Samson unleashed

~"Sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the universal powers, souls are now acting, enduring and daring, which can love us, and which we can love." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

I once overheard my sister say, "Amaris may own a cat but she is secretly a dog person inside." I consider myself a lover of all living things. Well, pretty much a lover of all things inanimate and animate alike. I am a tree hugger, a teddy bear hugger, a random person I just met in line at the grocery store-hugger. While I may have always owned cats, I love dogs but have never owned one due to the high maintenance nature of their care and my taste for spontaneous travel. I so thoroughly enjoy the perks of being an aunt in which I get to have fun, fun, fun with my nieces and nephews and then when the tantrums start its time to go, go, go.

Similar also is my enjoyment of other peoples dogs which I can join for a walk or play with them when I want to but I don't have to pick up their messes and it's not my shoes they are trashing. Over the years many dogs have had special places in my heart like Lucy, Mack, P, Bandit, Precious, and Samson to name a few.

Back in the day of yester-year when I used to be married and lived about a mile or two away from my parents-in-law, they had a black Bouvier named Samson. I copied this description of the sheep dog breed Bouvier from wickipedia:

~Bouvier des Flandres are rational, gentle, loyal, and protective in nature. Unlike many animals bred for basic aggressive nature and power, the Bouvier des Flandres possess sophisticated traits, such as complex control, intelligence, and accountability.

Samson really did posses such an interesting display of intelligence which he showed in his desire to always make me laugh. The first time I distinctly noticed this trait was when he hadn't been shaved in ages and his long, curly sheep dog looking coat was hanging down low over his eyes and everywhere else. It was a charming look for him but as you will read later not a clean one for many reasons, hence he was usually shaved. When I arrived at his house he was thrilled to see me as always and so he lept high in the air and when he did so all his hair flew back off of him as if in a wind tunnel, or some cheesy music video. It seemed like he was the only one in slow motion and it looked so funny that I started laughing out loud.

He instantly did it again and I laughed again and he did it again and the more he did it the more I laughed and the more he kept doing it. Somewhere in it all I knew he was doing it because he heard in my laughter that it was making me happy. And I loved him all the more for wanting to make me happy.

Just as Samson understood my laughter meant happiness I saw that he was happiest riding in the back of a truck. So often when I had the company truck and was doing some random errand I would stop by and pick him up and give him a ride around just to see the joy in his eyes and hear his happy howl. When I was feeling extra charitable I would pick him up and take him running with me on the trail by the river but it usually ended in frustration so it was rare. He wasn't a leash kind of dog since his life was lived in liberty he didn't understand the rules of being roped to me and we both ended up regretting our attempts at going for a fettered foray. Samson had a heart so like my own with an insatiable lust to roam free and run and run and run.

"Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set; God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet." -Arthur Christopher Benson

Some of Samson's favorite things in the world to do were to swim in the ponds, go search for something especially stinky to roll in and then wander far and wide, until days later tired of his mischief he would slink home covered in filth, stinking unbearably. There was a period of time much to the torture of everyone's olfactory senses in which Samson repeatedly would run off to wallow in the remains of a decaying dead cow. Now imagine, if you would for a brief moment how pungent a small mouse or other little dead creature is when rotting.......

now multiply that to the size of a large festering cow carcass. Samson couldn't be kept away from it. He would sneak off whenever one was unawares and return again and again to the stink of all stinks to roll and roll, until he too stunk beyond measure. It was only after the authorities had been called repeatedly by my parents-in-law and others that lived closer down wind of the departed cow that it was finally properly disposed of discretely.

Curly haired Samson and I had more than curls in common we both had the same wonderlust that beckons beyond our fences. Our similar hearts both yearned for the same freedom, loved the wind in our face, and wanted to live our lives unleashed.

Sadly like him I went out and found my own kinds of decay to wallow in and left it stinking in ways often only I could smell. Unfortunately though other times when I came home dragging the stench couldn't be denied and thankfully everyone: family, friends, and church all helped clean me up with love and forgiveness.

~"If there was a God, He'd guide the winds, let them blow for me so that, with a tug of my string, I'd cut loose my pain, my longing. I'd endured too much, come too far. And suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when." (The Kite Runner pg 65)

Samson departed this world while doing his favorite thing, running wild and free. I imagine him going out like in the scene from the movie "Braveheart" shouting, "FOR FREEDOM" with a mud smeared curly leap way up high, just for me.

My own wonderlust has ceased as well because I have found that all of my wandering was really just me looking in all of the wrong places for the wonders and joy I find in the Lord.

As one of my favorite Christian songs says,"All of You is more than enough for all of me, for every thirst and every need You satisfy me with Your love and all I have in You is more than enough, You're enough, You're enough, You're enough for me!"

Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Lord let us no longer wander but instead lead us to a place where we find completeness and fulfillment in You. Reveal to us how You are enough for us and all that we will ever need. Let us love our need for You and help others to a place where they can find that you are all that they will ever want, desire, or need as well.

Heaven Helped me 8/21/08

Love Always, A*

P.S.

Sorry I have been a little slow on my output lately I accidentally crashed and burned my laptop and it's been beyond busy at work so no computer access=no emails. The mental queue is piling up, just waiting to hit the keyboards so have no fear.