Sunlight rising on a crisp spring day.  Joey (my dog) and Redman Houdini Brando (Kate’s dog) and the rest of our intra-species pack, are walking in the park.

Overhead, the cackle of squabbling squirrels and the clatter of shaken branches.

A furry gray ball plops from the tree to the dirt path a few feet from us.

For Red and Joey, it’s a fantasy come true.  For the squirrel, dog drool, and glee are ingredients of its worst nightmare.

Squirrel, dogs, and people pause, stunned. Dogs double check their eyes, and noses. People stare to see what will happen next. Squirrel starts numbering its minutes in the shadow of death.

The squirrel has the most at stake. It rockets under a nearby chain link fence toward the Senior Center. The dogs lunge after, but they’ve lost the chase before they can move a paw.

A Turkish proverb says, “If a dog’s prayers were answered, bones would rain from the sky."

In truth, miracles and blessings rain upon us all the time. A toddler’s smile, a cat’s purr, the unfurling of a daffodil bud, the glow of Shabbat candles before the family sits down to dinner.

"Shema, Israel . . . " tells us to listen, to be present in the moment.

All too often it takes the plop of the unexpected to wake us up to the blessings of the moment . . . the hoped for possibility, the thrill of achievement or survival, the chance to trust that Ha Shem has all the angles covered.

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March 13, 2009
© Jeannette M. Hartman, 2009