When to Clap

val and me amsterdam

Recently bestselling author Val Poore (https://www.amazon.com/Valerie-Poore/e/B008LSV6CE?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1564318680&sr=1-1) wrote a brilliant blog on the differences between UK and US language. As a new to the UK dog owner, I decided to highlight some interesting canine differences.

Folks here don’t ask to pet your dog, they ask to “clap” it. The first time I heard that I was horrified. What loving pet owner wants a stranger to hit his or her hands together against your poor terrified puppy?

One doesn’t walk a dog on a leash here. It’s a lead. You don’t bathe your dog, you bath it. You don’t feed it supper, you give it tea. You don’t tell your dog “no” when it picks up unsavory morsels, you tell it “leave.”

I’m sure there are many other differences, because after all—babies in the UK suck on dummies, not pacifiers. They don’t wear diapers, they wear nappies. All drinks that aren’t tea or coffee are lemonade. I don’t know what lemonade is called. Bangs are “fringes” and in polite company you don’t say “poof.” But I’ll leave that one for readers to figure out.

The love for furry family members is the same in both countries. So is kindness. And God’s unfailing capacity for miracles. We took our six-month-old rough collie Savannah to North Berwick for dental surgery. We had to walk back to our B&B, a distance of about a mile. We didn’t realize when we left the clinic that Savannah hadn’t fully recovered from surgery. She suddenly plopped down on the grass, stretched out on her side and could go no further. I had already been carrying the 40-pound dog on a knee that requires surgical repair.

savannah in grass 6 month

Enter human angel. God sent him. He appeared out of nowhere and told us that the clinic had released Savannah too soon and she would never be able to walk as far as our B&B. He called the vet clinic and told them Savannah was coming back for a couple of hours. He even offered to carry her. My Texas stubbornness kicked in and I assured him that I could carry the 40-pound pup back uphill to the station. I’m on crutches now.

savannah from weeks to months

https://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Languages, Lost, Learning

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We just returned from an Andre Rieu concert in his hometown of Maastricht, the Netherlands. The concert was phenomenal.

We got lost getting in and out of our first hotel—not once, not twice—but every time. It had four corridors on our floor and only one of them led to a tiny, old fashioned two-person elevator. Since an x-ray proved extensive damage to my left knee even if the pain didn’t, taking the lift instead of four flights of stairs seemed prudent. Change the equation to include our unfailing ability to get lost…and I’m not sure the elevator was the best choice.

Blame the train for the next drama. Heading back to Amsterdam there was an announcement over the speakers in Dutch. Only in Dutch. Then the train stopped and everyone got off. Everyone but us. Finally, a kind English-speaking fellow traveler stuck her head into our empty carriage and said, “You have to get off here and take another train.”

So we did. Again an announcement. Again only in Dutch. The train stopped. Everyone got off. Just as we were stepping off the train, a low-flying fighter zoomed over the station with deafening noise. My heart thumped. Were we in the middle of a war and no one told us? How would we know? We couldn’t understand a word of Dutch.

This time, I spotted a train conductor and chased him down…yes…it hurt. He said there would be another train in 38 minutes. Wait where we were. Not even five minutes later, he shouted at us and pointed. Our train was boarding and it was way up the track from where we patiently stood. Again the running on sad knee. We made it…but it was standing-room-only and no one could move, much less sit down. So a two-hour standing train trip with a barrage of Dutch that we couldn’t understand. We still didn’t even know if we were at war.

It gave me new compassion for people who immigrate to another country and don’t know the language. It gave me new compassion for babies who—regardless of their native language—start out in a world of confusing sounds and words that they don’t know. It gave me new compassion for puppies, who like babies, must learn every new word.

We stepped off the train in Amsterdam and quickly got lost at the back of the station when we tried to find a cab. We also nearly got run over by scores of racing bikes. We didn’t know that the red paved paths around the city were bike lanes. Bikes outnumber cars by millions, the taxi driver said—when we finally found him. Amsterdam was built for bikes. We saw one mom with two children and a basket on her bike and another child skating behind holding onto the bike. We saw bikes delivering hot meals, carrying rolls of carpets, carrying huge plants. We saw bike riders holding umbrellas as they rode one-handed. We even saw riders using no hands, just their knees as they raced by at incredible speeds.

