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The sleeping beauty on the right came from a fire barrel. When my fiancee and I received her yesterday, she needed a bath. As I rinsed the ash out of her hair and she began to shine black, I shed my first bittersweet tear as a human being. My neurons made contrasting connections. My brain was flooded with the feeling of knowing as sadness rushed in on a happy wave. For a moment, I understood why we are here.
To make meaning where it didn’t exist. To save lives that don’t matter. To give life to dead stars. To give names to our hopes.
Meet Hedy.
Check out that bling!!!
One of my three rescue dogs has a fear of thunderstorms, something I suspect he learned while on his own on the streets. I feel much the same way when I see him resting peacefully on the carpet while it is storming outside.
I don’t think we could experience that if we thought we had souls and they didn’t.
Indeed. I’m certain that if my dog does not have a soul, I do not because whatever it is the human brain that gives us reason to think of souls is inside the head of my dog. I have seen other animals in odd ways all my life. You can watch a gecko stalking a moth on the window at night in anthropomorphic ways, almost hearing an ESPN reporter talking you through the approach, the training he’s been doing for months, the muscular strength required to cling to window as he slowly approaches the moth and so on. Suddenly you realize the gecko is working the night shift. Once the gets that moth he can go home, kick back in front of the tube and relax for a couple of days.
I like the way that my dog tells me late at night, by raising his head about 3 inches and casting one eye at me – I hear “It’s fucking cold out there and I’m too tired to move – just let yourself out for a smoke and be careful”
As i type this one of my rescue dogs is under my desk as there is a thunderstorm outside.
Does your dog wear a contented look knowing that it is not out in the rain?
Hell yeah… although he is frightened, which is quite the sight for a monstrous Belgium Shepherd. How many do you have? We have 5.
100lb rotty, 60+pit, and 18lb wiener/chihuaua
I don’t think I could handle more than the three. If I had a place in the country maybe. When it’s raining my pit just lays down like he’s waiting for the rain to stop… ‘oh well, can’t go outside, I’ll just have me a little nap’
Beautiful! Yeah, i know what you mean about a larger place. 5 is the limit for our house right now. Any more and it’d become counterproductive. We still rescue animals but have become more in the “fix-em-up and adopt them out” line of business. I think we’ve already set our local vet for a very comfortable retirement
LOL, every year I drop off blankets and what I can at the SPCA near here. I can’t take any more pets… Donate old clothes via charity that goes directly to SPCA as well. Care for the geckos around the house and what not. They’re all cousins of mine.
Damn, I WISH we had something like the SPCA here. What we have is just a bunch of NGO’s and private carers/rescuers.
Geckos are characters.
I’ve been trying to create ‘perfect’ home spots for them in the flower beds etc. So far not too much luck… I’ll get it one of these days
Ah, we have that base covered… nice little garden pockets all around. They’re problem is our cats. We also have a basketfull of those
Fortunately, our geckos are smart!
You people and your homes. I live in an old shed on the roof of an abandoned bread factory. You don’t know what it’s like to be human till you pissed in the wind up here, baby.
Hehehe.
That sounds ideal. One day I’ll have a nice garden with lots of plants and a swing etc.
So are you working with a foster service or kind of running your own?
I wish we had organised support. There’s just a few of us who sort of help each other out. We mostly pick up the financial side, though. It’s a pretty dog friendly burb we’re in. That helps for adoption, but it also makes this area a favourite dumping ground.
Oh … it’s all god’s fault. That’s what happens when you send your child down to earth to be sacrificed instead of your dog.
Wait a second, I thought atheists bit the heads of off dogs and stuff.
No no no. We eat babies! Dogs are for chasing little kids of the lawn!
Oh …
Domestic or imported babies?
Who can afford imported?
Sometimes imported are over-priced.
Well, I only do that for special occasions.
A good act/thought needs but few words.
Agreed.
Hello Hedy! I don’t understand what a fire barrel is… did you rescue her?
A fire barrel, like the ones people warm their hands over after an apocalypse.
Well, she’s a rescue foster. I don’t know if it would be right to keep her in our apartment. But, I might have trouble giving her up
They’re the best companions. Good on you, even if it is just a foster.
Well if we keep her, then we can’t keep fostering more dogs. 1 cat & 2 dogs is the max at any one time for this apartment, I think.
Yeah, there’s that point of negative return. Maximum love/care/devotion.
Plus, I work from home and any more than that, and I’m going to feel irresponsible and “judged” by too many eyes when I come out of the bathroom after choking a chicken.
She’s a really beautiful looking dog. We had a wonderful dog we called Bella who adopted us – just walked in off the street one day. She was a very stoic dog but afraid of thunderstorms too. I think she not only had a soul but was also a very wise and kind spirit.
