Periodic hard raid today. Same high cloud cover as the last three days. We have seen skeins of Canada Geese flying north going in and out of the cottony clouds. Ducks calling from the calm water and still ravens making all the numerous sounds they make in the trees around the house. At the moment it is raining fairly hard and there are dog toys laying sadly around on the lawn. Dot got wound up today as I was trying to train her to walk on a leash and she jumped up and nipped my finger. She is going to be big and scary looking. Biting is not acceptable. Even playful biting. I did not jerk her by the neck but I did scold her like I was going to beat her. I got her to sit while she was still pulling and biting her leash and I scolded her in my deep voice. Finally she stopped playing and she let me pet her head as I got her to calm down and she stopped biting her leash and let me lead her around. We came into the office and she went directly into her crate that had the door propped open and she appears to be sulking. She won’t even look at me. That’s okay. I need to get some work done. Its funny how projection works. How much of what I’m attributing to Dot are my own feelings? How much are my own emotions that I’m projecting onto this little dog, all my own old issues, little rebellions and parental struggles? All I know is I do have to take responsibility and train her. I have seen crazy and ill behaved big dogs and they are not fun to be around. I have to get on top of the situation with Dot now because looking at her feet she is only going to get bigger and bigger and if I can’t walk her on a leash she is just going to get loose and lunge in front of a car, or just go crazy/barky/wiggly in the house or a fenced yard, which is also no way for her or us to live. I want to walk her to places where she can run loose and learn to come back when called.

Well enough of that. It’s always been interesting to me that in Scripture both in the Bible and the Quran, I’ve always felt there are two essential currents that flow through: one of love and one of obedience. In the Bible the way of obedience is not as clearly laid out as in the Quran. In the Bible the way is told mostly in parable. In the Quran the way is almost as direct as an old car repair guide: step by step instructions on what to do and exactly how. The Angel Gabriele told the Prophet how to handle almost every one of life’s difficulties specifically, from divorce to real estate transactions. In the old and the new testaments, there is much more room for argument or at least discussion.

So too, Love and Obedience are the two great themes of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin clearly loves Hobbes, and Calvin enjoys giving his parents grief, but he loves them too, yet he is hardly an obedient boy. His imagination and his strong individual nature makes obedience to Mrs. Wormwood his long suffering teacher nearly impossible. Calvin is a good American in this way. We assume our communal nature, but we glorify our individualism. We don’t want to admit we’ve already become a type of Democratic Socialists society but we maintain the myth of the wild rugged individual, who flouts the rules.

I’m no different. I was a cowboy,and a detective and I ran a boat in Alaska. I’m almost a collection of cliches based around the rugged individualist Now I have a dog who is more like Calvin than his stuffed tiger. or worse, a projection of myself as Calvin, the wisecracking fallen angel. Maybe all dogs are such creatures? I don’t know. But all I know now is that to learn anything to make any real progress of any deep importance, whether it be writing poetry or finding your true vocation during a time of isolation I suspect you have to hitch yourself to two mules by two different harnesses, one mule is Love and the other is Obedience, Obedience provides the discipline and the predictablily, and Love provides the soul’s satisfaction Both are required to get the job done.

The last thing I will mention is this: I had a friend in college who tried to teach me the virtues of grand opera. We would meet on the weekends and listen to the Texaco Opera Hour, he was Jewish and studied philosophy. He was planning to quit school and join the Israeli air force. I don’t think he ever did. But one day we were talking about our majors. I had declared as an English Major. He said he thought I would be a natural preacher. He said he could see me as preparing sermons every week for a little church in the south somewhere. I thought he was fucking out of his mind. Until today when I reread this blog and recognized that it reads like a pastors newsletter… or even notes for a sermon.

Here is another reading from What Is Time To A Pig? Where I introduce Ali Wild Horses and explain the history of the historically real Ghost Dance Movement, and the fictional Second Ghost Dance Movement. Dot and I sit outside for this reading under the covered porch listening to the geese fly over and as if on cue the hard rain begins to fall just at the end.

Rain, geese flying north

in ragged Vs forming and

reforming, like thoughts.

jhs