Lost—

Sophie likes to lie on the patio and let her aging bones soak up heat. A couple evenings ago, we were eating in the kitchen. Sophie was outside. She barked—a polite “I’m ready to come in” bark.

Wayne went to check on her. At some point after our meal, he said, “I can’t find Sophie anywhere.”

“Did you let her in?”

He couldn’t remember.

I looked through the house. No dog. We searched every cranny of the backyard. No dog. With no way to escape the backyard, this was turning into a locked-door mystery. (You know the kind: someone’s murdered but the door is locked from the inside.)

Giving and Receiving

This week has been an interesting one, watching my emotions, especially the uncomfortable ones. They felt very familiar, but I hadn’t experienced them in a long time. 

A yoga teacher once mentioned the very large number (maybe a dozen dozen?) of times we have to repeat something before it’s learned.

I picture our lives playing out in spirals, always swinging back around to repeat a lesson in a different form.

One particular discomfort this week revolves around a total stranger helping us, without asking to be paid. Are thanks enough? How do we honor this kindness?

I do need to work on my own giving, but I have done things for people without wanting thanks, or even acknowledgment. Families are like that, be it genetic family, or church family, or neighborhood family . . . 

I think it’s harder to receive than to give. Maybe I can learn how to receive with grace by treating it like a family affair. Which means enlarging my concept of family. After all, we are all members of the human race.

Pets make the perfect example of givers and receivers, and they offer us opportunities to play both roles in turn.

—and Found

Since we couldn’t find Sophie anywhere inside or in the backyard, I opened the front door to look out. Of course she wouldn’t be there, either. But Sophie suddenly appeared to see if something was happening outside—

I suspect she had gone under the dining table looking for crumbs, and then got comfy, inside the barricade of chair legs where we didn’t notice her. With a wooden roof overhead, and carpet beneath, what better den could there be?