Do you remember that catchy, ridiculous and wonderful little song by Harry Nilsson called “Me and My Arrow?” If you do you are likely paying a great deal of attention to the social security debates in Washington (but that, as they say, is another story). I like Nilsson’s song and am thinking about that and the gift of God’s creation this lovely Saturday morning as Shadow, our 15-year-old Cardigan Welsh Corgi and I go for our weekly visit. Where do we go? While an acknowledged (and notoriously) ardent Starbucks fan, I herby admit that I take a morning off on Saturdays to have a medium, black Dunkun’ Donuts coffee. More importantly, for Shadow, she gets the greatest treat in her week: a “munchkin,” you know, DD’s name for a plain, old donut hole! Ok. I hear the voices of dog nutritionists everywhere, even as I write (and my wife is an unlicensed but very influential dog nutritionist; maybe that is her voice I hear…). It is not the best for her, but Shadow is of “riper years” as the Prayer Book puts it, and I doubt one munchkin every week or so will do anything but make her happy. Would you deny an older lady a donut if she wanted one?
When the Lord gave Adam animals and gave him the joy of naming them, it had to be fun. They do give such joy don’t they? That joy is connected to God. That joy is an echo of Eden in our souls.
I think of Cecil Alexander’s wonderful children’s hymn (which also became one of the greatest book series and BBC series I know of):
“All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.”
This is, of course, the very teaching of the Bible. God made all things, great and small, to glorify Himself and for mankind to be stewards over.
“Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (Genesis 2.19 ESV).
Yet, even when He made Welsh Corgis, man was incomplete. Man was lonely. Saturday came and man was still lonely.
“But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2.20 ESV).
And you know who came next! Well, it is Saturday. I am writing in the parking lot of Lowe’s, where I am to get some pine bark mulch to do some “honey-do’s” for my better half. Mrs. Milton is waiting for me to come home. So, me and my Shadow need to stop reflecting on the next best thing in creation, and get home to the best!
“And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man’” (Genesis 2.22–23 ESV).
So this wonderful little living creature of the field, Welsh fields where she once nipped at the heals of cattle and sheep, must return home, with me, to the highest of all creation. But as we return, I am still singing to myself, old Gal: “Me and My Shadow, straight up and narrow…wherever we go, everyone knows it’s me and my Shadow…”
