Have you heard the one about the dyslexic, agnostic insomniac? He couldn't sleep for wondering if there really is a doG. Yeah, yeah, old joke, but I love it. And I've been thinking about my dog, Shadow and about God.
I have a dog who is just a delight to be with, and who delights in being with me. He enjoys a walk or a ride in the car -- he gets all wiggly when he sees me grab the leash. He loves to just sit and be touched: petting, ear scratching, head rubbing, face stroking, whatever. He'll sit at my feet and soak in the attention and the touch. Right now, he's lying on the floor about three feet from my chair; last night, he lay between the chair and my footstool. He just loves to be close. We don't have to be "doing" anything. He just wants to be nearby; he is well named Shadow.
He is a dog, and he loves to get scraps from anything I eat, and I do toss him some more often than I should. He'll sit and watch a person eat, but none of that whining or begging like those other dogs do. Just sitting, watching, waiting, hoping. And he'll go away or lie down if we tell him to, at least for a while. He knows we don't like to be whined or pawed at, and he really wants to please. He'd rather be praised than eat.
We're trying to keep him off the furniture, now that we have some new furniture. And he means well, but he's seven years old, middle aged like me, and he has always lay on the love-seat. He does mean well, but sometimes his old habit makes him "forget" about the new furniture. If I catch him on the couch, he'll jump right down and look wretched, tail between his legs, looking down then looking up at me from a sort of twisted-body posture, like "Aw, David, (look down, twist) I forgot again. (turn his head to look at me sideways) Why'd I go and do that? Will you still scratch behind my ears? (hopeful stare)" Like I said, he really means well...
One of his rituals is to run to the stair-railing when he hears me coming in from the garage after work. He sticks his head under the railing right on the floor. There is just room for his nose. His whole head won't fit under. He lies there waiting for me to scratch his nose, and stroke his face, and -- of course -- scratch his ears. Now the other day when I came home, there was no Shadow at the railing. He was across the room looking guilty. You know the look. I walked over to the couch, faux suede, and there were
paw prints. I looked at him and he looked .. uh .. uncomfortable. I pointed to the couch and said, "No!"
Now here was the moment. This is it, whether it's with a dog, or our kids, or friends, or as we relate to God. He was looking down, but his eyes were flipping from looking away to looking at me, like he was watching table tennis. He
so much wanted it to be ok. He offered his miserable self to me and waited. He longed for me to make it ok, and he knew it was my call. And I did call him over and he sat before me and we had a good time of ear scratching and tail wagging and hand licking.
Psalm 123 says,
To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
till he has mercy upon us.
The writer of Psalm 123 knew about this watching and waiting for it to be ok. Why does my dog
lift up his eyes to me, till I have mercy upon him? Is it that Shadow knows the answer before he "asks"? Is it that somehow he has learned that he can trust me, even with his miserable self?
Shadow has learned a secret to contentment. -- And if you watch this dog, you'll see
he is content. To him, being related to me is more important than food or couches or anything else. It's not that he is worried about the rule, "Stay off the couch." He just knows that being on the couch doesn't please me; it can stand between him and my pleasure. He so delights in my pleasure, my touch, my presence, that he wants to "follow the rule' for the closeness.
Now I love this dog. As Papa says in
The Shack, "I'm especially fond of that one." And his being on the couch isn't a concern for me in terms of my fondness for Shadow. When I see my him on the couch, I love that dog, and smile at myself trying to teach an old dog a new trick. And I smile at him in his forgetfulness. And I smile knowing how sad he's going to be -- sad because he so wants to please me. And about how happy he will be when I scratch his ears.
In this case, the "rule" really has more to do with other home values than about Shadow at all. It's certainly not there just to cramp his style. He may not understand why he can't get on the new couch now, when he could get on the old couch then. But he doesn't have to understand. He's a dog, after all. How much can he understand, anyway? He just knows that he can lie almost anywhere in the house: on the floor right in front of that delightful
cool air thingie, on the kitchen floor that is always cool and nice, in the window seat where he can watch those birds come just outside to eat! (And he can understand that the glass is really there. The cat, on the other hand,...) Shadow has broad possibilities, and a narrow restriction.
His obedience or disobedience about the couch doesn't affect my love for him. But I do want him to learn this one thing, so I enforce the restriction. And though I know it hurts him,
I am happy when he feels ashamed about messing up again. It's not that I'm a masochist and want to see him suffer guilt. I'm happy because by his sadness, I can see how important our relationship is, how important pleasing me is, how important my forgiveness is to him.
His sadness shows both him and me, that our relationship is far more important than a couch to lie on. Shadow somehow just knows that his
contentment lies in his closeness to me: sometimes in physical closeness with petting and touching and all, but more often in emotional closeness, with nothing standing between us.
Right now, Shadow is sacked out in front of the air conditioning vent, chillin. A few minutes ago, he came over and lay his snout on my chair for me to rub his head. He is content that he can do those things, that he is safe and welcome with me. And I am delighted in him because he wants to be near me more than anything else. Yep, I'm especially fond of that one!
