Monday, January 29, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Mutts and more
Sitting in my Urbana study with my blue NY ball cap on (because it’s cold up there where there’s not much hair), an imaginary breeze breaks through my window from the dark, and I am grateful for the fact that Earl the dog and Mooch the cat are fast asleep, hibernating in their wonderful world called Mutts. And that I am with them, in between them, head on the pillow all covered up, waiting for spring.
I spent part of Saturday with Ben’s tiny terrier named Rigby, who snuggled up on first my lap, then Ben’s, and all around the circle while we watched the Illini win their basketball game. Lose one, win one. Rigby didn’t care who won. He did smell the food on Ben’s lap and began to head over there.
I haven’t seen Rigby much, but Chris talks about him all the time. I get his name mixed up with Riley, who is much larger and belongs to Don and Pat. I was swimming once in their lake and Riley came down to the dock with me, and when I shouted with glee he jumped in the water, mistaking my shout for a scream for help. He came over and we wrestled in the water for a little while. Both Riley and Rigby have been around for a long time.
Until the last few years my sister has always had a Shetland Sheepdog, a sheltie, and she may be getting one again sometime soon. She’s excited about that. And there’s my friend Brent’s dog Nike, a dog I’ve never met but feel like he’s my friend, and then there is Dublin, Laura’s dog in Austin, and my friend Henson’s two dogs in Chicago, and Mark from Milwaukee’s two small dogs. All of them are getting older. Just like their owners.
Our neighbors who are installing new cabinets in all the apartments have a tiny dog named Harley, and a big dog named Coe. My mechanic Sam’s pit bull named Cujo is the strongest dog I know, and he comes with Sam every day to work, lying on his blanket, jumping up to lick my face, lying back down to have his stomach rubbed.
A man named Shimei of the house of Saul cursed David as he passed, throwing stones and dirt. His soldiers complained, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?” But David protected Shimei from the soldiers as they walked, leaving home to escape David’s son Absalom and his armies.
The characters in this story are rich and poor, regal and ragged. David struggles to know who to honor and who to disdain. He chooses differently from his soldiers and many others in his entourage. Shimei and Absalom, who are ready persecute and even kill David, are the ones he chooses to protect and perhaps even to empower.
David understands his own choices, but no one else does. Soon Absalom will be killed by David’s most loyal general, but David will fall down with grief and tear his clothes. “Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son!” And Shimei’s life was safe as long as David lived.
You, O Lord, are my shield. When I call out to the Lord, you answer me from your holy mountain. When I lie down in sleep, I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.
I think back to my cozy bed, and imagine it filled with Earl and Mooch, covers pulled up all the way, falling soundly asleep. In this sleepin time of rest and peace, the Lord sustains me too.
 (2 Samuel 15-16, Psalm 3, Luke 7, Mark 5)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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