Loyal Love Waiting

I am always greeted by the dogs exuberantly, always. It is a joy and sometimes a burden to open the door to so much love. It is a joy when my heart has been broken by the assaults of the day and there the dogs are with wagging tails and unconditional regard for me. It is a burden when I am carrying eggs and they can't contain their joy and smash into me.

While being the recipient of so much loyal love is a balm to my soul, it is even more touching to be reading a book and watching the dogs waiting for some other, absent family member. Lucky tends to go to sleep, but Honeybun will often sit in front of the front door in an expectant pose. Her ears are perked forward, listening for any sound of the Beloved's car. Her muscles are tensed, and she shifts position but never alters her steely, unblinking gaze. She watches and watches, and waits, hopeful.

A sound inside the house may cause an ear to flick back, but then she shimmies slightly back and forth, and returns her full attention to the place where she knows her Beloved Family always return. I have seen her in this expectant pose for hours. When the absent ones return, she and Lucky both embrace us with their complete joy, an offering of devotion and love that no human I know can equal. Lucky brings us a bone, which in his mind is the equivalent of an anointing of the purest perfume. Honeybun licks us- something she never ever does except in those uncontrolled first moments of ecstatic greeting. Both dogs tails are thumping so wildly that they sometimes lift off the ground and hover momentarily.

I wish I could greet others with that unabashed love. I wish others would greet me with so much unconditional delight. I wish I could wait so patiently and determinedly for the presence of my Master to enter. I have never understood how anyone could not love dogs. They are in my mind the perfect example of how we should treat each other, and how we should behave before God. We should be always loving, always forgiving, never judging, always delighted to be in each other's presence, always humble, and always expectantly and joyfully waiting for our Master's return. We should always approach the Master as though there is no one else that matters. Life is complete in His presence no matter how empty the water bowl is or how many times we have been kicked off the leather couch.

Our reason for existence is to serve and to love the Master. Well, Honeybun winks at me and adds one small caveat- "Don't forget to tell them that I know it is the Master that feeds me."
So perfection in motive is not possible on earth, but it comes closest in dogs. I could do much worse than model my behavior after Honeybun.

2 Kings 20: 3
³ “Remember, LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” 

Habakkuk 3:16-18

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud
   and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
   and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
   and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Memories of Pacabel

In the midst of a busy afternoon, the voice over the phone sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn't place it immediately. Asherel and I were wrestling with the computer trying to find out why the CD was mute, though the person on the CD was clearly speaking. Growing more and more frustrated, I answered the phone, and the vaguely familiar voice said, ,"Vicky, this is Terese, you know, married to Barry, from USC, California days....?"

"Terese!" I cried joyfully, "How did you find me!"
It had been at least 15, maybe 20 years since I had last seen or spoken with Terese. I had seen sweet Terese long, long ago in a lifetime far, far away when the primordial ooze was only just beginning to discuss how it could coalesce to form a mammalian eye when all parts had to be present simultaneously for it to work at all.

What made the sound of Terese's dear voice even more eerie was only a few days ago, Asherel and I had been walking down the street when I heard the strains of Pacabel  Canon in D by Mozart over the tinny sound system of a small village. I paused and began to hum along. Asherel looked at me with a cocked eyebrow.

"I love this song," I told her, "A lovely friend from college walked down the aisle to this song."
Now Terese would cringe to hear me call it a "song". It is a masterpiece, a work of art, a fugue of exquisite beauty by one of the greatest composers to ever live. It was Terese's wedding march that I was humming and remembering so fondly from 30 years ago as Asherel and I shopped for dog booties in the little town.

So we spent the next hour catching up on 20 years. She had grown into just the sort of lovely woman I had known she would and I wished I had managed to stay in touch. I tried, but you know how it is. Dust bunnies and folding socks take over and before you blink, you are on the phone with one of the sweetest people on earth whom you haven't talked with in 20 years.

I have the same jarring self-incrimination when I lay in bed and awaken in the middle of the night. I know something is off as I writhe and mutely moan over all the struggles I need to tackle that I haven't the strength, will, or character to deal with. And then I realize I haven't talked with God about this or about anything in a very long time. I certainly at best forgot to pray when I went to bed. I may have gone much longer without more than rote "thank you for the food" types of prayers.  How long I had gone without  the sweet and comforting and loving voice of the One who knows me best and loves me most! 

Yet like the cheerful voice of Terese, I don't hear condemnation. I hear joy and love that now we are speaking; now we tilt our heads together and remember how dear the journey is that we never travel alone. As I wiggled in bed last night, unable to shake all the looming troubles from my heart, I finally popped open my Bible. Go ahead, Lord, I thought, You have every right to scream at me. I am so negligent and so forgetful of the only One who deserves my constant adoration. Here is what He said:

Isaiah 60:1 (NIV)
"Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.