Sorry, Nella

Schnauzers are the most contrary dogs you could imagine. They march to the beat of a drummer I don't think anyone else hears. They never walk on a leash in a straight line, they bark too much, they get in your face when they're angry, they're feisty and active, their fur is soft as the hair of a baby, and they'll love you half to death.

Nella is such a Schnauzer, black and small, but with a heart bigger than her size by far. Soon she'll be no longer with us. She has cancer and there's little hope past the next few days.

It's amazing how much a little dog, only eight years old, can grip your heart and hold it fast. How much of an ache there is already to know I won't have her giving me a good lecture when I come home from work (Schnauzers can talk - really). And I'm thinking that there's something else to this because I believe she's a creation of God, just like I am, only different. God's little creature, which makes her more significant than an accident of chance would be, more important to this world, this universe, because God made her.

I'm thinking that this world wouldn't be worth very much to me if I couldn't know that little lives transcend the grave. I can't be positive that there's an afterlife waiting for her too, but I think so. The mere significance of the fact that Jesus conquered death by rising himself puts every death on a different plane, not as doom and lostness, but as a remembrance that not all death is final.

Nella's had a good life, and I'm only sorry I didn't spend more time with her. I used to look into her eyes and imagine the world going on in there behind those shiny black beads. I wished I could have communicated with her how important she is in the larger picture of things.

I think she might have understood anyway.

ADDENDUM: Nella left this life at 6:30 pm July 26, 2005, while I held her in my arms. Rest in peace, little dog. Go with God.

Rising from the Dead

Luke 24 insists that Jesus rose from the dead. A lot of people try to put this down to the fact that Jesus' followers were backwards folks who would believe anything. But something about this chapter of the Bible doesn't resonate very well with that trite suggestion.

We read that the risen Jesus (hold your judgment for a minute) started walking along a road leading from Jerusalem to Emmaus. He joined two of his followers but was somehow disguised so that they didn't recognize him. He asked them why they seemed so upset. This was the answer:

"Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"

Jesus asked them what things.

"About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."

They weren't gullible. They'd heard the wild story that he'd risen from the dead, but it seemed more of an insult to their sorrow than anything they could believe. It was only when they ate and drank with Jesus and they recognized him that they came to the realization that, however it had happened, Jesus was alive.

You don't have to be gullible to believe in a miracle like this. If God broke into our world in the presence of Jesus, who are we to say what is and is not possible?

Food for thought.