She’s beautiful.
‘Souls’ are immaterial. What is important is simple humanity (humanism).
Animals are innocent—if owning an animal gives a sudden realisation, that’s your own humanity breaking through.
A poem I send to friends and folks who become suddenly animal-less:
“I’ll lend you for a little while
This pet of mine,” He said,
For you to love while he’s alive
And mourn for when he’s dead.
It may be six or seven years,
or twenty-two or three—
But will you, till I send for him
Take care of him, for Me?
I was given it by a hard-as-nails naval Chief when he saw my utmost distress when my first BT (my gravatar image, actually) passed on decades ago.
I’m an atheist yet is still brings a chokey feeling. Sue me …
The atheists that I’ve met in my life are all bleeding hearts to a fault. I’ve never met an atheist whose bleeding heart has never gotten them into trouble.
There is something awakening about acknowledging your own insignificance. I’m stardust, flesh, neurons … this makes me feel closer to my environment: not hopeless.
Atheism is taking responsibility for yourself rather than palming it off to a sky-ghost and funding ‘His’ opportunist priesthoods.
Stardust. Brilliant! I think the skin of a cringing religioso separates him from the universe whereas the skin of an atheist joins him to it; and that is the difference.
As for ‘bleeding hearts’ — I’d agree to the degree that realistic and rational people can be more ‘human’ than any canting religioso. (I don’t remember atheists slaughtering with sword, rack, thumbscrew, strappado, drone, or stake in the name of Gentle Jesus or Compassionate and Merciful Allah.)
For myself I recognise that people everywhere are people—I’d go so far as to say that the ones who don’t are politician-minded.
I’d like very much nothing more than a level field for all — hell, I’m preaching again. Bugger~!
“Point of order, Mr President?”
“Yes, Little Virginia?”
“Sir … how many of the leaderships of Israel, Britain, Europe, The Vatican, The United States and North Korea are actually well-concealed atheists behind the facade of devout devotion?”
“Eek! Virginia, go wash your mouth out at once! And when you get the midnight knock have your bag packed and ready! … … (Dear God, please forgive her for she knoweth not what she hath done …)”
You’re welcome to preach around here, anytime. I told you, I want Argus to be the official guard dog of this blog
Do you know how to receive comment notifications for this blog? You have full authorization to show no mercy here.
On some there’s a “click here to get comments as they come in” sort of button … haven’t been able to find one here, thoug—Hah! Just spotted it! ** click **
Done. Excuse me a few hours, gotta go sharpen these fangs …
In a sense our two dogs were ‘rescue dogs’ too. After our first dog passed away on my lap, our local pet food guy pitched up a few days later with two emaciated boxer puppies that had been in a pet shop!
They are the two dogs on my blog header.
Nice post, Chris, and I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly.
I can’t think of a better pic to put in a header. We are so fortunate as human beings to have another creature which is so ridiculously compatible with us. For me … that compatibility is a reminder of the obligation we have to take care of less fortunate creatures.
”…is a reminder of the obligation we have to take care of less fortunate creatures.”
This is the reason my wife tells people she married me. Should I be flattered or concerned?
HAHAH. Flattered! She obviously thinks you are worth rescuing and there has been SOME gain for her … she wouldn’t keep you if you pooped all over the house, and didn’t offer anything in return.
Thanks for the word of reassurance. Also, it is worth noting that I don’t dribble as much as the dogs when she scratches my tummy, and I’m less fussy than they are about what I eat, and I can go walkies by myself…without a leash! ( see this morning’s post)
Although I have drawn the line at a large food bowl on the floor.
Sounds like you are in better shape than I am. I get put in the crate when I’m left alone.
Was thinking this past week I’d become a little cynical again. You and CS Lewis just kicked it out of me. My character WILL help the weak despite being a snob and a successful banker. Is it his fault he’s good at banking?! He thinks it’s the only thing he’s ever been good at, but he will find that it’s the stuff like saving useless dogs and people that makes all the difference.
Do you have specific CS Lewis quote to share?
The entire Screwtape Letters or in part: “The great thing is to make him value an opinion for some quality other than truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue. By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to
believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense
, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the
chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the impossible. To
anticipate the Enemy’s strategy, we must consider His aims. The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the,fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor’s talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant,or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love—a charity and gratitude for all selves,
including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be
allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. For we
must never forget what is the most repellent and
inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left.”
In my mind, god & capitalism are at the heart of all human failings. We cannot achieve humility on earth with supernatural goals. We cannot achieve humility on earth in a dog eat dog economy.
I think you’re half-right. All “-isms” have their heart an us vs. them, for or against mentality and anything thought up by humanity is eventually corrupted by man. As soon as we think we have the ultimate power we’re corrupted