with Don Wolfe
The Canine Journey to Faith: Today I want to tell you about my journey to faith and how my dog helped along the way. I did not grow up in a church family. While my parents certainly would have thought of themselves as good Christians, they were not the church-attending type. I grew up in a little prairie town in central South Dakota. For those who have not been there, imagine living on a tabletop about 100 miles on a side, and you will get the idea. There were so few trees that they all had names like Bob or Bill or Betty. Saturday night was dance night out there, and driving 60 miles to a dance was considered going next door. Definitely not like Rhode Island. As a result, Sunday morning was for sleeping, not socializing.
When I was 11, we moved to Dubuque, Iowa, which had the distinction of being the most Catholic city in the Midwest. As a result, if I wanted to know where the Saturday neighborhood action was going to be, I needed to go to Saturday morning Catechism with the rest of the boys. This was my first introduction to formal religion, taught by Jesuits. Not the best place to start a journey of faith. Jesuits always had more questions than answers.
About this time, I became interested in Boy Scouts and the church that sponsored it, which was Methodist by persuasion. Not a denomination known for its inquiring mind, but I did learn valuable lessons about service and obligations. The church was kind enough to baptize me and make me legitimate, I suppose.
I also had a good friend whose father was the local Lutheran minister. I was 14 by now and had developed a lot of questions about God and religion and about what to believe. Some of the Bible stories are, you must admit, farfetched to the casual observer. I can tell you from experience that a Lutheran minister might not be your best choice to answer these questions. Reverend Lesher fixed a stern and somewhat cold eye on me and said, “Don, who are you to question God and his purpose?” Certainly definitive, but not exactly satisfying.
I stumbled through college, always going to church. It was a good way to meet girls. This introduced me to other flavors of Christian thought, but raised as many questions as it provided answers. It was becoming clear to me that Jesus had it right. The lessons he was teaching were the best actions to help people get along and succeed in living with one another. Service and helping each other is important. Being tolerant and kind is important. But was there really a God who cared about me? Was he so involved with humanity that he sent his son to save us? This seemed a stretch to me. I had studied Comparative Religions as a part of my history requirement and learned that most religions were into virgin births, miracles, and heaven and hell of some form or other. In that respect, the Bible didn’t seem unique.
So fast-forward to age 35. I was married with children, had a pretty good job, co-owned a house with the local bank, and life was generally good. I believed in the rightness of Christianity and wasn’t sure if the rest of the doctrine and dogma were necessary. The church was a useful institution because it provided a like-minded society that multiplied the effect of serving others and established standards for community behavior. But the question remained: Did God really care about us as individuals? I wasn’t sure.
Then one night I had an epiphany. It sounds simplistic, but it’s the best way I can describe the flash of insight and the sense of rightness about what I understood. I was about to feed the dog and had a can of dog food at the can opener. I felt eyes on me, and I turned and looked at the dog. The look on his face was plain as day. The dog was looking up at me, and he seemed to say, “I have no idea what this man is doing, but I know it’s going to be good!” And right there I had the answer. The dog and I had something in common. I have no idea what God is or what he is capable of, but I know it’s going to be good. All the questions I had been asking were unknowable and unimportant. All that was necessary was the faith that it was going the be good. And that is the “Canine Theory of Religion.” Thank you. – April 6, 2022