October 25, 2024
“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”~ Psalm 100:5; 106:1; 107:1; 118:1; 118:29; 136:1. NRSV
After dinner on Wednesday last week, I took the dogs on a second walk. It was a beautiful evening, and although there was no rain, I saw a rainbow in the sky. A friend driving by rolled down her car window to point it out and we found joy in sharing the moment. I walked on, enjoying the coolness of the evening. It was the golden hour, when the angle of the sun makes everything glow as earth reflects that light. I was thinking about the sermon on the book of Job, and the perennial question, “If God is good, why do bad things happen to good people?”
The dogs and I were on the last mile of our walk when I noticed two dogs running loose in the yard across from us on Reservoir Road. One of them started to bark and run towards us. Since Izzy and Jackson are not used to other dogs, I stepped onto the grass on the side of the road, put my hand up like a crossing guard and yelled, “Go home! Stay! Go home!” The dog picked up speed, and I could feel my heart starting to race, thinking that there might be a dog fight. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a Ford Mustang coming over a rise in the road. In a flash, the dog, running at full speed rammed into the front driver’s side fender with a smack, and literally went flying 20 feet back across the street, landing motionless and obviously dead on the lawn.
Everything froze for a moment. The driver pulled to the side of the road. A woman walking on the other side of the street stopped. I saw another car coming and waved it to slow down so as not to hit the Mustang. Once the way was clear, I walked over towards the unmoving dog where the other walker, the driver and I tried to figure out what to do. A neighbor pulled into her driveway, identified the dog, and notified the owner, who came outside, visibly upset and taking tearful responsibility for not having the dog on a leash.
I was reminded of one of my favorite lines from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Pevensie siblings Peter, Susan, and Lucy are in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, anxiously waiting for their brother Edmund to be freed from the spell of the Witch. The Beavers are talking with excitement about rumors of the return of Aslan, the Lion (who is the Jesus character). Lucy understandably is afraid of roaring lions, and asks Mrs. Beaver, “Is he safe?” Mrs. Beaver responds, “Of course he isn’t safe, but he’s good.”
We live in a world that is declared “good” by the Creator. The rainbow during the golden hour was a reminder of the amazing beauty of creation. And one of the beautiful parts of creation is that creatures – including dogs determined to cross without looking both ways and human beings who don’t keep their dogs on leashes – have free will, are not automatons. Trees are great fun to climb, and gravity doesn’t stop when a climber slips and falls. Through floods, wars, and election seasons that are anything but safe, the Psalms affirm that “God is good, for God’s steadfast love endures forever,” multiple times. I’m grateful for the God of steadfast love in a world that is wildly free. ~ Anne
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