We got a new dog. Well, not yet anyways, but give it a week and that thing in our back yard will have a cutsie leash and collar and be with us forever. I dub him to be called Tyson, after Mike Tyson. He came to us a stray and reminds me of the fighter my sister and I have named him after. He is missing a chunk out of one of his ears and is a big, black fighting dog with a heart of gold. My mother likens the name Rip. To me, this possesses zero orginality and one hundred percent cliche'. My father likens the name to be "it" since he really doesn't want to keep another dog, thus detatching himself from any emotional connection whatsoever. I don't blame him, however his defiance is futile. My mom loves the dog and if momma ain't happy... But since my sister and I have no say in the dog since we are leaving for school shortly, my father has no backup in this one; thus we'll have a new dog by friday.
I don't hate dogs, don't get me wrong. I love them. Some of them. Ok, so I'm rather picky about them but I like them far more than cats. Cats were once worshiped and never got over the attention. Anyways, there are three awesome dogs in this world- Great Danes, Huskies, and Boxers. Chiuaua's are the Devil's personal guard dog. Everything else falls in between these extremes of breeds on the scale. The one in our backyard happens to lean more toward the awesome side rather than the Devil's side. But we already have two smelly mutts of our own. One of them, Sport, well, he's pretty cool. He came to us a stray as well and grew on us and so far, while not possessing much intelligence, is a great dog. Jackson is my sister's dog. Lord knows why we bought him since my sister was heading off the college anyways. Nobody but my sister likes it, and I mean nobody. We, rather me, calls him the gay dog. Why? Because he prances around like a poodle, gets bows in his hair at the groomer, and wears plaid and likes it! Beyond that, we've owned a space cadet Doberman, an evil, overweight Wire Hair, and an old, blind Boston Terrier. We also owned a rabbit for some time until that evil Wire Hair ate him. Obviously, my track record with pets is sub-par.
The interesting part of this latest escapade has been watching my parents fawn over this new dog. I left for a week long conference in Atlanta right as Tyson showed up. My parents are the kind of people who will never be without a dog as long as they live and complain about having them when they do. My sister and I both called it right before we left as well- we have another member of the family. Ironically, it's the dogs that find us, not the ones we find that make the best dogs. The ones we find are usually weird, annoying, or gay. And it's this fate that draws us to love man's best friend even more.
Some things in life, we set out to find. Other things in life, we are found by. The good, the bad, and the ugly all conglomerate around our everyday lives and gives us things we don't need, want, or demand yet odly help us appreciate the very existence of life anyways. These aren't just spontaneous bursts of randomness or coincidence. They are beautiful brush strokes painted by a caring yet mind-boggling God. As the cliche' passage tells us in Roman 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." The glory of life is in the spontanaity of God's pre-written plan. We have no idea who or what will find us nor what we will find on our journey. It's a lot like watching a spider web being formed. Each strand is crucial to the strand before it for the structural soundness of the web. Some strings never touch, though, and others touch only at the very end of the web, but each is vital to the web as a whole. Likewise, there are things in our life that don't make sense or seem totally random. However, without them, our lives would not be complete and other's lives would not be complete. Each and every one of us is here for a beautiful reason- to build upon a structrual soundness of our web.
So here's to all the amazing, mind bending, odd things that cross your path every day. Make the most of it, live along side it, build others up, and enjoy how life drops just enough lemons off to either make you sick or make lemonaid. Here's to all the strays in life that find their home in the most unsuspecting places, whether those strays be you, me, a friend, or a mysterious black pooch sitting on our back porch as we speak.
KB
P.S. If you have a suggestion for a name to call this thing, it would be much appreciated if you left it in the comments below. Just pick anything but "Rip." I refuse to call him that.
No comments:
Post a Comment