An aptitude for desirable discovery

I am bringing a dog to the theater for the production of Annie, but not in the coveted role of Sandy. The dog will instead be begging for money.  When the lady in charge of finding the canine star for Annie received my photos of Lucky, she also noticed my signature on the bottom of my email of hollowcreekfarm.org .  She went to their website, being an animal lover herself, and was awed by their work and their incredible success in saving thousands of animals. She asked if I might want to come to the running of Annie and set up a booth, free of charge, to promote HCF.  You all know that old saying, "Don't look a gift dog in the mouth." This is because many dogs do not have adequate dental care due to the extortionist rates charged to clean their teeth and the breath of a gift dog, or really any dog, could impair the nostril's ability to intake oxygen for decades. The other less literal meaning is when opportunity knocks, open the door.

So I will drive 100 miles in one day (I was a little disturbed when I mapquested the route to theater and HCF.... that far... really?....I ought to check out these kind of details before I make commitments.....) to pick up the dog from HCF that will be the canine ambassador and then hop skip back to the theater. The dog will spend the night with us and then we will go to the Sunday show as well.  I have no idea if we will receive any donations or volunteers or adopters by sitting in the theater lobby with the canine ambassador and a jar and a prayer. But it seemed too large a serendipity to pass up. Serendipity is my favorite word in the whole wide world. I would use it more but some people only know of definition #2 which I don't believe in, as opposed to definition #1.

–noun

1.

an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.

2.

good fortune; luck: the serendipity of getting the first job she applied for.

Serendipity is a relative newcomer in the English lexicon, though not as recent as "yomomma" or "google". It was used to describe the characteristics of the heroes of the 1754 Persian fairytale The Three Princes of Serendip by Horace Walpole,  in which the heroes possess this gift.

I do believe in an aptitude for serendipity, but I do not believe in luck. I don't think it was lucky at all that the theater manager loved dogs, asked for dogs for the role of Sandy, rejected my dog Lucky but saw my email tag for hollowcreekfarm.org and offered us a forum for donations/adoptions.  HCF has begun a new program, Northbound Hounds, where doomed dogs from southern "humane" societies about to be gassed are snatched away in the nick of time and ferried north where for some reason, it is easier to find them homes. Maybe they are so cold in the North that they need more dogs to snuggle with.

It is a wonderful program that has saved 25 dogs in just the past few weeks, but the funds for vetting, cleaning, innoculating, and prepping the dogs for their forever home has to come from somewhere.


So our canine ambassador will be Walter. I have written about him before. He is the big lovable dog with the cerebellar abnormality that makes him move like a bowl of jello. He is a gentle and lovable bowl of jello though and even if he doesn't raise a single donation, it will be a nice day for the dog who never met a person he didn't love and want to wrap his big clumsy paws around.


And since I don't believe in luck but instead believe that all things have a purpose and direction and are guided by an invisible hand, I suspect something very unexpected will happen at the theater Saturday night. Something too wonderful for me to imagine. I might not see it that night... or even in this life.... but I know that it will manifest itself in some remarkable way.  As we speak, I am sure angels are whispering in Walter's ears giving him instructions.


2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.