It is thundering, loud and consistently, as I sit down to write this epic opus. A Dachshund called Breezy, so named not for strong wind pouring through trees but instead for a quarterback without a strong arm but who came with reckless abandon to change our New Orleanian lives on Sundays, is resting uncomfortably near my left foot.
I saved Breezy from possible annihilation in October, 2010, from a shelter in Pearl River, Miss. One of our favorite pets, a black-and-white Sheltie named Tweety by our daughter Carrie 17 years earlier, had died. After a reasonable, I thought, few days of mourning and prayer, I began to search for someone I could not replace Tweety with but instead someone who Mary, my wife, and I could help save if given the chance. We do not replace any lost pets, pets who have gone on to where ever they go. We simply do what we can to save others.
I had seen this Dachshund before on PF, an app I had placed upon my I-Phone. His bio seemed reasonable enough. We had prayed about replacing and placing in the Dachshund category because I had lost my dear, dear friend Frankie in January of 2010 to stomach cancer, and we loved the breed. This bio suggested his owner had run out of room, hence causing "Fred," as he was known, to be given to the shelter in Pearl River. The shelter is not a well-suited facility, from my viewing of it, in terms of money. Whether it is a "kill shelter" or not is not part of my knowledge of it. I do not ask, for I can't take the answer emotionally. Just is what it is.
I drove the 70 or so miles, using my PF finder and my GPS finder, to the shelter. I endured the shelter's educational seminar about pets, I endured the time spent where they apparently gave "Fred" the same lecture and perhaps a shot or two (why would you give the pets the needed meds if it was not going to a forever home?), then they handed me this black and gray dappled (sort of spots over his entire coat) and told me how much fun "Fred" was.
I took "Fred" with me, placing his body on my right leg as I drove away, and we took off into a new life. Though I wrote about not having one dog replace another, certainly his facial resemblance of Frankie was strong and without coincidence.
Two days later, days of him scrambling to get away from me as fast as his little paws would allow, it began to dawn on me that perhaps the owner or the shelter or both had lied to me. This dog, renamed Breezy for this quarterback who ...., was terrified of me. Terrified. Not just a little bit, but terrified. My voice would send him into shaking fits. My hand -- extended to pet or allow him to sniff) would send the actual fear of God (always wondered what that looked like) into him. He loves Mary to death, just plain loves her. He came to her the first day and every afternoon or night he comes to her with tail wagging, with tongue extended for globs of doggie kisses and doggie drool and now past-puppie hugs of short, stubby legs. When she's sitting on the couch, he is there immediately looking to either be picked up or love onr sitters who are nowhere near her but whom he might coax into picking him up and then pressuring the sitter into giving him to Mary. As long, of course, as the sitter is female. No males is the motto for Breezy. No where. No time. No male.
If someone should happen to say the phrase "You've got mail," Breezy is off, tail between his leg as he runs down the hall, looking for the male in all the wrong places. For a year, he ran under the bed when a voice with a deeper tone entered the home. Since, he has barked loudly and forcefully at such voices, mostly as he ran toward the underbelly of the protective bed toward his lovely and never-to-be touched doggie bed.
I began to understand as early as Breezy's first Turner week, the first one we had him, that someone, almost assuredly a male owner or a male I don't know, apparently had abused this dog. It was my first experience with abuse that I'm aware of, but it was extensive and it was powerful enough to keep the dog petrified. I talked to some folks in the know who told me the fear would go away over time. Certainly I've learned that time is a subjective subject. What is "over time" for some is FOREVER to others, I'm certain. But I was told certain "tricks" that would work, and I've tried most of them to varying degrees of success. He has begun to take treats from me in varying degrees, in varying successes, in varying manners.
But the most powerful "trick" is one that God provides. Did I mention that it was thundering? Well, when Mary (whom the dog absolutely loves) is GONE and thundering, or lightening, or a stiff breeze, or a possible, just possible, front coming through (as he can sense all these things apparently from the doggie bed he treasures on the underbelly side of the bed on which I do not reside), I will DO for protection.
As I write, he has found a sheet of typing paper (why we would have one of those distresses me), he has dug a pretend hole in it (it's what Dachshund's do because some ancestor of his did this when it thundered a hundred or a thousand of years ago), and has settled into protected property. As FFH
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him, with calming, loving words, sprayed like graffiti around my office, so much so that I had to stop writing and just LOVE him. Just love. Just trying to get him to forget whatever was done to him all that time ago, trying to get him to center on the love I'm trying to give him. I offer a pocketed treat of faux-Bacon, which among all the other treats we give out for going outside and doing "business" is the most treasured. I hold him with my left arm, cradling him like a Heisman winner would do while extending my right hand with the treat. He watches all this with an eye and a poise that would give him instant response time if needed. There's no need for him to go overboard here. He's scared of the weather and willing to "try" to get along, but that doesn't mean all is forgotten and forgiven. He watches with the focus of a serial killer who whoever or whatever is his trigger is suddenly presented to him. He watches, he waits, he does not over-comitt. But over seconds, not minutes but seconds, he watches the gift appear before him, and he slowly, ever-so-slowly waits until the treat is but inches from his mouth. He still does not grab it in a power-display that the terrier Logan would use. He does not fearfully grab it, as would the non-mini Dachshund Copper. He does not grab and take it as would the mix of something large and wide we saved from a shelter and kept the name, Samantha. And he does do what our fearfully but certain of all actions Chihuahua, Paris, does. No, Breezy waits until the treat, in all its faux-Bacon gloriousness and awesomeness and wonderfulness, in all its flavorful GREATNESS, touches his long, black, gratefully salivating lips. It just touches his lips. Just wounds his pride, his ego, and his determination to punish all these dang male humans the rest of his Dachshund life, for he has instantly decided to accept the gift. After all, it's faux-Bacon. It just touches his lips, like water from the bowl that his other dogs use equally with him. Touches his lips like, oh, I don't know, like, like REAL BACON WOULD. With eyes still on the master, tail still stuck between his legs, he does not lunge, force, or fearfully pounce. He takes the bent piece of faux-Bacon gently and with me in his view-finder/target eyes, even as a clap of thunder sends down his lithe body, instanteous response. He chews attentively until it does not exist, the thunder or the fauxt -Bacon, but he never takes his eyes or his focus away from me (who as far as he knows is the target of his unaffections and long-ago but never forgotten physical pain). Target acquired, target destroyed. When all the chewing is done, kaput, finished, completely fished and wished away, I gently place him on the floor, and he runs steps away with the force of Iron Man's repulsor rays, runs -- maybe four steps -- but instead of barking as he has done for six months, he slides to a stop and does something we now refer to as his grumble. It has the makings of a bark, but it's not. It's more of a grumble. Yeh, it's a faux-bark. It's a Breezy grumble. It starts at the end of his dappled and slender body where other dogs would affectionally call their butts and it bounces the length of his body until it is ready to come out his mouth, somewhat like a regurgitated substance. It's like "gerrrreeeeuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmme." Instead of building to several barks that show a ferociousness to the stranger at the door or anger that would chase away darkness on a very early morning (he refuses to go out at night) or even a meanness that would let a burglar know he is not welcome, Breezy squeezes the bark into an almost friendly sound. Almost.
