Confessions

Like everything else in my Blog, this is a random ramble inspired by a random incident floating through my random life.

Tonight I am going to talk about something I haven't discussed with anyone before, and try to come to grips with the fact that I am a killer.
Yes, that's right, a killer.


A few minutes ago, my wife made me sit through an episode of some new TV show called something like "America's dreams."
During this show a woman came on who talked about Basset Hounds, reminding me of a Basset Hound I once had named Arnold.

My future wife gave me Arnold when he was just an itsy bitsy pup. He was so small he could fit in the palm of my hand, just a wee ball of puppy love, yelping for attention. I spent countless hours with him, raising him, trying to house break him, buying numerous barking collars for him, feeding him from a bottle, watching him consume bags of dog food, brushing him, letting him lick me, you know, just alot of "doggie stuff."

Well, as time drifted by, Arnold grew up, I got married, I grew a gut, Arnold grew a gut... Simply put, life happened. And one day I realized that Arnold had a serious hip problem. When he ran across the lawn, his hind end would drag, and no matter how hard he tried to overcome his handicap, it was obvious that he had serious health problems.

After watching him struggle for a few weeks, I took him to a vet, and found out the bad news. Arnold suffered from a degenerative disease common to Basset Hounds, and unless he had an extremely expensive, and experimental surgery, he needed to be put out of his misery.

With a heavy heart, I drove home and let Arnold loose in the back yard. Instead of running about and howling like he used to, he just lay there on the patio and looked at me with those sad sad eyes, so full of pain, and begged for help.

Then and there, looking at Arnold laying on the cold patio, I knew that it was time for me to live a page out of Old Yeller.

I will never forget picking Arnold up, carrying him to my truck, letting him sit on the front seat with me, and taking a short drive into the country. He just looked up at me, with those droopy ears and crying eyes, and seemed to know that this was our last day together. It was almost like he knew his time was come, and wanted me to know he understood.

I drove around for several hours, alternating between crying and telling myself I was doing the right thing, but finally I found a lonely dirt road and pulled over to the shoulder. I blindly stumbled into the cedar thickets, carrying a shovel, and dug a little hole under a Live Oak tree. Then I went back and got Arnold, and carried him back to the Live Oak. I knelt there for a moment, under that huge tree's shade, clutching Arnold to me, dropping tears onto his brown and white speckled back, then laid him down and loaded my rifle. His condition was so bad that he couldn't have move even if he wanted to, so he just lay there whimpering in the dry leaves, rattling them with every pained breath.

I put him out of his pain, then laid him in the hole and covered him up, shovel full by shovel full.
While burying him, I buried part of me, but it was somehow liberating. I knew he was finally free, and if there was room in Heaven for pets, then he would surely be there.

All in all, it was one of the worst days of my life. But as I drove home, hating myself, but knowing I did the right thing, I got just a tiny picture of how God must have felt watching His Son die at Golgotha.

I had just lost a dog, a dog I loved, but still, a dog.

But God, He had lost His Son. Not only had He lost Him, He had to look down and watch Him die a lonely and excruciating death, naked and nailed up on a tree. And while the Son of God was hanging naked, and slowly dying, people were walking around and looking up at Him, mocking Him, and playing dice to see who would get His clothes.

Some folks choose to shake their fist at Heaven, and accuse God of being a mean harsh ogre.

I choose to see Him as a God who showed all of Creation what it is like to truly lay ones own life down for a friend.