Digital Cowboy

OK. Here’s the deal. I still haven’t fixed any of the problems with the new site design. They mostly relate to the pop-up comments and, if you didn’t catch it in the previous comments thread, the temporary “workaround” (as we arrogant geeks call it in the business) is to click on the post title instead of the comments link. When you do that, you’ll get the post and readable comments on one page (the old way) instead of the messed up pop-up comments. I don’t really feel like disabling the pop-up comments because I would just have to re-enable them to test my fixes… whenever I get to them.

I’ve also had about 4 good ideas for posts in the last few days and I’ve forgotten all of them before I got back to the keyboard. Doing the single Dad thing is both easier and harder now that the weather is nice again. The kids are out all day long, but I’ve discovered, not surprisingly, that it doesn’t mean I can relax. Often, it’s the opposite.

Yesterday we had a crisis when a “big, mean coyote dog” literally chased the kids into the house screaming. (The kids were screaming, not the “coyote dog.”) That was a particularly difficult challenge for me because I understood their fear, but I found it rather funny. The more they explained, the funnier it became to me. I tried very hard not to laugh because they were genuinely scared, but it was a completely imaginary threat. It was not a “big, mean coyote dog.” It was a friendly neighborhood dog that thought he had found some new playmates. He had reason to believe that because, as I later found out, my redheaded 6 year old “clapped and whistled at him” to get him to come. (That’s her little sister’s tearful description of the events that the redhead didn’t deny.) Then, when he started to come to them, they ran, which inspired doggy to chase. Whee! Fun game of chase!

Unless you’re four years old and out in the big, big world all alone while Daddy’s inside.

When Daddy’s inside, he might as well be on another planet. So in comes the four year old screaming at the top of her lungs and beginning to cry. She runs through the front door and is so relieved to have made it safely into the house that she slammed the door and leaned against it to make sure the “big, mean coyote dog” couldn’t get in. Of course that also meant that her big sister couldn’t get in, either. The big mean coyote dog was still after the redhead and probably would have sniffed and licked her to death (TO DEATH!) had Daddy not intervened and gotten the door open at the last possible second before the breath was sniffed out of her body by the mean coyote dog.

I spent the next few minutes trying to calm them as they both continued to cry while running from room to room looking out the windows in an attempt to ascertain where the big, mean coyote dog had gone. The four year old even locked the front door as she tearfully explained that it was necessary to prevent the big, mean coyote dog from turning the knob and coming in. (“I… *sniff* have to lock this… *sniff* OK, Daddy? *sniff**sniff* ‘Cause otherwise the *sniff* big, mean coyote *sniff* dog might just open it *sniff* with the doorknob. *sniff**sniff* OK?”)

There are a number of spiritual lessons in that story. I haven’t fully uncovered them all yet, so I’ll leave the main load of that work to the reader as an exercise.

Three things I know:

1) Most of the threats in my life are imaginary to start with and even the real ones aren’t too big for my Daddy.
2) The threats don’t ever work without fear. Fear is always satanic.
3) Even when Daddy seems a million miles away, He’s always in control of the situation and knows what’s going on. As long as I listen to what He tells me and obey, I’m always safe. Even when I fail there, His grace covers for me because He loves me. (The big, mean coyote dog was in the front yard and they were explicitly told to stay in the backyard. They disobeyed me and I was fully aware that they were playing in the front yard. Daddy was still on the job even though they disobeyed.)