Dogs Barking

“Trixie!”

One moment we were in the backyard tossing a half-full water bottle as high as we could throw. Whichever team caught it most, was the winner.

What can I say? It was our first interaction with the grandkids since a hundred years in self-quarantine, we were easily amused.

But then, my granddaughters, Nevaeh and Savannah, flew past me like water bottles shot from a canon.

“Trixie!”

I followed in a slow jog, my flipflops made a clippedy-clap.

Their arms and legs and bare-feet were all a blur; their hair streamed like kite tails. The football sized brown streak making a yap-yap-yap was a pug named Trixie.

We rounded the front of the garage and woke big Bubba from his siesta on the cool garage floor. In one fluid motion he stood and stretched and shook all over and joined the choir.

We rounded the house to the front yard.

Bubba sang bass. Trixie sang tenor…and all the other dogs up and down the road joined right in there.

Clippedy-clap. Yap-yap-yap. Trixie! Bow-wow-bark-bark-bark. Trixie!

The brown streak was half way across the front yard and must’ve saw the same thing as me. Nothing.

The front yard, the size of a football field, held nothing but grass. Up and down the road as far as the eye could see, not a car, not a bike, not a human being, dog, cat, deer, hog; nothing. Well, except the sound. It echoed all around. Barking from everywhere.

About that time Nevaeh reached down and caught up Trixie into her arms.

“What was she chasing?” I asked.

She just shrugged and said “You’re sooo cute” as she kissed and hugged the little prodigal pug.

Cute? She’s a pug. Looks like she took a long run—in a short room. (I didn’t say that, just thought it.)

“So, why was she barking?”

Again, Nevaeh just shrugged, “Cuz the other dogs were barking.”

As if that cleared it all up. My next question was; why were the other dogs barking? But I just kept that to myself, because it went deeper than that.

All of a sudden, the clippedy-clap from billions of keyboards echoed from everywhere. Yap-yap-yap. Bow-wow-bark-bark, folks shout and chase and follow, they know not why or what, but just ‘cuz the others are barking.

Red faces silently scream and holler into computer monitors. They're mad and scared and confused and enraged. Why? 'cuz everybody else...

I looked one last time up and down the road. Nothing. No other dogs had run out to see. Nobody else had stuck their head out to peak. They all stayed on their side of the street; barking from their porch; howling from their shadows.

Nobody, but a little pug nose, cared enough to run out front to check it out.

Wouldn't you love, just once, to be all in...

To read beyond the headlines.

To leave the fun and security and backyard laughter, to run with reckless abandon, to come out front and center, to be exposed, to seek truth, to invest enough energy to discover the real cause of the chaos.

All the others, just barked from the shadows, from the comfort of their rockers. They made a lot of noise, but didn’t make a difference.

I watched the ugly little pug get kissed and hugged. 

Just a moment ago, she ran like her tail was on fire. She gave her best to the chase. She was all in, heart and soul.

But then, just like that, in the twinkling of an eye, when she was scooped up, her focus changed. It no longer mattered who or what set the world on fire. She was resting safe and secure in the arms of her master.

Smart dog, I thought…and perhaps, I don't know, maybe she's kinda cute after all.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.  

(1 Thessalonians 4:16-18)