It's like when the oldest grandson comes over. When Breezy first saw Gabe, I promise you this, he barked a few times then silently crept up and pulled Gave's shorts down. Now, he is seen more in the living room when Gave is out to visit than any other tme. He loves Gave and his brother Gavin so much so they're honory Mary's or something.
Oh, what he does to me is still a bark. But it's a bark with a how's-yo-mama-and-'em tied in. It's almost a forgiveness and wait and see sound to it. "You freed me, but let's wait and see how free," it says to me.. living rtime. sort
In a second.
In a moment of absolute grace.
Given for doing, what,
Oh, I'm not dumb enough to think this progress would show itself this way if 1) Mary wasn't away doing her crossing guard thing or 2) the thunder hadn't sent a calling card ahead of itself or 3) Jesus hadn't crossed the dark area before the thing haunts Breezy and began to light candles of mercy and beacons of forgiveness.
When Jesus crossed that no-man's land that Breezy had established and counted on, He made what is left there beautiful, hauntingly beautiful.
Is all we've gone through worth 18 months or so of barking, grabbing spoonfuls of food and sprinting to his bed to munch or running away out of pure fear and anger in Breezy's dark mistrustful eyes? You betcha. of
The spiritual lesson is so easy to spot that I almost don't want to mention it, but I will. God spent a lifetime with me waiting for those fearful, angry, mistrustful eyes to just look at him. The eyes were unable to even drift away when he put a treat out there for me. When I took the treat, chewed on it for grateful hours and hour and hours, he just smiled and waited. This free-will zone took years for me. No manipulation from Him. No guilt-trip from HIm. Just watching. Just waiting. Seeing me inch toward him. Seeing two steps forward and a million steps backward. Just watching. Waiting. Me messing up and faltering and falling, just like Breezy has done almost daily.
But after years of God's watching me and never, ever, judging me with that instantaneous barking that humans still would use, even though as a Pastor I've grown far closer (possibly) than others, one day God saw me inch past where I had been and not go backward. That day. Or the next. Just inches of forward movement, with now new treats for encouragement.
Me and Him. Together. Me in his left arm and his right hand sliding up and down my spine. Inching, not moving rapidly, toward the River Jordan of blood that had initially washed me clean enough so that God could treat me with a smile
I learned I could simply stand and follow WITH HIM as my guide. Saved. Justified. Walking toward Him as quickly as my brain, then my heart, then my soul could accept all this.Walking by willingly acknowledging HIM as not only my guide but the one who set up the trip, executed the plan and made it happen. Did I trust all I read about him? No, probably not. Certainly not all I could read in commentaries and in books.
But in my heart, oh, in my heart I could accept that God had forgiven and forgotten. It was me who couldn't forget the abuse of my master, er, my father.
Breezy has left my side now that the thunder has stopped (you think these blogs are written?). He plodded away, his little body swaying to the beat of some drummer I can't hear, with his left back leg sometime missing a beat (humorlessly creating a jump, bump and bounce way of walking). I am made aware that whatever front or wind storm or just spring rain that God had planned and/or allowed had swayed to the beat of some drummer I can't hear out of our area.
On I-Tunes, Matthew West is playing hard guitar on a song called A Friend In The World that tells me "when you can't find a friend in the world, love is reaching down, you've got one now." The house is quiet, as early Christian songster Michael W. Smith sings "Friends" telling me "friends are friends forever if the Lord is Lord of them." Other than the I-tunes mystery of music, it is somber as daggers of sunshine plunge through the sliding glass door that is the entry to poopland- in the backyard.
It's a Wednesday morning and I feel, uh, motivated and as Mary says as she arrives back home from the corner she works, it's a "happy day." Breezy has made it home to his bed. Me? I'm headed to the shower to get ready to leave for my home, my church office. Another long day ahead, probably.
Over time, they tell me, Breezy will develop a friendship with me. Seems like a long, long time. But Smith tells me melodically, "a lifetime is not too long to live as friends."
I believe that to be truth.
Over time we'll all get together, and someday I will be with my Master.
It's a Wednesday and it's a good day.
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