A Contemplation on Love, God and Wiener Dogs

It’s now been 30 days and nights since my little buddy died. That’s his picture at the top of the page. Luda was a miniature dachshund with a heart and spirit far larger than his little body would suggest. For fifteen years he scarcely left my side, day or night. But it was in one of those times when I was away that he suffered an aneurysm caused by a cancerous tumor on his heart we had no idea he had.

It was terrible. My daughter was alone with him when it happened. She was strong, brave and quick thinking and rushed him to the emergency vet.

I feel very bad that I was not there when he was struck down but that is offset by my deep gratitude that they were able to revive him, sedate him and keep him alive while Bev and I rushed there. I got to hold him in my lap and tell him for the millionth time how much I loved him and what a good boy he was while they administered the sedative. He laid his little head on my chest and went to sleep like he has done so many times over the years.

When his heart stopped, my mine broke right in half.

Bev dealt with the vet and drove us home. I held him all the way, crying like a baby, kissing his nose and head. No words were needed or available. I carried him out to the woods where we bury all our pets, she got the shovels, his blanket, favorite rubber bobo and the last stick he had carried into the house that morning.

The earth was not frozen this time, unlike with Sugar Bear, or hot as with Sammy, so the digging wasn’t too bad. Bev, true to form, was right there, working probably harder than me to get it done. But is was still the hardest grave I’ve ever had to dig.

Putting him in that box, touching him for the last time… it was, and still is, the most pain I’ve felt in a long, long time.

I’m a rich man. I’ve been given such a blessed life, beginning with the love and devotion of two of history’s best ever parents. The world’s best dad and mom in one combo pack and a 50 year family plan to go with them. Paid in advance, in full.

My big sister and younger brother share the title of my closest Heroes. They’re amazing people and I can’t figure out what I did to rank right there beside them. Paperwork error, I suppose.

Beverly is the best thing that has happened to me since Bunny Tracks ice cream. She saved me from oblivion and helped me build a life I never could have imagined with any of the other women I’ve known. I would be utterly lost without her. So, Lord, if you’re listening, Take Me First. Please, she can handle it, I can’t. Just like my folks, it was so much better that Dad went first. He — well he would have been one of these people you see that follows their spouse to the grave within days. Mom was strong and you might not even suspected that she had lost the person from which she had been inseparable for a half century. She and their Little dog lasted another five years before the Lord called her home. There was pain when Daddy passed but not so much with Mom because we all knew she was ready, she looked forward to being reunited and she went quickly, no doubt eagerly.

I have the unvarnished love of my three beautiful daughters about whom I can’t say enough. I’m so astonished by them, each so different for them others. The great mystery of childbirth, the raising years, the leaving and then to gaze at them from afar and realize the full scope of what I helped bring about and at the same time how little I had to do with it.

I believe I have the love and respect of my friends, as they have mine. A half dozen good men that have seen the best and worst of me since childhood and have nonetheless chosen to be counted among my true and dearest companions. Just don’t ring them up too early on a Sunday morning.

Taken even in this perspective, and as you have gathered, I loved that little wiener dog so much and he loved me to the same measure that my heart is still profoundly broken by his death. I could fill pages recounting the remarkable little things he would do, his personality, they ways he would plot to wake me in the morning, demand his breakfast or to play Chase The Ice Cubes or Stick. But it just makes my heart ache more to recall. I cannot do that for any length of time.

And yet, I can’t leave or look away. I get busy with things, there’s plenty to do if I can work up the will to just go do it and quit being so maudlin. But then it hits, like Kato pulling a surprise Kung Fu attack on the Pink Panther. Something I see, some place, some damn thing will remind me again. And how can it be otherwise? He was like part of me. Everywhere I look, he was there, with me. Where we walked, played, his toys still there, where we sat and watched TV together. There is no getting away from fifteen years of days and nights.

I miss him terribly.

Does anyone know where love ends? Young people tend to think of love in a way quite different from the elders that have lived it, been strengthened, lifted and crushed by love or perhaps some masterful thing disguised as love.

