treat and I go and lay on my bed.  Then MOM gets a book to read to me.  I always like when she reads a book by my favorite author, Dr. Lydia Criss Mays.  I just call here Aunt Lydia, yea we're tight like that.  She is just the bestest author ever!  After MOM read me "The Giving Me" she got up to get a drink and when she came back this is what she saw.....

I was fast asleep with my bestest stuffie friends, Billy and Jeremiah, dreaming of how giving makes the world a MUCH more beautiful place.
Blessings,
Goose

Sunday, September 21, 2014

MOOOOOOOM

Hello Friends.

"Hey MOM what ya doing laying on the floor?  MOM, MOM, Hey MOM.  MOOOOOM."

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!  Momma, Mother, Mommy, MOM, MOM, MOM.
"What is it Goosie?"

"I Love you."
Blessings,
Goose


Saturday, September 20, 2014

B&W with a Splash of Color

Hello Friends.

Conversation and Snuggles with MOM.

MOM photographing the changing leaves.
Blessings,
Goose

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Glorious Colors

Hello Friends.

MOM took a stroll without me.  Are you as shocked as I was????  Butt it's OK I stayed with Bert and he and I planned what we were going to do when his Vickie goes out of town.  She'll be gone like a week so Bert and I will have lots of BBQ's and parties.  Everyone is invited. 

Here is a bit of what my MOM saw on her stroll.















Hope you enjoyed my MOM's stroll in all of God's glorious creation.  The reason I was not with her was because it is the very beginning of the rut season for those Mooses.  I do have Moose manners (clearly my MOM has not learned this yet) butt during rut season, even with Moose manners, you never know what they will do, so MOM said it was safer if I stayed with Bert.
Welp, I better get back to the planning for FUUUUUUUN with Bert while his Vickie takes a little vacation with her mom.
Blessings,
Goose










Sunday, September 14, 2014

Never to Late to SEE BEAUTIFUL

Hello Friends.

As you may know this past Friday was the blog hop "This Moment See Beautiful hosted by Sugar.  It happens EVERY 2nd Friday of the month.  After over 2 years of doing this you would think my MOM would remember.  Butt this past Friday she totally forgot.  So she quickly did a short little post and promised me she would put together my normal See Beautiful video later.  Well later is finally here. 



It's NEVER to late the See Beautiful my friends, never. It's as close as looking in the mirror or your water dish.  There it is, beautiful staring right back at you.  Take a step outside and BAM there it is in those you meet, it's in what surrounds you, just open your eyes, more importantly open your heart and you can't help but see it.  And when you see it, you want to share it, and when you share it, you need to create it, and when you create it, you see it staring back at you.  It comes full circle and that my friends is indeed a beautiful thing.
Blessings,
Goose

Saturday, September 13, 2014

The Gift of Forgiveness

Hello Friends.

For today’s message I am going to throw in a few photos of my outing with Bert, Miss Sophie, Wyatt and our new puppy friend Murphy.

Most adults recognize it’s their “job” to teach children, and dogs, right from wrong, good from bad, safe from scary, yes from no.

But there are some lessons that children, and dogs, are better at teaching us. Think about celebrations like birthdays, Christmas, Gotcha Day, and Easter, and any other special days that have the possibility of “presents” attached.  Kids, and dogs, LOVE them, anticipate and adore them.  Children, and yes again dogs, love and accept presents with unabashed enthusiasm.  Receiving a gift is “all good.”

For adults it’s a bit more difficult.  They worry about the cost of the gift. They worry about reciprocating the gift.  They worry about whether the gift has invisible “strings” attached.  Suddenly “receiving” is a bit more complicated than just joyous.  Receiving a gift is hard for most of people.  People either feel beholden, or suspicious, or overwhelmed, or unworthy of the freely given gifts that bless us.

The adult vs. child or dog version of acceptance is even greater with the other tremendous “gift” young children/dogs are good at offering and accepting.  Kindergarten kids and pups might get into a heated battle over who gets custody of a Ninja Turtle figure or the ball or stuffie.  Tears, growls and blows might even be involved.  But after a truce is called, and apologies are offered (or sometimes enforced), in a short time all is forgiven, and play time goes on.  Forgiveness is offered and the play date continues.

