On The Ways of Old Ladies & Dogs

Finn is already a dog. He has been such for nearly five years.

I am only on the doorstep of old ladydom. (If I were a male rock star, I’d be dating models for whom driving a car is still novel without public censure. But, that is another blog post.)

As I move into this new season, I’m learning much from Finn.

Finn is like the two other dogs who previously shared this home with us. He knows the best lookouts for enemy activity. He tracks the patches of morning sun. He can hear the cheese drawer opening from any of these locations.

But, he — dog of our empty nest — simply goes for it in a way his predecessors did not.

He has tried every upholstered piece of furniture in the house and finds each to his liking. Because we love him, even the beds now bear slipcovers of a sort. See the denim coverlet in the above photo — which, incidentally, is the best lookout.

He barks at anyone who comes near our front door as if he owns the place. He rules the backyard like a king, barreling up and down the fence every time a delivery truck or a dog he does not know has the temerity to pass. He stretches his neck out for pets from a multitude of friends who know his name — probably because it is yelled from the kitchen whenever he’s doing all that barreling.

Because we delight in him we’ve installed a secure lock on the screen door lest he burst onto the porch. (Five years in, he remains unconvinced the mailman is our friend.) We’ve also put an internal sidewalk of pavers and a slow-it-down obstacle course of heavy planters into the garden against the resulting mud.

It’s true.

Finnegan doesn’t live beneath his household privileges. He fully inhabits this space — his space — that we have provided for him. And, his joy in it makes us want to provide all the more.

Perched on the threshold of oldness, I ponder this.

There’s something about the approach of my own chronological winter that tempts me to contract, to take up less space in the world. A world that feels increasingly full of sharp elbows and egos inflated to parade-float proportions.

This instinct may be good in some ways.

Taking up less space can mean an increased focus on the future — my own in heaven (purely by the grace of God) and the world’s in terms of the many, many legs up that younger generations need.

It can also mean my own sharp elbows are steadily giving way to a soft heart — one that highly regards the space of others.

I hope to be these things — centered on love like I was built for it. But, I still see space — a particular Eden, in fact, in which God has placed me.

Me.

There remains space for me.

Here and now in addition to there and forever. Lord, help me to joyfully inhabit every square inch of it each and every day.

Help me to try every new thing you provide and find each to my liking. Help me to whoop it up along the fence when the need dictates and rest in the sun when it doesn’t. Help me to stretch out my neck in friendship to you and to others.

Help me to be more like Finn.

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