Often times we find a most pure and profound love and realize, to our amusement, that it is not for another person at all. Interspecies love is quite common, as in the case of me and my little buddy.

But how far into the distance does love reach? It’s not hard to imagine that the deer, rabbits and raccoons that wander our grounds in the morning love each other. But does the black snake in our barn experience love? A bird? An insect? How large does a critter have to be to know real love and loss? What animals are capable of experiencing interspecies love? Is that fly buzzing around my head in the workshop all excited to see me and wanting to lick me? Could an Elk cry for years over the death of a fox kit it had grown up with?

What is the length and breadth of love?

People that have experienced clinically-controlled psychedelic trips on LSD, Psilocybin or other mind-altering drugs often report a complete change in their views and outlook on life, changes that may turn out to be permanent. Things or people they liked before are no longer of interest. They may quit their jobs and become painters or poets or wander the country talking to people.

While their experiences are usually quite unique, one common thread recurs again and again. After essentially leaving the planet for a while and going through a few minutes or hours of otherworldly phenomena, many people report a general assessment upon returning that:

The only thing in life that really matters is Love.

This is similar to people that have so-called near-death experiences. They speak of immersion in complete rapture and joy, of contentment and security, being lifted into another place where Love is the only thing you know. These people all returned to this life somehow, via resuscitation or being told by some being that it was not yet their time to die and they must go back. Otherwise, we would not have their accounts of the Near Death experience.

Many of these folks talk about rising above their body and looking down on themselves. They see their loved ones grieving as they leave, maybe the doctors and nurses trying to revive them. They are conscious of the fact that, “Hey, I must be dead but why are they crying? This is the coolest thing I have ever felt! I’m so relieved and happy!” or things along those lines.

If we can equate having an out of body perception as being like the thing one feels when you die, perhaps we can look at them as variations on a single theme and call it What Happens When You Leave The Planet. It sounds very non-threatening and certainly nothing to fear or dread for ourselves or our loved ones, regardless of specie.

Take that further, if when we die or leave this dimension we think of as Life, if we retain our conscious awareness, if we are still the same traveler we ever were, able to feel sympathy for those that we can see mourning our death, to feel joy and inexplicable, immense, love when we Leave The Planet, how far does that reach? How long could it last?

Another source of information on the subject is, of course, our religious texts. There must be a reason why so many people over the millennia have taken time to invent writing and use it to record the considerable volume of thought put into the matter by the greatest minds of all time. Their Epiphanies and revelations puzzle and reward us to this day. But, what do they really mean?

Love Never Ends, so says Corinthians. I don’t remember all of the famous Love Verse, but some of it I do, so maybe I’m getting this out of order or something, I should find the verse and paste it in, it is one of the world’s great pieces of poetry. Let’s see if I can wing it.

“If I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I have nothing.”

“These three tings shall always remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

“Tongues will be stilled and knowledge shall pass away. But love never fails. Love never ends. “

Just remembering those words that I always thought were beautiful, just now has brought a sense of well being to me. I think I have answered the greatest of my questions.

All the evidence, empirical, scientific and anecdotal seems to indicate that my little buddy is still out there, in some wonderful dimension, safe, full of joy and contentment. He still loves me and must be awaiting my return from wherever I’ve gone. He probably can’t wait to show me the bobos and sticks and ice cubes THIS place has got!

If he still exists and loves, so too must my parents and other people that I’ve lost over the years. This all makes sense, really, even when viewed clinically, as a scientific matter.

The universe, let’s call it, wastes nothing. Science has proven that matter is just there, you cannot create it or destroy it. You can make it change form, like ice to water or heat to light but the net result is always the same, nothing gained, nothing lost. Ashes to ashes.

