Monthly Archives: July 2025

              Radiant Vision

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The sun arose and filled my eyes

With heavenly glory personified

Tears down my face did solemnly pour

I stood transfixed, and begged for more

Golden rays lit up the new morn sky

With brilliant spectacle for the eye

With mouth agape I did profoundly stare

And wonder what God’s doing up there

To me He gave such wondrous gift

That my poor spirit felt tremendous lift

To my knees I should have promptly fallen

But I could not move despite hearing Him callin’

Frozen in place with feet on the soil

I praised the Lord’s amazing toil

For humankind: to free our souls

From worries: to give us lofty goals

Reaching deeply into my empty purse

I feared God’s wrath, or maybe worse

Instead my heart did nearly burst

With joy: I knew I was not cursed

The sun arose and filled my eyes

With heavenly glory personified

Surprise!

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            My best friend wanted to add a dog to her kennel. I rode along, as company, not intending to bring one home. However, as we drove from one rescue shelter to another, the craving inside me grew and grew.

            Not for the big dogs or the ones that barked and growled. Not for the Sherpa who looked dangerous. Not for tiny things that might break if we stepped on it accidentally.

            It was the medium sized dogs that called to me.

            The cocker spaniels and terriers and mixed-somethings that promised to stay relatively small spoke my name. I resisted, over and over.

            Until we entered the shelter in my home town.

            In one cage was a female and three pups; My friend said they were border collies plus something that she couldn’t identify.

            Two of the pups were the traditional black and white that one expects for that breed. It was the brown and white one that stood out. Not because of size, as they were all small. Not because it looked at me with its brown eyes. I couldn’t say why, but I HAD to have that dog.

            There was a waiting list for the black puppies, but none for the one I wished for. However, they were too young to separate from their mama. And, we were told, all suffered from flea infestation.

            The shelter employee shared their sad story. The owners moved, leaving the female tied to a banister inside the house. They left no food or water. It was quite warm. Neighbors heard cries, loud, desperate cries and called.

            Police broke down the door. They found the mom and five puppies. One was already dead. They took the survivors to the pound. They bathed the mom, but the puppies were too young.

            Another died in their care.

            We put in an application for the one we wanted. The kids could hardly wait! We visited the pound almost every day. We sat on the floor outside the bars and talked to the dogs. We got to pet the female. When the puppies were walking, we touched them as well.

            Meanwhile we searched for the right name. When we came upon MacTavish, it felt right. We could call him Mac or Mackie, or when he misbehaved, the whole MacTavish.

            We were so excited when the call came to retrieve our dog.

            Mike had built an enclosure in the backyard out of metal fencing. Shortly after we got home, we took Mackie outside. He took a few steps and fell down. We watched, but he couldn’t seem to be able to walk.

            We fed him puppy food and water, but he refused food.

            The shelter had given us coupons for services, including tow different vets. My mother-in-law used one of them, so I made an appointment. The vet wanted to do a complete blood transfusion. He had treated one of the other puppies, but he couldn’t tell me what was wrong.

            We didn’t have that kind of money. This was a pound-puppy, not a purebred. His treatment would have cost more than taking one of our kids to the pediatrician.

            However, we could leave Mac there for the day and they’d keep an eye on him.

            I don’t remember how many dollars it cost, but since we were going to see the Oakland Athletics play, Mac would be safer there than at home alone.

            We retrieved Mac later that afternoon. He hadn’t eaten anything, but had consumed a little bit of water. No, he still couldn’t walk. They had done little more than nothing.

            My friend knew dogs. She’s been raising and showing dogs for many years. She told me what to buy. Then she arrived. Mixed up a gruel. Using a syringe which I had gotten from our dentist, she forced-fed Mac.

            We fed him that way for days and days. Eventually he was able to walk a few steps before collapsing.

            Around that same time, we went camping. We brought the gruel mixture and syringe. But, we also had summer sausage. Mac’s tiny ears came alert when we sliced into the sausage. We knew it wasn’t proper food for a dog, but we gave him a tiny bite. Then another and another.

            This was the first solid food Mac had eaten on his own!

            We had a small collar and a leash. When we went for a walk, Mac walked. Until we came to a tiny, tiny stream. He refused to cross over. Our oldest son picked up Mackie and carried him the rest of the way.

            That trip solidified that we were doing the right things and mac would live.

            When he grew bigger, Mac began playing catch. His version wasn’t really catch. He got the retrieving part, the bringing it close to the thrower, but not the dropping part. Over and over we tried to teach him, but Mac never learned.

            He developed a love of all sizes and shapes of balls. His favorite, though, were soccer balls. He’d use both front paws to surround the ball, then pick it up in his mouth. With sharp claws and teeth, the ball didn’t stand a chance.