There are no thoughts of revenge.  There is no nurturing of anger. There are no dreams of retaliation.  The confrontation is simply over with and done.  For four year-olds forgiveness is pretty much an “over and out” scenario.  The “wrong” was deeply felt.  But the new reality is that we will start over and stay together.

Not necessarily so for adults.  For adults extending or accepting forgiveness is an even more difficult concept to embrace and embody than accepting gifts and grace.  When learning how to receive a gift, no matter how difficult, at least it gains us something.  A paperweight. A watch.  A spa certificate.  Maybe even a friend.

But learning how to either extend or receive forgiveness always COSTS something.  It costs us our anger.  It costs us our right to revenge.  It costs us our high road to hatred.  Offering forgiveness forces us to retract our claws and recall our true cause, the cause of Christ and His kingdom.

The call to forgiveness calls us to hear what drives our heart.  Are we driven by love?  Are we driven by service?  Are we driven by shalom? Are we driven by a need for superiority?  Are we driven by guilt? Are we driven by grace?  Offering — or refusing forgiveness squeezes out and squishes that which circulates in our heart.

In Matthew 18:21-35 Jesus surprises Peter by reminding him that before Pharisaic legalism the biblical text advocated forgiving “seventy-seven fold” (from Genesis 4:24) — and that was for the murder of a sibling!  Jesus also advocated for any general offense an offering of forgiveness “seventy-seven times” or “seventy times seven.”

These numbers like “seventy-seven times” or “seventy-times-seven” are metaphors for “as often as forgiveness is needed and sought after.”  Jesus’ challenge to Peter, to all his disciples, in the first century and in the next twenty centuries, was to find it within themselves to offer the gift of forgiveness, no matter how many times it took.  Did you get that?  For as long as you have breath, you forgive.

Helmut Thielicke, a survivor of the Nazi regime proclaimed that “One should never mention the words ‘forgive and forget’ in the same breath.  No, we will remember, but in forgiving we no longer use the memory against others.”

Forgiveness is never forgetfulness.  Forgiveness is more than let bygones be bygones.  Forgiveness is the hardest kind of “gifting” we can either extend or experience.  None of us can truly “forgive” without knowing and accepting the forgiving love that God has given to all of humanity, most perfectly in the gift of Jesus the Christ, the Ultimate Gift, the Present of Presence.  No one can be forgiving of others and their human failings until they have felt the power of the forgiveness that comes from the cross, and crosses all boundaries and all dividing walls.  It took Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for forgiveness to “go viral” within the bloodstream of humanity.

Instead of advocating a “religion,” a set and sworn system of rites, rituals and beliefs, Jesus offered all humanity who would receive the gift of faith, a relationship with God that was personal and pulsating — alive to everyday moments and face-to-face encounters. Jesus offered reasons to receive God’s love and reasons to reciprocate God’s forgiveness.

Our ability to forgive is always and ever linked to Jesus’ love for us and God’s compassionate forgiveness.  It was only this divine, sacrificial love that made it possible for human forgiveness to be an active player in this world.

It only takes three minutes of news-cruising to find terrible examples of “unforgiveness” every day.  But as “Mr. Rogers” retold from his own mother’s advice, “look for the helpers.”  Instead of focusing on the horrific, look to the helpers.  In every crisis and critical situation, as bad as they might get, look towards those who are offering helping hands and support.   The ability to offer forgiveness cannot start without standing on some common ground.  Helping others, the “first responders” in every place on this world, are the most forgiving “common ground” we might have today.

“Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.” Let’s take that to heart. That gives people of faith one less thing to stress about.  But we have been taught to go further than not seeking revenge.  We have been summoned to offer forgiveness.  We have been offered the “seventy-seven times” (aka, “always”) recipe for forgiveness.

Every one of you reading this needs to forgive someone this week.  It may be yourself.  Can you forgive yourself?  It may be a family member or friend with whom you’ve nursed an unforgiving grudge for years.  Can you forgive your relatives or friends?  It may be an enemy that is doing everything they can to make you fail.  Can you forgive your enemies?

“Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” In the Lord’s Prayer many say daily, forgiveness is withheld from the person who won’t forgive, not because God is punishing us for not forgiving, but because the person who won’t forgive can’t receive forgiveness.

In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgive.  Now go forgive…yes, even “seventy-seven” times.
Blessings,
Goose

Friday, September 12, 2014

See Beautiful

Hello Friends.

OH MY GOODNESS.  I may just have to fire or at least write my MOM up.  She forgot, FORGOT it was This moment See Beautiful!!  She FORGOT!!  You know may favorite time every month.  The 2nd Friday of each month where we all share how we saw, shared, created and enjoyed all the beautiful around us.  Can you believe that.  So butt then I thought, "Hummmmm where can I find the beautiful in MOM's forgetfulness."

Well I did find it, and I did not have to look to hard.  Instead of MOM working on my This Moment See Beautiful post she was listening to me read to her one of my favorite books.  She was spending time with me.  That my friends is very beautiful.  And as grace would have it she was wearing her See Beautiful shirt.  You know what else is beautiful???  It does not matter if my MOM works 11 hours or 12 or 14 hours each day she ALWAYS spends time with me, walks, cuddles, hikes, reading, belly rubs.  Yep, when she picks me up from Bert's place it's all about me and her. I am a blessed pup.  MOM says she is the one who is blessed for a whole lot of reasons butt she says on the top of that blessed list is me cuz I help her See Beautiful each and every day. 
When the MOM gets home tonight we will work on my See Beautiful video and put it up for you on Saturday cuz seeing beautiful is not just a one day a month things.  It's an every day thing, it's a every moment thing.  It is a lifestyle. 
Blessings,
Goose 
 

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

My New Friend

Hello Friends.

Oh my goodness did I get a surprise yesterday.  MOM picked me up from Bert's place after she finished work.  Now normally we go home butt this time we did not.  To my surprise we were going on a little adventure.

We ended up at The Pond!  WOW!!  See MOM works 11 to 14 hours a day so normally we go home, she does paper type of work or studies and she takes me for a walk around the neighborhood.  BUTT yesterday we met up with some friends (Bert, Miss Sophie, Wyatt) to take a stroll around the pond and down by the river.  Then...

This guy caught up with us. His name is Murphy and he is 12 weeks old.  Isn't he cute?  Now I am going to admit something.  See at my age I am not a puppy kind of dog.  Oh I like them, I just don't like them jumping all over me.  Butt there was just something about Murphy.  We all went to the edge of The Pond.  I guess a puppy needs to learn how to swim right?

Well this little pup was in luck cuz he was in the presence of Water Golden Boy himself, Bert.    Murphy was going to be taught by the VERY best.

Trouble was Golden Boy was playing kissy face with his girlfriend, Miss Sophie. 

So I stepped in to show Murphy the ropes or the waves as it were.
"Come on little one I'll show you about water."

"This here is water."
"Waaatter?"
"Yep.  Now we are going to take this slow.  Just put one paw in front of the other."

"Like this Mr. Goose?"
"Just like that Murphy."

"Now come on out to me."
"But it's getting deeper."
"Don't worry, I'll be here for you.
"Promise?"
"PROMISE."

"You're doing great Murphy!  Now lets head back to the bank and see if Bert has some time to show you the finer things about water."

"Hey Goose did you notice there is a puppy over there?"
"Really Goldie Wet Locks.  Are you kidding me?????  Yes I know there is a puppy over there.  His name is Murphy and I thought you could show him how to....."

Swim....."

"Is Bert going to show me 'the finer things about water'?"
"Ummmm.  Well right now he is searching for rocks at the bottom of the pond."

"Come with me little one.  Well go check out the water over there."
"Why does Bert look for rocks at the bottom of the pond?  There are lots of rocks right here.  See there's one and there's one and there's one."
"It is one of life's mysteries my new little friend."

"Now come on, I'll race you to the reeds and back."
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

I sure had fun with Murphy.  As we walked back to the parking area we had a talk.  He is a very smart for only being 12 weeks old.  I mean he already knows that diving for rocks at the bottom of a pond is CRAZY.  We chatted all the way back.  I sure hope I get to see him again soon. 
Blessings,
Goose