I’ve had a few dogs over the years, but there are three that stand out in my mind: Mama Dog, Marshall, and Archie.
Mama Dog came into our yard to starve to death when my husband and I were living in Liberia. I saw her skeletal form collapsed on the edge of our property with despair and even rage. One more tragedy I can do nothing about, I thought; one more harrowing evidence of human cruelty and the hostility of fallen nature. I wanted her to go away and die somewhere else.
She didn’t. The next day she was still there, her head slightly raised when I came out the door. Again in a kind of fury – against the dog for making me feel this way and against myself for getting involved – I tossed some old bread toward her and went back inside. The next day she was marginally closer to the door; I didn’t have to throw the food as far this time while saying, “I do NOT want a dog, you understand. Eat up and then take yourself off.”
Within a week she was on the back porch, much restored and seeming not just resigned to but delighted by my presence. She had probably never been deliberately fed before. The Liberians of our town didn’t do anything with dogs except for “chunk” rocks at them when they got too near. Most of the animals were wild, surly mutts, but this dog had no resentment. She seemed determined to live on our porch, so we gave her a name – Mama Dog, because she had obviously had puppies recently.
Around this time I bought a can labeled “Vienna Sausages.” They were too nasty to eat, so I took a couple out to the porch for Mama Dog. She had never been given sausages before, even such bland ones as these. She looked at me in disbelief when I held one out to her – I couldn’t possibly mean for her to eat it! Since she wouldn’t take it, I laid it across her front paws. Even then she sat there long enough for us to go inside, get the camera, and take a picture of her staring in wonder at the glory of sausages. Eventually, once she was convinced she was allowed to, she ate them.
Mama Dog lived with us for a year. Every day she walked with me to the curriculum center where I worked and flopped down on the porch to wait. In the evening she followed me into my teacher training class and curled up under the desk. Everyone in town knew where I was by seeing if the dog was outside or not. She tried once to come inside the house but never asked again after I said no. She barked at strangers, but if she had ever seen someone admitted to our house, she let him pass. She put on weight and filled out, but she was never pretty, with her bat ears, pointy nose, and inelegant caramel coloring. However, she was pretty enough for the local Lotharios, and soon we had puppies in a box on the porch. She was a good mother to them, although it seemed to pain her not to come with me to work.
When the puppies were old enough to take care of themselves, a distemper epidemic swept through town. There were dead dogs in the gutters of most streets. Mama Dog got sick and died within 36 hours. In her last hours she lay on the porch, her home, stretched out on her side and gasping in agony. I could do nothing but impotently mourn and rage. I bent over her and touched her head; her last act was to wag her tail at me.
commentary, Luke shows us the story of Jesus’ birth from Mary’s perspective, but Matthew tells it through the eyes of Joseph. Both of these accounts, somewhat difficult to prove or reconcile historically, nevertheless share common elements in describing what took place.
, makes the pretty airtight case that it has predominately been the masculine voice that has reverberated throughout sanctuaries and church classrooms and theological halls in contemporary Christianity. Though there have been notable and important exceptions, the voices of men have echoed the loudest from our pulpits.
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