            When he was a freshman in high school, our oldest made it on the JV team. One night when it was time to pick up our son, I decided to take Mac. He loved riding in cars. Oh, my, would he get excited!

            He loved cars so much that sometimes he’d get in the car as we were unloading groceries and wouldn’t get out until he went for a ride.

            I was running late, so I didn’t bring a leash. Mac was pretty obedient, so I wasn’t too concerned.

            Our small car had a hatchback. Our son was still playing when we arrived and it was too warm to stay in the car. I figured I could open the hatch and sit here, my hand gripping Mac’s collar.

            All went well until Mac saw the soccer ball. He got away from me and stormed onto the field, bringing the game to a halt. I ran over (yes, I could run back then), in time to see our son chasing Mac and the ball.

            Thank goodness Mac’s claws didn’t puncture the ball, as high school teams use the expensive models!

            After my son grabbed Mac and returned him to me, I tugged him back to the car, put down the hatch and stayed there until the game ended.

            My son wasn’t angry, but his coach was upset.

            The story of Mackie running onto the soccer field, disrupting a high school game, was one that was retold often.

            Our kids are grown up and out of the house and Mac’s been dead many years, but just thinking about him still makes me smile.

Help from on High

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            The only prayer I knew before first grade was; “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

            Pretty dismal. Imagine being three or four and thinking about dying in bed. I was terrified to close my eyes and drift off, certain that I’d be dead before sunrise. In my mind, God was not a friend and not someone I wanted in my life.

            To enroll my brother in the Catholic elementary in Dayton, Ohio, we had to prove that we attended Mass and gave money to the church. We drove into town, sat through a boring service conducted in Latin, a language I didn’t know, then hurried home to watch football or bowling.

            The next year I enrolled in the same school. Now my days began with prayer, ended with prayer, included instruction in religion, and had prayer time all day long. Lots of praise God and Alleluia. Threats of eternal damnation and black spots on your soul. Displeasing God so badly that he’d turn his back on us.

            At home I had to get on my knees every night and pray next to my brother. I’d learned new prayers: Our Father and Hail Mary. At least now I didn’t go to bed thinking about my death. But I had new things to worry about.

            Did I talk back to my mother? Did I have awful thoughts about my brother or sister? Did I hate my teacher? Classmates? Did I waste food that could feed kids in China?

            God took, terrified me, and shook His finger. He offered nothing positive. No hope. No escape from my dysfunctional family.

            While part of me didn’t believe God cared about me, I prayed to Him anyway. I prayed for relief from the constant torment from my siblings, from the anger directed toward me from both parents, from the overwhelming sense of despair that surrounded me.

            Even as young as eight, I hoped, prayed, that God would lift me out of my living situation and drop me into a happier one. By twelve I was planning on running away. By fourteen, when we moved to California, I studied so as to go to college, another escape. In fact, it was the only way out, other than marriage, something I was opposed to given the poor relationship between my parents.

            Considering years of prayer, with little change, I thought about giving up. Why pray if no one was listening? It seemed like a fruitless activity.

            But when things worsen, when life becomes unbearable, you must do something. I was too young to move out plus I had no means of supporting myself. No relatives lived nearby, so I couldn’t change residences. The one hope; having good enough grades to earn a scholarship.

I prayed constantly. In between classes? A prayer. Eating lunch? Pray. Riding the school bus? Another opportunity to pray.

I refused to give up, to think that God had abandoned me when I hadn’t done anything seriously wrong.

Toward the end my junior year of high school, a letter came addressed to me. I was a recipient of a scholarship from the State of California! It could be applied to any college, whether public or private. I had done my research and knew what colleges were at the top of my list.

San Francisco State University and College of the Redwoods had excellent teacher education programs. SF State was also strong in math, my top subject. My parents wouldn’t let me go to either. They laughed at the idea of me being a teacher. Good, old, shy me. The girl who could sit among others and say nothing.

I prayed.

I applied to the University of Southern California, in the math department. I got accepted! My scholarship would cover the tuition. I borrowed to pay room and board.

It wasn’t at the top of my list, but because my brother has been accepted there, my parents let me go, only after telling him to keep an eye on me.

I thanked God.

While at college, I was walking back to my dorm when I heard this amazing music coming from a one-story white brick building. I stuck my head in, to discover Mass with drums, guitar, tambourine, and folk music that I knew and loved.

That discovery led me back to God. Not the fire and brimstone version in my younger life, but a God who loved me and cared for me. I went on a retreat with the Neumann Center. When I got off the bus somewhere in the mountains, and smelled the pine needles, walked among the debris on the forest floor, touched the bark of a redwood and looked up, up, up so high that it hurt my neck, I knew there was a god.

