Believe in Dog!
This is the story I shared at the start of the High Holy Day service I ran. It is based on a joke that appeared in Field and Stream magazine and is also in a book by Anthony De Mello.
A man trained his dog to fetch and retrieve almost anything. They loved their time together, throwing, retrieving, throwing, retrieving, throwing and retrieving. The man would throw big sticks, small sticks, balls of every size, Frisbees, and the like. And, the dog, enthusiastically would run, get the jettisoned object, and return it.
One day, the two were at the edge of a pond. The man threw a stick far into the water and the dog ran straight across the surface of the water, got the stick, and then ran back on the water’s surface. The man stood watching, motionless.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. Had he just seen his dog walk on the water’s surface? He told himself he must have been imagining it, daydreaming. He tossed the stick again, this time as far as he could send it. It landed in the water and his dog again went after it. And, again, the dog did not get even wet as it ran across the surface of the water, retrieved the stick, and then, miraculously again, ran back across the surface of the water.
The man was, as any of us would be, confused. He called his best friend to come to the pond, and the friend arrived.
“Watch this,” the man said, not explaining what the friend was going to see.
He tossed the stick, and the same occurrence occurred – the dog walked over the surface of the water.
“Well,” the man said to his friend, “what do you think?”
“Odd,” said the friend, “your dog can’t swim.”
This “joke” has a huge moral to me.
I am too often that friend. Too often I look right through the miracles in front of my eyes and I do not notice. I don’t know the root cause. I do not know why this happens. I don’t know how it is possible that I do not see or will not see them. But, I know that it is true.
Oh God! I feel like the guy in the story where there is a flood in the town and a bus, a boat and a helicopter come to save him, but he takes none, proclaiming that he will be saved and then he perishes. How blind must I be? Let me see! Let me see!
This week’s #wisdom_biscuit: witness the miracles!
