It seems that Bill Cosby’s dictum that “Humans are the only species that allow their young to come back into the nest” is true at my birdhouse. This time though, along with my son, came his dog as well. My wife and I never had animals around the house. It is not that we don’t want them or like them, we have had our seasons of goldfish and gerbils, but we just don’t have the time to devote to them. If you take on the responsibility of an animal you must realize they take time to properly care for them and we didn’t want a dog that would simply sit in its cage and not get out for play.
So we now have a dog at our house. It is a really great dog that never barks and attempts to kill you with kindness. The only danger is to get in the way of its waging tail that could take out block walls with its energy. Lily is her name. Lily waits patiently at the screen door to our walled in backyard and will simply run a paw down the screen to let you know that she is still there and waiting for play time or ride time. In Vegas it is still warm enough for meals on the patio and grilling outside and Lily knows what that means. While my wife tries to prevent the slipping of meat to Lily it is inevitable. She will sit patiently at one end of the picnic table with her sad eyes moving from one weak member of our family to the other until one finally gives in and slips her something.
I think it’s the eyes that do it. If she wasn’t looking at you with those sad, dark eyes you would never break down. Those eyes seem to look at you like: “You know I love you don’t you? You know I love you, right?” Then the move to the other person and say: “I love you too, ya know. You’re really my favorite, you know that don’t you?” Then she move back to the first, “Actually I love you best, ya know!” Then she might notice a weakness in someone at the other end of the table and trot over there and repeat her sad eye conversation with them. The problem is: you believe her. You really believe that she loves you and would do anything for you. It is like there is a single minded intelligence in dogs that keeps repeating “I love you, I love you, I love you” until it gets beaten out of them. And some people make it their job to beat the love out of them.
Scripture tells us that our eyes are windows to our soul. You can look at a person’s eyes and find out a lot about what is going on inside that person. Makeup can hide bruises but it cannot hide pain. We think we can get away with it but our eyes betray us by telling the truth. Watch the eyes when you ask the questions: “Are you lying to me?” or “Where have you been?” or “Is something wrong?” or even “Do you love me?” What are your eyes telling others?