This morning I took Bonnie for a longer walk than usual – or rather she walked me. I don’t know why she thinks she has to move at freeway speed. I know it isn’t comfortable for her to have her collar choking her as I am leaning against the leash trying to slow her down. She never learns. For the most part she has pulled either me or Jenna along.
I don’t know what triggered my memory
of Houdini or entering him in the pet contest at Cinco de Mayo celebration that
Kearns does every year – or at least each year we had lived there. We had this hairy dog who loved his boys and
would often “escape” to look for them – sometimes ending up at the elementary
school or pound.
There were several categories in which
we could have entered Houdini. He would
have blown all other dogs out of the water if we had remembered his toys. Houdini could catch darts in his mouth,
bounce a basketball off his nose, and of course, fetch. Since we didn’t have a ball or other object to
use we had entered him in “The most fluffy” category. I think he took second.
There had been a category for most “unique” or something to that effect. A little girl had entered her dog as not many people have ever seen anything like it. I know I hadn’t. I wouldn’t consider it ugly necessarily but certainly not beautiful - as a whole. His head was beautiful. It just didn't seem to match his body - at all. His head was that of a golden retriever while his body was that of a dachshund – as though Dr. Frankenstien had sewn the two together. The oddest part was that his head seemed to be the same exact size as the rest of his body.
It didn’t matter how oddly shaped he
was or that he wasn’t the most sought after pet among all that were there, the
little girl loved him unconditionally.
He was her friend. It didn’t
matter if others thought he looked flawed.
In her eyes he was beautiful and she was overly grateful to have him in
her life.
It reminds me of a talk I heard at sacrament. Given by Brother Brown. We have several Brother Browns in our ward. Each seem to shed a stream of tears before
he even make it to the pulpit. He
talked about a statue he’d seen recently – someone’s interpretation of how
Jesus must have looked after he had been lifted off the cross. Bro. Brown said the image was of one who had
been weakened and appeared to be in despair – not at all beautiful. Not someone others would follow.
As he stood and gazed at the statue
and allowed emotions to take over, he thought about unconditional love and what
it means. We need to love others
regardless of their backgrounds or misshapen pasts. We need to love others we may not agree
with. We must love them regardless of the
choices they make. It was a really good
meeting. I wish I had that kind of love,
but I know that I don’t. It is something
that I need to work on.
