BLACK DOGS AND BONES

BLACK DOG

Unlike how we think, as 21^st century Americans, a “dog” was not a pet nor friend, nor a good word, in Holy Script?!  Nothing against dogs – I keep two GS’s (and, before them, Jake, Molly, Gretchen, …) and they nearly worship me.  But, even today, in some places, dogs are not fed, but rather are food?!  Yet, let us look at and think on a proverb ...

There is a proverb (attributed to American Natives, or some Chinese sage, depending on who is telling the story) that tells of two dogs within, one dark and one light, that struggle for one's soul.  The one that overcomes the other is the one that is fed.  So, feed the dog of light, not the dog of darkness!  There is some truth, much truth, to this proverb.

But, the problem is that it seems that the dark dog needs only a bone thrown its direction to arouse it to a vicious attack.  A bone-skinny hell-hound arises, snapping and growling, not content with the bone, but wanting to chew off your leg, as it goes for your very heart!  I remember a scene in a movie, Vikings, where Ragner growled and jumped into a pit of starving wolves, before his enemies could push him in, to his death sentence.  He won, but lost.  It did not end as the story of Daniel.

And, it is not about quantity, alone.  Black dogs awake to just a scrap of dead meat; and, the hell-hound, the black dog, will eat anything and everything.  It is like the alligator, turning even good meat into rotten, maggot infested stench, before it eats.  It bites, sits back, and watches for death, like the komodo.  It, like the buzzard, circles, smelling the death, and then lights to feast on the rottenness.  But, it thrives on the filth.  And, we bait and feed the dog of darkness?!  The black dog needs little to keep it going – a stray thought, a hesitant click, a thoughtless slip, an unguarded moment, … but it awakes to destroy and devour.  Not a bone, not a scrap for the dark dog.

In contrast, the white dog demands manna, “the sincere milk of the Word,” the “unblemished”, the firstborn of the flock, the best!  No doubt, “greater is He in you, than he in the world…” but, who/what is in you?!  The “hound of heaven” pursues and protects.  But, we run from Him into the howls of the darkness?!  We could walk through the valley of the shadow of death, with his protection, but …  what dog am I feeding?!  Am I “thinking on things above…”?

Also, we need to “put to death what is earthly…” – some dogs need to be killed!  From yet another vantage, we need to be running with a pack of white wolves – not a pack of hyenas or wild-dogs or coyotes, howling and yipping.