Monday, November 27, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Cats and dogs
Patrick McDonnell, who has not eaten animal since 1990 when he was 34, watched his comic strip Mutts become syndicated four years later. His dog and cat are humane, warm, peace-loving and wise.
But lately Patrick has become caught up in the life-threatening captivity of Guard Dog, a soft-hearted bulldog. Guard Dog has always lived at the end of a thick unbreakable chain, but now he has been abandoned by his owners, who moved away without him. He had his doghouse, but that was about all. Not much food, not much water. And when the truck roared away, no one knew that Guard Dog had been left behind.
How could our friend Patrick do such a thing to us, let alone to Guard Dog himself? But last week Guard Dog’s friends Mooch and Earl decided to visit and found him lying on the ground. They couldn’t get his chain off, and Guard Dog slipped into unconsciousness. This dog and cat needed help!
Stay awake! For you do not know when the Son of Man will come.
Then the day after Thanksgiving a human friend decided Guard Dog might enjoy a visit. Quickly he realized the house was empty, and he wailed at the top of his lungs. “Guard Dog is gone!” Which brought a howl from the newly wakened Guard Dog, invisible on the other side of the fence.
Will Guard Dog be freed, for the first time in his comic-strip-life? Only Patrick knows.
Jesus said, I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest. For those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered all she has.
I think of two dogs in my life that I loved very much. When I was a wee little lad (although big enough to drive a tractor and manure spreader across the field), I had a small collie named Shep (was that his name?) who followed me and the tractor everywhere I went. It was cold, and his breath and mine made smoke in the air.
I got off the tractor to start the manure spreader, and Shep came up beside me. I got back on and pushed the clutch. Shep got in front of the tractor and I ran over him with one of the small wheels. I saw him and stopped the tractor and ran back to the house, all the way running, crying, sneezing in the cold air. I didn’t know what a death rattle was, until that day.  We buried Shep out back. Our hearts were broken.
When I was a grown-up our family in Urbana had a dog named Bear, who lived in the crawl space underneath our house, and came running up to us whenever he heard us come outside. His tail wagged his whole body sometimes. Bear never barked, and he was a great companion when we took trips.
One summer weekend I went with my dad to a Promise Keepers conference in Indianapolis. When we came home on Sunday afternoon Margaret told me one of my cousins had died. The next morning, watering the garden, I saw Bear on the other side of our busy Lincoln Avenue and shouted at him. He wasn’t supposed to be over there!
Bear came running when I called, but an ambulance flying by hit Bear halfway across the street. The brakes squealed, it hesitated, but the driver realized she couldn’t stop. Bear picked himself up and crawled into our yard. He fell flat against the south wall of our house. I fell into uncontrolled sobs, thinking of my cousin, of Shep, and of Bear.
But Bear was still breathing.
The kids and I took him to Dr. King, who told us Bear had no broken bones! None of us could believe it. He kept him in the vet’s hospital for a couple of weeks, and other than a lame hind leg, Bear healed up. He was our friend for several more years.
In 2011 Patrick McDonnell and his friend Eckhart Tolle collaborated on Guardians of Being. Mr. Tolle, a philosopher and religious thinker, wrote, “I have lived with three Zen Masters – all of them cats!”
Cats certainly do sit still and look wise. And dogs jump around and lick our faces. I am so glad they accompany us on our path through life.
(Daniel 1, Daniel 3, Matthew 24, Luke 21)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
