Three-Legged Dog Annunciation

An Invitation to Seeing Advent Again

“If we had a keen vision and feeling for all ordinary life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart-beat, and we should die of that roar that lies on the other side of silence.” – Middlemarch, George Eliot

Sunrise Over an Ocean of Fog - Shenandoah National Park (public domain)

Messages

Once, in winter, I was clearing a pile of logs in the woods
And under one heavy stump
I uncovered a copperhead, sleeping,
His body like a thick rope, his head like cut stone arrow.

Once in Chicago I turned over a roll of brown carpet in the alley
And out slipped a wet gray rat
His back a pink gash of blood.

Once I stumbled upon a box turtle
Tucked into pine needles on the forest floor,
And she was chomping a strawberry mushroom,
That must have been so delicious
Because even though I stood very close to her
She ignored me completely.

Once I was running in the woods in late spring
And I heard a growl like metal grinding,
And a racoon exploded from the brush,
And chased me down the trail,
And I yelled, and she hissed like saw blade, all teeth and fury,
And just behind those sounds,
The cries of her young.

Once I came across the body of an owl in the street,
Her one eye wide open and fixed on me
Like a window, like a knowing.

Once my father and I were strolling along a river
With fly rods and pipes and soft conversation,
And then a black bear the size of a bull
Stepped across the path and down to the water
And did not even offer us a glance
But put into our bodies the gift of pure silence, absolute stillness.

Once I was climbing Old Rag,
And I found a three-legged dog stuck on a cliffside,
Unable to climb up or down.
How did he get there?
He wagged his tail and looked at me with expectation.
So I picked him up, and carried him over the rocks.
We climbed up that rough mountain,
Alone, together, for two hours.
I thought – now he is my dog, because he needs me,
And now I’m his.
But when we passed the final ledge, beyond the cliffs,
And the trail opened into a wide gravel road,
He ran away on his three legs
like a flash of lightning
and was gone.
I did not know a dog could run so fast without one leg.
I never saw him again.

But – and this is true – the moment he vanished
I turned
And there on a rock below me
I found a small pair of green binoculars.
I picked them up and looked down the hill to where the dog had disappeared.
They worked, and though not powerful,
I could see deep into the woods beyond where I stood.
I put those binoculars in my backpack,
And I have kept them ever since.
Because that is what you do with a message from the gods,
Or an angel, or a dog.

῀

Sometimes when I think of that experience I had of meeting that three-legged dog, almost thirty years ago, it feels like a dream, or a parable. I have to remind myself that it actually did happen – and just that way. That mountain, and that strange encounter, and at the end of it I find myself with a new way to see – literally – in those green binoculars.

This is the fifth year I am writing these reflections for Advent. As I prepare, I try to look back over previous years (so I won’t repeat myself if I can help it), and I am not surprised to see that I return and return to similar themes. The same thing happens in my teaching and speaking life, but I suppose that is OK and maybe unavoidable in a format like this.

For the past few years I have been keeping a daybook of quotes and ideas from my reading and listening. Sometimes it is long passage from a book, and sometimes it is a line from an interview or poem, or just the title of a piece. But when they are collected in one place, they become something new, and I can read them as a series of invitations, guideposts or markers, pointing to what I am trying to wrestle with and learn. Or, to look at it from another point of view, what God is trying to say to me through the lives and words of others.

Daybook 1

One of the things I have learned from running and hiking the same trails over and over through the years is that you never fully learn a place. Even though you know it by heart, there will be something to surprise you, even scare you, if you keep returning. I had hiked Old Rag Mountain many times before I met that three-legged dog. And in the local woods, where that raccoon, mentioned in the poem above, chased me down a long ravine and up another hill to protect her babies – well, let’s just say I always run a little quicker when I pass that area.

My hope for these reflections this Advent is that we can come back to this familiar territory, not looking to replicate old experiences, or to recapture something, but with a sense of deepening and expectation. One of the great wisdoms of practicing a faith tradition is that as we walk the path each year, even though it is a same ground, we find new things. There is a deepening to our lives, and it never ends. Or to put that another way, that ordinary daily ground never ceases to be the ground where God meets us in new and surprising ways.

The hard part

Is to find yourself at home with where and what you are

And still remain amazed.

- John Koethe, "Beyond Belief"

I will post a reflection each Monday in Advent, beginning on December 2, along with resources and an audio version. I hope they might be of some help as we travel together through this sacred season. Please feel free to share them with anyone you think might enjoy them.

May God bless you and those you love.