Our human mind and spirit, that inner control room where you are right now in your captain’s chair, looking out through those baby blue windows, reading this essay or, later, out driving your body around, watching and listening to the other giant robots in your part of the world, is a really high achievement. Our Spirits, the little commander in the chair that runs the robot, never mind the amazing robot itself, are high value creations. So, you just gotta wonder, here did we come from? What unfathomable intellect DESIGNED, BUILT and MAINTAINS us and all the support systems we need, including the Cosmos that we don’t even know what it’s for yet.

This extreme intellect, never wastes a thing because, I guess waste is foolish. So, why would it waste our Spirits? What would be the reason to create the billions of awesome systems, formations and life forms, including a succession mechanism to autonomously replicate, self-improve and refine each of millions of discrete designs from race horses to people to wiener dogs, only to toss it all, the fruit of your labors, when the lesser value, temporal physical robot body we ride around in, wears out? Yeah, that makes no sense at all, see?

This is not a contest between religion and science. If you parse the obviously human contamination and self-interest from the pure thought, those two disciplines support each other.

Physicists think. They share that job with theologians and philosophers but they take a decidedly different tact, applying the rigid principles of evidence and testing commonly known as The Scientific Method. They’re not perfect and once in a while they have to discard and rethink their entire set of assumptions based on new evidence. You don’t see that much in theologians or philosophers. Theologians and philosophers try to explain the way things are, whereas Physicists try to understand the way things are, always on a quest for new, more accurate knowledge. They tend to be more adaptable to revelations that can overturn all previous conclusions, something that a theologian might feel is a weakness or heresy. Where a physicist might prepare a revolutionary paper for peer review, a theologian might burn it before he damns himself to hell.

Albert Einstein. Now, there was a thinking guy. He once said, “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”

And, at the risk of sounding like a sound bite whipper, another great physicist, Werner Heisenberg is quoted as saying something like, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God‘s waitin for ya.” I may have tweaked that just a tad there.

These fellas, these phenomenal intellects are trying to tell us mere mortals something.

Yes indeed, there must be a God. Who else, how else, can you explain the galaxies, a tree, the human body and its endlessly amazing functions and talents. Skin, a coating that withstands so much, has built in sensors, resists many kinds of dirt and contamination, tends to self-clean, given time and even heals itself! Hair, a useful UV shield and natural insulator that also replenishes itself as it wears out. A frame that can flex and withstand impacts before breaking but can also heal if it does break. An oxygen processing system to create usable energy from thin air, a novel exhaust system and a complimentary flex fuel system that can break down almost any kind of available local vegetable or organic matter and convert it to power that it can use immediately or store for later consumption. An optical viewing and tracking system that can be used at a macro or near micro level in a wide range of light conditions and with image stabilization and great detail. Hearing that rivals that of many of the finest electronic sensing systems. On and on, such a marvelous things, this human body. And its just one design of millions of designs that cover this planet alone.

Yes, there is such a thing as Evolution but it is just a tool on the draftsman’s table, not the entire explanation. Evolution takes what is there and through processes, evolves that into a more refined thing. A rough boulder is washed and blown until it is as smooth as a peach. But evolution cannot Create something because before you can create something you have to evaluate the need, determine the requirements, specify your materials and performance expectations. That takes an intellect . Evolution is a process, not an intellect.

Somebody has to figure out all this stuff before it gets made. the same somebody that made everything else that we don’t even know about and that would surely blow our little minds. Oh, maybe we will see someday, hm?

In any event, accepting the need for a massive intellect but also a vibrant imagination, sublime artistic skill and a refined taste for beauty as its own justification, one have to conclude that this being, the Great Designer, God, is the source model and inspiration for Love.

I conclude there is a God. Of course, there is. He does love us and appreciates a little shine back from us too. It must warm Him when we lay our head on his chest and go to sleep. He must delight in our silly antics and feel for us when we grieve.

He must surely have a sense of humor, where else would that come from? Humor is a glimpse into the mind of God, a peek at how he sees us, constantly sending Him into gales of laughter, yet again over the same dumb things we do.

He must take great satisfaction and joy from our presence while trying not to notice our less wonderful acts and even having to occasionally intervene to stop some particularly hideous thing. And sometimes, for whatever reason, not to.

