November 5 – “Paint, the Goat”

Goat Day today at Seaside Christian Academy.  The math teacher brought one of his goats with him so the kids could have an excuse not to do schoolwork on his last day.  Well, they actually did get some work done.  I heard them.  But they were some kind of excited about that silly goat.  Her name was Dixie Chicks Painted Lady.  They called her Paint, for short.  She was quite a hit with all the age groups.  The kindergarten kids gave her hugs and fed her.  The lowers enjoyed feeding her so much, they even handed her grass.  All but two of them even passed on soccer to hang out with the goat.  They wanted to rename her Noah, make her the school mascot, and have her ride around in a homemade ark.  A lady driving by stopped when she saw her.  She was interested in raising goats, so she wanted to talk to the owner.    After the initial excitement died down, we were all back inside and Paint was grazing lazily on her rope.  The church phone rang.  It was our lowers teacher calling.  But she was at school today.  Where was she?  "Pastor Kelley," she said, "Where is Jim?  I found the goat over here by Ms. Dru's window.  I have the goat.  I don't know what to do with a goat.  Tell him to come get the goat!"  Sure enough, the goat had broken one of the links on her collar and was free at last.  He left her out for awhile longer, but he finally put her back in her travel cage for the rest of his day.   While I was outside with the younger kids, a little four-year-old climbed up on a picnic table and lay down.  One of the teachers called over to him, "Are you tired?"  In the indomitable style of a very intelligent four-year-old , he rose up, pointed his finger in her direction and said, "I am tired.  I'm tired of you.  I'm very tired of you."  No, he wasn't punished.  The teacher had to walk away to hide the peals of laughter struggling to explode from her mouth.   I had a chance to talk with the science teacher, too.  He told me about a student who seemed to want to do pretty much nothing.  The student's question was the proverbial, "Why do I have to learn all this stuff?"  The answer, which we rather embellished as we talked, was something like this, "Learn all you can so that when you are just sitting around doing nothing you will at least have something interesting to think about.  And when people ask you, 'What are you thinking about?' you can mystify and amaze them with your wealth of knowledge, and they'll think you are a genius."  Interesting philosophy.  I like it.   Proverbs 1:8-9 says, "Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching.  9 They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck."   Father, please give our kids a better motivation for learning than "having something to think about when they are doing nothing." Amen.