That experience changed me. Things still went wrong when I had to go home. After all, my parents were the same, my siblings were the same, so why would I expect something new?

I’d like to think I grew a spine, thanks to Divine Intervention. God infused my soul with grit. He empowered me to take risks, to stand up for myself. To create goals that I wanted to accomplish and strive toward them.

That was fifty-four years ago. God is still in my life. I believe He watches over me, helps me make decisions and guides me in many, many ways.

Sometimes we need a little help.

Just for the Picking

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Ten thousand wishes float into the air

Brightly lit rainbow dots drift without care

Air-filled hopes slowly rise into the sky

Waiting for the moment to multiply

Realistic fantasies within reach

Specifically crafted for us each

Inside, a single dream lurks unfulfilled

Waits for perfect heart in which to be spilled

Dandified dreams as mystic butterflies

Burst in multicolored hues ‘ere our eyes

Windswept images of forgotten faces

Mist-enshrouded thought of faraway places

Everyday troubles weathered away

Lucky lazy bubbles brighten the way

Worlds of wonder wrapped in shiny white

Drawn down to earth by fragile string of kite

Electric energy for those who dare

Ten thousand wishes rise into the air.

Walking in the Snow

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            I was born in Dayton, Ohio. Our first residence was a tiny house that was once owned by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Looking back at old photos, I now realize we lived in the “projects.” Every house looked the same. They marched down the street, like soldiers.

            We did have running water and electricity, but the only washing machine was an old-fashioned wringer type. I had to catch the clothes as they emerged, with a caution that I’d lose my hands if I wasn’t careful.

            I was an imaginative child. Every night, I dreamt of a hand being smashed between those rollers.

            Our next house was in a nicer neighborhood. It was two-story, with the upstairs unfinished. At some point my mom let me move upstairs, probably to get away from my younger sister.

            My brother and I often played outside in the snow. We weren’t allowed out of our yard, so our activities were reduced to building snowmen and throwing snowballs.

            Just before my fourth-grade year of school, we moved to Beavercreek, Ohio. It was a large subdivision bordering a forest owned by the Air Force. Nothing could be built there as it was part of the runway.

            The upper part of the subdivision was fairly flat. As the streets headed south and east, hills came into play. Our house sat on one of those hills. The house to our north sat a tad higher than ours, while the one on the south was a bit lower.

            No fences on any of our properties.

            Ohio can be incredibly cold and snowy. One winter it snowed so much that it came up to my ten-year-old knees. Often after a snow, it warms slightly, then chills at night, turning everything to ice.

            My brother got the idea to build an igloo. We thought we knew how to build one as we’d read many stories about indigenous peoples. I wasn’t allowed to use the saw, so he did all the cutting. I was the porter and the builder. He cut a block of ice; I carried it to the site and layered one block on top of another.

            When the wall was too high, he had to finish off the igloo.

            Somehow, we succeeded! There was a hole as a door. The walls curved inward, creating a dome at the top.

            Crawling in was fun, except for when the ice melted. Then our mittens and knees of our pants got soaked. Once inside, though, it was surprisingly warm. We’d pack lunches, crawl through, and no matter the temperature outside, eat in comfort.

            I’d just learned how to read thanks to a children’s librarian who showed me a collection of easy-to-read nonfiction books on Indigenous people. My mom insisted her great-great-great grandmother was “Native.” She claimed her tan skin was evidence, as well as her love of bread and gardening.

            I wanted to know more about that relative, and so read every book the library had. When it wasn’t too cold, I’d take a book into the igloo and spend precious time reading. Alone. Out of the maelstrom of my life.

            The following winter very little snow fell, but thanks to freezing nighttime temperatures, there was plenty of ice.

            My brother and I would pull our sled uphill into the neighbor’s yard. With a good running start, and a timely jump, we’d fly down that hill, sail across our yard, downhill into the next, ending midway into that neighbor’s yard.

            It was great fun. We also never got hurt.

            On our last winter in Beavercreek before moving to California, once again, little snow fell. It was cold, though, so cold that huge icicles hung from our gutters and every powerline. The combined weight of icicles pulled the powerlines down, down, down. We lost electricity several times, the popping and snapping terrifying me. It was not until crews came out and removed the ice that our electricity was returned.

            The wind was fierce. It howled like a banshee, a truly scary sound. We’d huddle inside, not daring to go out in that storm. When morning came, we went outside to discover roof-high piles of snow on the north side of our house.

            Huge icicles hung everywhere. When the sun lit them up, the sparkling light amazed me.

            We broke off the tips from some, licking them as if they were popsicles. They were flavorless, but in our minds, they were as good as the best thing we’d ever had.

            Those were good memories. While I think fondly back on those times, I am grateful to live in the San Francisco Bay Area where it never snows.