I love my two dogs, Zuni and Agnus. Zuni is an eight-year-old boy, and Agnus is a four-year-old girl. They are short-haired German Pointers who are terrified of loud noises, absolutely hate water unless it’s bath time, and love to point at birds with intense, ancestral focus, even though they would have absolutely no idea what to do with one if they actually caught it.
Usually, when I pull into the driveway after grinding through a long day, I am greeted by a glorious, unbalanced symphony of noise. I can hear Zuni barking his head off and Agnus howling because she is deeply convinced, she is part hound dog. It’s the sound of being wanted.
I had spent all day standing in the storm of other people’s needs, and by the time I pulled into the driveway, I felt like I had earned one quiet evening. Not a parade. Just a quick trip to the dog park. Just dinner, the couch, and maybe ten minutes where nobody needed me for anything. I parked my truck. I walked up to the door. Nothing. No dogs in sight. Just the sound of silence.
I opened the door, and immediately, a physical wall of dog-poop smell smacked me right in the face. Just yuuuuuuuck. I stepped inside, literally gasping for clean air, trying to breathe through the fog of it. I look up, and there they both are, standing there with completely blank expressions that clearly said, “Nothing to see here, folks.”
Then I walked further into the house. And there it was. A twenty-foot-long line of dog diarrhea, trailing all the way from the family room, through the dining room, and right into the kitchen. I lost my shit. I yelled, "Who did this?!"
Instantly, Agnus bowed her head and began the slow, miserable walk of shame to her kennel. Now, you’d think that was a confession, but it wasn't. Agnus is the patron saint of internalized shame. Anytime anything goes wrong in our house, whether she has a hand in it or not, she assumes it is her fault. She does the walk of repentance. She is so good at it that you instantly know she is sorry for all the sins of the world.
Zuni, on the other hand, just stood there staring at me. No guilt. No remorse. Just, “What? I didn't do anything.” This is his standard response. Once, I came home to a stuffed animal that had been violently murdered. It was a crime scene. Stuffing everywhere. And there stood Zuni, looking at me like he was completely innocent, despite having a giant piece of poly-fill stuck right to his lip.
After some brief detective work, I realized Zuni was the one with the upset stomach. The evidence was overwhelming. But did I get any repentance? Any look of sorrow? No. Zuni just looked at me like, “Hey dad, glad you're home. Dog park now?” No, buddy. We cannot go to the dog park. I have to clean up twenty feet of your shitting disaster.
I am just going to be real with you: I was mad. I was level 10 mad. I went and got plastic surgical gloves. My wife, Jess, is a nurse, so thank God we have them in the house. I started cleaning. And of course, Zuni decided to supervise which only enraged me more. How could you do this? You little fuck head! I cussed at my dog. I grumbled under my breath. Of course, this happens on a night when Jess comes home late, so I’m stuck dealing with it. Spraying the cleaner. Gagging. Wiping it up with paper towels. Gagging again. Mopping the floor. More gagging. Taking a kitchen-sized trash bag full of dog waste out to the trash bin. Gagging the whole way.
I was furious because I had wanted peace, and instead, I got the literal raw end of life. I felt profoundly ripped off. And honestly, to make it worse, I was still mad that Zuni hadn't apologized. I don't know what I expected him to do, maybe write me a nice note, or weep softly in the corner?
And right there, kneeling on my clean kitchen floor in blue surgical gloves, the sheer absurdity of that expectation hit me. I expected a dog to offer me a formal apology for having diarrhea. I started to laugh. It was the laugh of defeat. The kind of laugh that comes when you realize how ridiculous you’ve been. And somewhere in the middle of it, I found my shit again. I looked over at Zuni. He slowly walked over to me. I reached out, petted him on the head, and told him, "It's all good, buddy."
And then, unexpectedly, my anger was completely replaced by empathy. I looked at him and thought about how long he must have held that in. I pictured him pacing the house, trying so hard to be a good boy, fighting it for hours until, finally, his body just gave out and nature happened.
That is when it hit me, Zuni wasn’t being stubborn. He was just worn out. He had spent the whole day trying to hold it together, and his little body finally said, “Nope. We’re done.”
I know that feeling. I think a lot of us know that feeling.
We are just trying to hold it together. We are trying to keep the house clean. We are trying to keep the mess hidden. We are trying to act like we’re fine, even when we’re tired, overwhelmed, embarrassed, or falling apart on the inside. And then life happens. The mess gets out. The thing we were trying so hard to manage finally spilled over. And when it does, we usually assume God is standing over us with a disappointed look on His face, waiting for us to explain ourselves.
But that is not the picture Jesus gives us. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” God is not standing at the door demanding a walk of shame. God meets us right in the middle of the mess, seeing how hard we’ve been trying to hold it all together, and says, “Come here. You are still loved. Let me give you rest. It's all good.”
Shalom shithead,
Pastor Mark
