Yesterday at the doctor's office, we waited for a relative to return from his appointment. We waited in the foyer, sitting on a couch and enjoying the fresh Spring air that gushed in with the coming and going of each person, as the glass doors opened and shut.
A big man with a beautiful large service dog entered, slowly walking by. The dog's bright, intelligent eyes glanced at me and I said, "Hi, Pooch" as our eyes met. The dog seemed to dance for a few steps, looked directly into my eyes and bobbed it's head up and down just enough to acknowledge me. I felt like I'd said hello to a person.
"That's a beautiful dog", I told my wife. She agreed.
The man went into the pharmacy and we were still waiting for our relative when he returned on his way out. "What a beautiful dog!", I said to him as he went past.
He stopped and told us, "Yes, she's a very rare breed of St. Bernard with three short layers of hair and unusual markings - as you can see, white with large brown spots."
I said, "She looks very intelligent, caring and sensitive". He paused for a moment, looking at me carefully and replied, "Yes, she is. Her name is Maritta". Then he sat down next to us and we struck up a conversation. Perhaps we was a little lonely. His wife had died a few years earlier.
I decided to brag about an especially smart cat we once had named Scampy, that had trained us to let him eat at the table with us. We would cut up Scampy's meat the same as I cut them for my wife - little small pieces. He had his own plate, jumped up onto his own chair, sat down and ate like a gentleman - extending just one claw from what would be the little finger of our right hand, and using it like a fork. He would jab one piece of meat a a time, lift it to his mouth and eat it, just as we ate our meat with a fork. Every now and then he would utter a pleasant "Meworrrowwwrr" sound, which we took to mean he liked it.
Our new friend laughed out loud, and said, "Maritta thinks she is a person, too", and pulled out his phone with some pictures of Maritta sitting on a stuffed chair (she filled it, and sat in a very human-like manner-with her head held up high and with her front paws extending all the way down to the floor like our legs would).
A lady walking by on her way out, stopped and looked at Maritta saying, "That's a beautiful dog. I would like to have one like that."
Our new friend said, "If you have $100,000 dollars, you can buy one. They're pretty rare." It was clear he wasn't joking. The lady lifted her eyebrows, paused, then turned and left.
It was a delightful conversation and we had made a new (and most likely very affluent) friend. But then he turned the conversation to politics, and shocked us when he started praising the Trump administration and how their tax reforms had caused the Chinese to have their solar panels manufactured here in the United States instead of China, and how that had "created new jobs".
Then he went on, revealing that he had been an electrical engineer working on the electrical grid control systems and assured us that they were invulnerable to hacking, and we had no fear of the Russians attacking our grid. He ended by saying that the notions that the Russians had hacked the DNC for Hillary's email was all just propaganda, and that it had been an "inside job".
I didn't argue. It would be the simplest way for Hillary's emails to be taken, but it required discounting all the reports, facts and hard data that our own Cyber Security forces had gathered showing that the Russians had definitely invaded the DNC network.
Instead, I pointed out that every country, including our own, did Cyber Hacking of other countries in conjunction with their Cyber Security efforts. It was just a fact of life in our technological internet connected world. He agreed.
The conversation faltered at that point and the relative that we were waiting for came out to join us, so we shook hands with our new friend and parted on friendly terms. The dog, Maritta, bobbed her head up and down in a friendly manner, saying "Goodbye" as we left. He was a very nice, intelligent, likeable and friendly man with a very special dog - and my wife and I both liked him.
Every day I get emails from organizations or causes that I support that are loaded with "Fight" talk, loaded with Fear and Anger over the direction of our country. It becomes personalized, "Us" (the Democrats) vs. "Them" (the Republicans). My wife and I remembered the scripture in the New Testament where Paul states "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
That very likeable, nice and intelligent man with the special dog is a good example of why we must recognize that we are not fighting against people, like our new friend, but against the activities of the spiritual wickedness sponsored and directed by the Devil of the Bible.
The Devil wins if we make the fight for the poor, the disabled and the helpless a fight against other people. He loses if we love our neighbors who disagree with how we vote, and simply pray for us all to work together as brothers and sisters - who may often disagree, but never fail to love one another.
Let's fight to win by loving (or at least liking) those who disagree with us, and fight mutually with them - not against them - for "liberty and justice" for all.
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