It’s been a while since my friend Bob has provided me with one of his Random Musings. But, good things come to those who wait, and I’m happy to offer his latest reflection. I don’t think his James Joyce stream of consciousness literary style is intentional, it’s just the way his mind, and heart, works. I love him for that, and it makes for some good conversation when we get together.

Iris and the Botanical Hitchhikers – by Bob Magness

We went for a hike this weekend.  Well maybe ‘hike’ is a bit too ambitious of a term, let’s call it a nice walk through the forest of a local state park.  This fall season so far has been a continuation of summer – warm and dry.  The cottonwood trees are already dropping their dry brown leaves, but some of the maples are showing off their autumn colors.  This hike was on a bridle trail that we’ve been frequenting for the last 25 years.  In those years, we rarely come across other hikers and seldom see horses.  It’s a nice quiet trail. 

We take the opportunity to cut the dogs loose and let them burn some energy by running ahead.  We are back to having two dogs.  Tilly is a wire-haired pointer – I like to tell people she is my dog.   Iris is a pointing griffon; she is Robyne’s dog.  Iris is a good girl but sometimes she doesn’t hear me so well and other times she just flat out ignores me.  They’re both still pups – less than 18 months so they have plenty of energy and this hike gives them a chance to run and explore and to just be a dog.  It’s fun to watch.  

The inventor of Velcro is said to have made the discovery after walking through a field and was picking burrs off his wool sweater.  I would have guessed that he had a dog a like Iris.  She is a magnet for all varieties of these prickly seeds.   But she’s a thinking kind of dog – she thinks that rubbing up against the forest floor or patch of grass will free her of these botanical hitchhikers.  And before long her long hair is wrapped around these tiny seeds, and she is completely matted.  Our peaceful walk through the woods is now interrupted as we attempt to free her from this predicament.  She doesn’t seem to enjoy our efforts of pulling the seeds from her fur and before long a wrestling match breaks out.  For a thinking dog she doesn’t seem to realize that we are trying to help.  

Wrestling.  I wrestled in high school.  It is a tough and brutal sport with absolutely no shortcuts or hacks to success.  The sport teaches you about yourself – what you’re willing to sacrifice to be better, and what you can endure.  In wrestling there is only one person to blame if you lose a match.  I look back at those days fondly and mostly grateful that they are behind me.  I used to think I was pretty good but for some reason most everybody I wrestled was better.  It’s good to be humbled.  I found it more than interesting that one definition for “Israel” is “he who wrestles with God.”  I’ve thought about that for some time now.  It certainly feels appropriate for all my struggles with attempting to understand life and His creation.  Wrestling against all those times I thought I knew the better path.  Wrestling to understand why my sacrifice was not sufficient for what I thought I wanted.  And suddenly, I’m back in the Garden of Eden and there’s the Tree.   I’m a thinking dog too…  I know how.  I know what’s best…

Maybe the hardest thing about wrestling with God is that He doesn’t play fair.  Maybe He shows me how silly and futile my actions are while walking a dog through the woods.  He gives me a forest and pats me on the head with a resounding “Go get’em boy!”  And I come back to Him with all the burrs of life stuck on me while I thrash about trying to shake them loose – so much like Iris.  And as I cry out to Iris, “You silly dog just be still, I’m trying to help”,  it hits me and I can’t move.  I’m pinned as I hear Psalm 46: 10, “Be still and know that I am God.”

(Iris and the Botanical Hitchhikers was first published on the blog Reflections of a Lay Catholic)

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