TO ENJOY THE MUSIC IN TODAY’S POST, PLEASE CLICK THE LINK ABOVE IN YOUR EMAIL, OR click here
Here’s a question for you:
As a child do you ever remember receiving unconditional love?
It’s a term we hear used in sermons, books and on greeting cards, generally to describe this highest form of love.
But where, pray tell, have you actually experienced it?
Let me guess — from a DOG.
My educated guess comes from examining 10,000 years of history and the role dogs have played in the lives of human beings.
The facts are pretty clear — dogs are our best friend.
Dogs discovered long ago bringing joy to humans was their ticket to survival.
“The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.” ~ Callie Grant
Dogs are not inclined to the psychological games people play; they shoot straight.
You scratch my back — I’ll lick your face.
I remember coming home after a hard day, rattled, my head full of problems. As I walked through the door our dog Pablo did a back flip in joy over seeing me.
My problems dissolved in an instant.
.
My earliest memory of unconditional dog love was our first dog, Boy, who up showed up at our back door just weeks after our dad died.
Each member of my family was grieving alone at the time.
Boy was able to bring us together as a family as we welcomed him into our home.
He had this remarkable ability to turn sadness to joy. Looking back it’s hard for me to see how we ever would have made it through that time without our beloved Boy.
He lived with our family for twelve years.
There’s something so rudimentary about a dog’s joy.
Take the game of fetch, for example.
I once knew a whippet named Sam who was a fetch master, so much so he wanted to play it all the time. I mean — all the time.
Marsha and I attended a business meeting at the home of Sam’s owner. Sam entered the room with his fetch toy and dropped it expectantly at the foot of the person leading the meeting.
Sam was announcing, “Let the games begin.”
Then around the table Sam went. Everyone was called on to play. Needless to say, there would be NO meeting on that day.
Sam had done something no human could do — focused us all on the moment.
In so doing we all got connected to a hunk of happiness that otherwise we would surely have missed.
So if you find yourself lacking joy in your life today let me offer this suggestion:
- Put on some worn out jeans
- Tie up your sneakers
- Go find a local dog park
and watch the fun. You might even get the chance to engage in a good old-fashioned game of fetch.
Go be the person your dog thinks you are.
“If there are no dogs in heaven, I want to go where they went.” ~ Mark Twain
Just a thought…
Pat
REMEMBER, TO ENJOY THE MUSIC IN TODAY’S POST, PLEASE CLICK THE LINK AT THE TOP OF YOUR EMAIL, OR click here
Not surprisingly, the music we are sending into space today is “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Ode to Joy
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