A Dog's Life

Brandy

It is the job of the last one out the door in the morning and the last one up at night to scoot our aging dog, Brandy, from the living room into an area of the house where she can do less damage. Don't ask.

Her fourteen year-old joints complain when she reluctantly makes the move from one rug to another. She's become less active with age and snoozes away much of the day.

Except sometimes she doesn't.

When we visit the family farm in Iowa, Brandy behaves very differently - full of curiosity and energy. She chases every cat, rolls enthusiastically in every foul-smelling patch of grass, barks at every passing car, samples every dead thing she discovers, barely pausing from her hopeful explorations. When the last one up tries to scoot her indoors for safe-keeping overnight, she runs the other way. We call her "feral" - once domesticated, now untamed, unresponsive, uncooperative.

Actually, in those surroundings, Brandy isn't wild - she is fully alive, enjoying every moment as only a dog can. I wonder if we should leave her there at the farm to live out the rest of her days on high alert, happily chasing cats from the front porch. Because the difference is so startling - after the long ride home, she quickly reverts back to her more familiar sleepy, creaky, leaky self.

I'd like to be more like the feral Brandy.

• What is the human equivalent of being so fully alive? So alert?
• Do we get trapped in patterns and surroundings and brokenness that have us snoozing our way through life? 
• What brings out the very best in us and how can we be that best more often?

These fleeting weeks of waiting and expectation before Christmas call us to wakefulness, to curiosity, to hope, to new life. We are on high alert, not just for the coming of the Christ child and his promised return, but to his daily comings and goings in our ordinary lives. Peace to you on the sleepiest of days and on those in which you are most fully awake.