Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, July 6, 2024
Several times in our blogs, Shelley and I have mentioned the Lake Youngs trail, along a high wire fence which encloses one of Seattle’s most important water reservoirs. We’ve also mentioned our favorite stopping-place along that trail, just outside the board fence of a woman who has turned her backyard into a registered Wildlife Sanctuary. She regularly fills her many bird-feeders with food and water, and hummingbirds and other species consider it a welcome waystation on their travels. The woman also owns dogs, and she foster-parents other dogs as well, and lavishes love and no-nonsense discipline on them to keep them safe.
In the photo above, you can see this woman’s fence (and also her left knee). Shift your gaze to the photo’s center and you’ll see the head of the most recently-arrived of these foster dogs trying to escape through a hole he has dug.
The woman was talking to Shelley and me at this moment, and I directed her attention to the furry Houdini. She chuckled, and said that he had escaped a few days before this, and she had had to track him down in the neighborhood. So now, she rebuked him, and finally put a large flat rock like the foundation stones you see directly in front of the hole, to prevent a further departure.
As I look at this photo now, I find myself thinking, This dog doesn’t know how good he has it. He’s taking all the regular food and water and love for granted, yet his curiosity drives him to see what’s beyond the barrier.
Sort of like Eve and Adam, right? There in a stunningly beautiful Eden, their needs completely met by their genius and generous Creator, they still felt the itch to distrust and disobey the One they knew, in favor of the seductive promises of a talking snake they’d just met.
Their story (which you can find in Genesis chapter 3) reminds us of how important it is to trust the Owner of earth’s original “wildlife paradise.” He knows what is best for us.