Look at our interactions with our children and our beloved pets and see God in ourselves.

The Bible says we are made in the image of God, so we have some idea what he looks like even. It kinda makes sense, of all his creations we are probably the most god-like even here on Earth. We make amazing things too, perform surgeries on each other, build rocket ships that can fly to the moon.

“Well, look at you! No one’s ever done THAT before! I’m proud of you.”

And I have to step out here a little bit but I think this is important.. This whole thing about Hell really makes me angry. That is a control mechanism set up by Kings and Priests in the ancient world as a way to scare the bejesus (sorry, Jesus) out of the townfolk and keep them in line lest they burn down the castle and temple where they’d been hoarding all the gold, silver and good stuff from the people. There ain’t no Hell, folks.

God made us, God loves us. He knew we would screw up. He knew that some of us would be bad people. Why, oh why, would this amazing, loving, benevolent being chose to condemn someone to an eternity of indescribable torment for a few years or decades of bad deeds or not loving Him enough? See, that again is what a spiteful human might do, a scornful, shallow and vengeful and wounded person. That ain’t God. You can’t wound God. He is all-powerful. He’s sees your next move before you make it. He knows you while you are still in the womb. He knows your entire life before you come out of the box. So, if he knows that Adolph Hitler is going to be what he is going to be and still allows him to be born and to do all those things, why would he then send him to the lake of fire for eternity? Why not just send his butt there to begin with and prevent the suffering of millions of incontinence people?

We can’t presume to understand the mind of God but w also can’t presume to attach weak human characteristics to Him, especially since they fly in the face of exactly what he He tells us is needed to lead a good life, His neat package of Ten Commandments. Why would He hold us to that set of standards while He himself flaunts them, right in front of us? Nope, that ain’t the way it is, folks. There ain’t no Hell.

The part about human authorities needing to be respected as extensions of God’s authority, no again. It depends on the government and its players whether you should respect or even obey them. Consider Pol Pot or Adolph Hitler, Stalin — any number of human leaders and authority structures that were wholly corrupt or just plain evil and should never be countenanced by God or man.

The guys that actually penned the Bible, all the books and letters they compiled, they decided what to leave in and what to leave out, then edited to make it all fit the, you know, King’s agenda, they were under contract to King James you know, he even put his logo on the cover). They slid a lot of human personality traits in there and attributed them to God.

For instance, God is NOT a jealous God. Jealousy is perhaps the most petty, destructive and weak of all human characteristics. It is shocking and, I think, heretical, to say that God is jealous, especially of other gods. And what “other gods” exactly? There ain’t any, if, as the Book says, He is omnipotent (all powerful) what power could any other god have, especially to qualify them as a god?

Yeah, read the Bible with your galoshes on. You have to wade through a little nonsense there. God would not order some guy to go slay all the people in the next town including women and children, that had nothing to do with something somebody else did. That just doesn’t flow with Thou Shalt Not Kill, dude. And all the stuff about slaughtering and making burnt offerings to God. And He is pleased by that, What? Why? No. Sacrifices to the god(s) is a desperate and misguided practice by primitive people. Why would the greatest intellect ever, that wastes nothing, waste something so it could be a symbolic (only) sacrifice to himself? It makes n sense because it is human, not God-like.

There is peace, strength and beauty to be found in the Bible as well as terror, sorrow, confusion and hate. Its a minefield in a garden, folks. Enter at your own risk.

God is as real as we are. Our Spirit never stops going places. My little buddy is out there somewhere and always will be, like my parents.

Will we be reunited in some other dimension? Now that, I don’t know. Maybe God wants us to have new experiences in the next, or all, dimensions that we travel through. A new mom and dad, a new Little Buddy. And that’s okay too. As long as I can intellectually and logically know with a good deal of certainty that it only makes sense, he is still out there, very much the wonderful little dog I grew to love so deeply and always will because

Love Never Ends.