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We took a canal tour and saw people living on houseboats and barges. It was a trend hippies started back in the 1960s. It became so popular that now only wealthy people can afford to live on the water in Amsterdam.

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My favorite part of the trip, besides seeing Andre Rieu, was meeting River Girl, Val Poore, an awesome bestselling author who writes about living and remodeling barges with such humor and talent that she makes even plumbing interesting. Being on the canals and watching the bikes race bike reminded me of her unique and beautifully written book, “The Skipper’s Child,” which is now also in Dutch. https://www.amazon.com/Valerie-Poore/e/B008LSV6CE?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1563827204&sr=1-1

val and alan

And the event on the train reminded me of Jesus. How could we understand God’s Heavenly language without earthly tones had not Jesus come to this earth as a Man and taught us? Now we have the Bible in a language we can understand and it continues to be printed in languages for every nation of the world. God’s Book. A Living Book. A language to share with the entire world.

leaning buildings

https://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Miracle Flea

Les with kids

My sister, internationally bestselling author Leslie Garcia, has been slowly going blind for more than a year while she worked on organizing her insurance, help at home, and an eye surgeon so she could have cataracts removed from both eyes. She was basically totally blind in her left eye and had such limited sight in her right eye that she had a hard time discerning whether a large object was a horse, a car, or a semi-truck. She gave up driving. Sometimes when she put up groceries, things that should have gone into the refrigerator wound up in the kitchen cupboard with napkins and potato chips.

Finally, she had surgery on her left eye. And saw a flea. It was a miracle. For a person too blind to tell a horse from a truck, being able to see a flea again was a miracle.

That’s how we are with God sometimes. We want the big stuff. We forget flea-sized miracles. Every breath we take is a miracle. Every step we take is a miracle. Waking up to a new day is a miracle. But we get so focused on watching out for horses, semi-trucks, and cars—that we miss the fleas.

“In everything give thanks,” 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Don’t forget the fleas.

Butterflies and Changes

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Yeah, I get it. Without changes, there would be no butterflies. But I strongly disagree with Robin Sharma who said, “Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and glorious at the end.”

My comics are gone and that’s a change and that is not glorious – it’s disappointing.

First thing every morning I add my four favorite comics to my breakfast bar and Diet Coke to get the day off with a smile and a chuckle. Sometimes even a belly laugh. First the comics disappeared off Yahoo. Change. Not good. Then I found another site with my favorites. Now it’s news. Change. Not good. Regardless of whether the news on the site is real or fake, I miss my smiles, chuckles, and belly laughs.

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To get myself in a better frame of mind, I’ve read inspirational quotes about change. Nido Qubein said, “Change brings opportunity.” Good for him. But I wonder if he had to put two pairs of glasses on to read his witticism. Change. Not good.

For a writer, some changes are great. No more hammering out books on typewriters with stiff keys committed to catching fingers between the pads. Instant communication with editors, etc. Being able to change stories and move sentences and characters around without ripping pages out of the carriage and throwing them on the floor.

But vanishing comics? That’s a change too far.

sunflowers and butterfly laredo december

https://www.amazon.com/Stephanie-Parker-McKean/e/B00BOX90OO/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

When Bodies Fall From Planes

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It was a tragedy and a shock when a body fell out of a plane and into a garden as a plane was landing in London. It must have traumatized the homeowner and neighbors, and how tragic for the stowaway and his family.

Life is like that sometimes: pianos fall out of the sky; bodies fall out of planes; joggers get killed by bears; hikers fall off mountains; doctors come back with a cancer diagnosis—the world wakes up to hear that a terrorist attack brought down the Twin Towers in New York City. The unexpected happens.

We laugh at superstitious people refusing to leave their beds on Friday the 13^th—but sometimes that seems temping regardless of the day or date. Perhaps that’s because I’m getting older and need two pairs of glasses at the same time to read small print.

Yet…God is in control.

I think I would stay in bed and isolate myself from the world were it not for what Jesus said in Matthew 10:29, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin, and not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.”

God is in control. He knows. He understands.

The unexpected can be joyous. My son Luke finished a marathon in New York. A sparrow flew down to his shoulder panting. Luke shared water from his water bottle with it and after a few minutes the little bird regained its strength and courage to fly again.

When we let go of the unexpected and let God handle it—we can regain our strength and courage.

God is in control.

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