Bella

I've waited 24 hours, and that is a good thing. This time yesterday I was very unhappy with God, for lack of anyone else who might possibly have changed things. Bella, Amanda's dog that is very dear to her, managed to escape the yard and get run over by a fast moving vehicle on Broadway, and she was killed instantly. Amanda wasn't home at the time. Denise and I were just broken hearted over it ... and knowing that when Amanda returned home we would have to give her some more bad news.

I know that to the rest of the world it's just one more dog ... but to us Bella was much more, and to Amanda, Bella was a really good friend ... at least as good as an animal can be. At first, Denise and I responded with cries out to God very similar to, "Come on God; Can't You even keep a dog alive??!!!? I mean, it's not like Amanda doesn't have enough to deal with already!!! Would it have been tooooooooooo much to just watch over the dog for one evening???!!!!"

But ... nothing changed. Bella was still dead ... and I gave her a proper burial this afternoon in a private location at the edge of a woods, near where Bella was first discovered as a stray in the first place. As has been the case with most of our pets, they were castaways from someone else. It's kind of a community joke that if you see some stray animal along the highway with three legs, one eye put out, and half the tail missing, .... just call the McDaniel's and we'll take it. :-) But, at the present time, the only 4-legged animal running around our house is Tucker. For those of you who don't already know, Tucker is a mutt who is clinically paranoid schizophrenic and looses control of his bowel movements when in close proximity of ..... ME! :-) Go figure. It's still a mystery to us all.

Amanda is doing well ... strong, as she is. We don't want another dog right now. Denise got her a large stuffed dog for her bed, and Amanda loves it. She put Bella's collar on it.

In the big scheme of things, I know this is little. But right now, we're not really living in the big scheme of things, are we. We are living in the little scheme of things ... the things that effect, for better or for worse, the health of our precious girl. When I let my mind journey out to the big scheme of things, I think of countless little ones who suffer at the hands of evil all across this world, and my heart sinks in dismay. There is nothing fair about the millions, many children, who die of starvation, poverty, curable diseases, genocide, and more. No child deserves that. At least not according to any theology I would have even the slightest interest in. But, even so, in the little scheme of things, we miss Bella. We just do.

There is a famous story, turned into a play, actually, about something witnessed by Elie Wiesel while imprisoned at Auschwitz. He witnessed a trial. The devoted and pious jews held a trial. The defendant ..... was God. God was put on trial for violating His relationship with the jewish people, and for allowing such monstrous and unthinkable horrors to befall His own people. Two things are of special interest about this trial, at least to me.

1. God was found guilty.
2. Then, they all prayed.

I thought of this story once again this afternoon when in the process of burying Bella.

On the one hand, God was found guilty.
But then .... we prayed.