You know by now that Daisy is our rescued schnauzer who Mate and I dote on. Larry, you may or may not know is the preacher where we attend church services. As much as we admire Larry, we seem to talk about Daisy more. We have loved and been inspired by him for over twenty five years.
I have neglected this blog for months but now have a desire to discuss Larry's Spoken Sunday Sermon and Daisy's Action Sermon. They are actually close to identical, except you heard Larry and you could see Daisy.
Sunday morning the spoken sermon had to do with a "white elephant" I thought it was interesting to find out the history of the "white elephant". Among other things, it was considered sacred. If the King or ruler of a country wanted to honor a king or ruler of another county he would hunt for an albino elephant and gift the ruler with the animal. This had a two fold purpose. It was proper to bestow a gift on visiting royalty and if you were less than fond of the ruler (which was practically always the case) it placed a burden on the one who received the elephant. That king now had to carefully tend the sacred beast for the rest of its life (and elephants live a long time). So all of a sudden a gift worth much, was in fact, a burden. The sermon went on to discuss our possessions and how they were sometimes burdens. In our country we have an abundance even in times of economic hardship. We are richer than all the rest of the world (with some eastern countries as exceptions) Larry discussed how our possessions became white elephants in a sense and we spent time and money taking care of them, and "guarding" them.
I would invite you to our Web site, Tenth and Broad Church of Christ where you can click on the link and listen to this interesting and insightful sermon.
Daisy has demonstrated the bottom line of this sermon in graphic detail. We don't give Daisy bones, nor do we give her raw hide ones. We did find a rather large one for a small dog that is good for her teeth and hard and looks like a bone. Pedigree Company says on the cover that it tastes like Chicken and is actually good for her. So we came home with a "treat". After finally releasing this "bone" from the packaging, we gave it to this little happy go lucky schnauzer. This is the dog who just "looks" happy. She bounces instead of running, she greets all with the offer of dog kisses and tail wagging.
Then all of a sudden she has a bone, a possession, something her instinct says to bury. Her head is now bent low her eyes dart around. Even though its just Daisy, Mate and Me, she is suspicious. She takes the "bone" outside, she slowly plods around the perimeter of the yard. She only Stops to bury it with leaves, pushing with her nose. She looks behind her and to the left and to the right to see if anyone is watching. Then she will tentatively walk away, but quickly goes back and moves her treasure just in case a bird has spotted her and spread the word where it is.
We cannot get her to come in the house. It begins to get dark, it gets colder, but she does not care. She has to guard her possession. Her "white elephant" so to speak. We call her in. She looks at us sadly. We believe she could be thinking that as much as she loves us, she is now burdened down with something and it her responsibility to preserve this thing If you know the story of Atlas, you know that he had to carry the world on his shoulders. A weighty burden. Daisy reminds us of Atlas.
Mate finally carries Daisy in the house. She does not play with us, she does not sit quietly in Mate's lap for endless conversation and ear scratching. (Daisy's ear, not Mates) She does go to the corner and quietly chews on this bone until she has devoured it. Then an amazing thing happens: We have our happy Daisy Schnauzer back! Her "white elephant" is gone, the weight of the world is off her shoulders. Point made.
I don't know what Larry does all day, but Daisy watches for squirrels. I suspect Larry does more important things. However, we have not been attacked by squirrels and we feel it is due to her diligence. I hope she never catches one, it would be the bone story all over again.
