Pets

“It was 10:30” Haibun

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

It was 10:30 PM, late at night, when the possum ran across the road. The dog was in hot pursuit and its human was a few steps behind. The human called out, but the possum was there, and the dog ran on in pursuit from behind the bush and brush. They tore across the road in an age-old chase repeated throughout time.

It was 10:30 PM, late at night, when the driver of the car listened to Defensive Driving advice from years before. The car went straight and the human and possum were unharmed. The dog in the rear of the car panicked and scrambled as the radiator began to pour fluid, the oil started to pour out, and the gasoline began to drip. The minister behind the wheel cried out and guided the car to the side of the road. He had been driving below the speed limit, but he didn’t see until the possum and dog broke through the brush onto the road. He was shaking as the gasoline fumes tickled his nose.

It was a few minutes after 10:30 PM, late at night, when the officer had a call to go to the site of an accident. He never had to put down a family’s pet before. He found the pastor who had been driving the car holding his dog as the one from the road screamed. He was shaking as he remembered the woman he almost hit and understood that if he had been a moment slower or faster, things would have possibly been far better or terribly worse. Why didn’t he stop for groceries? “All things in God’s time,” the officer told the minister who mumbled about free will half-heartedly. Even then, in the midst of grief, the minister knew this wasn’t the time to take away the officer’s comforting theology. He had practice at saying the right things even with a broken heart.

It was a few minutes after 10:30 PM, late at night, when the girlfriend hopped in her son’s car to come to the rescue. Just a few hours earlier the boyfriend behind the wheel had been helping her find a new car because her timing belt had gone awry in her steady old car. The car would be ready Monday, but it was the blackest of Fridays. It was nearly midnight when the borrowed car brought the two now carless people back to a quiet home with a frazzled dog. She sat with him until he was done shaking and crying about the fact that if things had gone wrong the dog owner could have died. She listened as he thought and sobbed about what would happen if the dog or woman had crashed through the window without setting things right with his son. It took a while.

It will be a little after 10:30, not so early in the morning thirty-six hours later, when the minister rises to share about how we, as a people, remember that Christ will come again in a moment. It will be a moment when he thinks about how the bell almost rang for him, a woman he doesn’t know, and did call home what looked to be a very enthusiastic dog whose family’s love showed he was a good boy. He probably won’t shed a tear, but he will hear the sound of a dog howling in the night.

Oh, when you come down
May that dog run home again 
to her happy tears.

Until you come down
May I never cause again
such awful pained cries.

In the Woods…

/ Robert D / 1 Comment

We are getting ready to move soon. There’s a lot of stuff in boxes in my life. Everything seems to have a place and most of those places are currently found inside boxes. Living with most of your daily stuff in boxes can be extremely frustrating.

This morning I went into the woods on a nearby trail with one of my daughters and my wife’s “lapdog” Lily. Lily is a boxer labrador mix that we adopted after our friends’ dog became overly friendly with a neighborhood dog. She’s a kind hearted dog but hates being cooped up.

The woods are a magical place. The woods are one of the few places where my middle child is occasionally struck speechless. The majesty of wilderness tends to calm her restless mind as there is plenty to look at, plenty of things to notice, and the ongoing task of watching where you are stepping.

This morning the ground was a bit moist from recent rain and Lily ended up dragging me along some pretty slippery surfaces. Her paws and nails clearly had better traction than my sneakers. We enjoyed the walk tremendously despite being startled by a jogger’s German Shepherd visiting without a leash and without warning. Thankfully Lily is a very easygoing dog. I think that I jumped more at the sudden appearance than Lily.

I stopped to take this picture of Lily because the woods were breathtaking between the light of the sun pouring through the branches and the greens and browns everywhere. Despite being on a strong leash due to her tendency to run after wildlife, she seemed more at home in the woods than she normally seems in our home. I could almost feel Lily sigh with contentment a few times on the hike.

Psalm 55 is an interesting psalm. In that particular psalm, the psalmist is struggling with the grief and sorrow that comes from a friend’s betrayal. The psalmist is clearly having a difficult time with a painful situation, but what’s interesting is the response to the situation.

The psalmist wants to flee to the wilderness. In the wilderness there seems to be a kind of peace that the psalmist desperately desires. In the daily moments of the situation the psalmist finds storms and wind, but in the wilderness shelter can be found.

I can understand the psalmist’s desire for the shelter of the woods. Like my dog, I too enjoy moments where we are not surrounded by boxes. There is something glorious about being in the woods even when German Shepherds occasionally appear out of the nothingness.

Let us Ramble: On Keeping Silent

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

What does it mean to keep silent? There are opportunities to share and to overshare for practically everyone with access to the internet, so what does it mean to keep silent? Ecclesiastes teaches us that there is a time for every matter under the sun. Ecclesiastes 3:7 states outright that there are times to speak and times to keep silent.

I awoke this morning pondering silence. I say I awoke this morning, but I honestly did not sleep much last night. We couldn’t find the cat. She just went AWOL at some point and every couple of hours I would restlessly wander the house calling her. There was no sign of her anywhere.

At four AM I went outside and started circling the house calling out to her. I heard no reply. At six AM I went out to let the dogs do their numbers. Suddenly there was a meow. The cat managed to get underneath the bay window. How? I have absolutely no idea how she got out, why she chose to hide there, or why she suddenly called out to me. I was glad she called out.

We often allow ourselves to get backed into corners through our own silence. We have a great idea, wander off into the darkness, and suddenly realize that it is very cold, dark, and rainy outdoors. I am probably anthropomorphizing, but we let our pride get the best of us until we know we need to call out for help. To keep silence when it leads to our own detriment is something some of us do far too often.

At the same time, as I ponder silence, I find myself thinking about next Monday. My wife and I will be going to the doctor’s office and we are going to be learning some good news that we will not be sharing with others until the 12th of August. We have a pact to keep silent on the subject until we can share it with our friends and communities together. We will keep silence because the silence will neither hurt nor damage others. This time is our time to share in this knowledge as partners and to prepare for the hubbub that will come after the announcement is made.

So, what does it mean to keep silent? Is silence an opportunity or a risk? Is silence a choice or a privilege? Is silence enforced or is silence a blessing? Is silence all of these things at different points? There is a lot to contemplate about silence in my mind this morning.