Wednesday, September 6, 2017 

                Poor Charlie!

                While Susan and I were spending a wonderful, long weekend in Goderich with our daughter Maggie and her husband Ryan, Charlie and his brother Kramer, our two dogs, were off to the kennel at our veterinary’s place. Charlie loves going away there for the weekend. He loves all the attention which the staff give him and he struts in as if he owns the place and could, if allowed, just prance off on his own to where his bed awaits.

                But this time, I requested that they give him a bath and also just a trim around his back end where there were some mats. The operative word here is “trim”.

                Now Charlie is normally a very bushy dog. In fact, his mostly brown fur is long and wispy. He is part Australian Shepherd and Border Collie. And it always looks as if the two breeds can’t make up their mind as to what kind of hair Charlie should have. It looks like he has stuck his paw in a light socket. It goes everywhere. All that dog hair makes him look roly-poly and over weight.

                When we picked the boys up on Sunday night, we weren’t sure Charlie was indeed our dog. The back-end trim had very obviously turned into a radical nose-to-tail hair-ectomy. Talk about being down to the short hairs! Our rotund, hairy pooch was now a sleek, short-haired dog from stem to stern. It turned out that he was so full of mats and tangles, and so bushy that the only way to get him clean to the skin was a thorough and deep-seated brush cut.  We can even see the little wart in the middle of his back, peeking through the very short fur.

                Charlies seems to be very self-conscious since coming home, a little abashed and uncomfortable at his new appearance.  He now looks more like an Australian Cattle Dog than an Australian Shepherd. I am not sure that he likes the new look, even though we keep assuring him that he looks just fine. But he just sadly looks up at us as if to say, “Don’t look at me; I’m naked!”

                Jesus was never very comfortable with those who ceremoniously clean only, a superficial purity  at best  but which did not get down to the roots of a person’s spirit and character. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence,” (Matthew 23:25). He told them to clean the grit and grime of their lives from the inside out and then everything will be clean. One has to get down to the short hairs of sinning, bad behaviour, careless talk, and anything that fouls and besmirches the human mind, body and spirit.  “Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong, “ (Isaiah 1:16).

                By and large, most of us don’t want to be that exposed, revealing our warts and all. “Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin?’” (Proverbs 20:9) We like to cover up the problems and issues we have. Maybe just a trim here and there, but nothing too radical! We want to pretend that everything is all right just the way it is and always has been. But when Jesus and his Way bring to light the parts of our lives that need to change in order for us to live healthier and more abundant lives it may take a little uncomfortable exposure before we understand that maybe we aren’t what we thought we were but find our true selves in the transformational Love of God.

                “Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow,” (Psalm 51: 7).

                Make sure you get behind the ears!

Dale