Marley & Me

This past Friday, the day after Christmas, I took my family to see Marley & Me, a delightful movie, though, I’ll have to admit, it was difficult. Without giving spoiling the ending, I had to fight not to break down and weep, out loud. Okay, maybe I just spoiled the ending. Marley & Me is the true story, or is based on a true story, by John Grogan (played by Owen Wilson). Grogan is a wannabe reporter, who is, to his own surprise, a gifted columnist. In preparation for having kids in their future, he and his wife (Jennifer Anniston) decided to get a puppy. They decide on a Labrador. The one they decided on had been marked down in price from the others in the litter. The wife just called him “clearance dog”. The rest of the story is about their adventures with Marley, who is named after Bob Marley, the singer.

Having read the book, I was particularly interested in the movie. Would they spoil the magic the book possessed? Would the book, a great, and funny, read, be adaptable to film? Would Hollywood stretch the tale (sorry) beyond recognition? The answer is “only a little”. With a few exceptions, the film is moderately to delightfully faithful to the book.

The subtitle of the book is LIFE AND LOVE WITH THE WORLD’S WORST DOG. The actor Marley does a great imitation to the real one, and lives up to the challenge. Chewing up the floor, chewing up beds, pillows, pretty much anything that can fit in his mouth. But that’s only the beginning. Marley is also a thief. A big one. He steals the hearts of his master and his wife, even when she decides at one point to throw him out. This is a book, and a movie about love, perhaps love found in the oddest and most outrageous of places.

At the end, and I have to paraphrase because I was crying to hard to catch it all, but John Grogan mentions how dogs don’t need big houses or fine cars, money or image. “A old waterlogged stick will do just fine.” And, concerning the subtext of the movie, ” . . . if you give your heart to him, he’ll give you his, and for life.”

That’s why I bother to write another dog book, another book that explores the metaphor they provide for unconditional love, for good citizenship, and above all, a Christianity that is rather flawless and unspoiled. Take your wife to see this movie, your husband, your child. Read the book. Read mine when it comes out early in 2010. Let yourself be a kid again. Time and the world around us are making us old enough all too soon.

The joy of being who I am

A DOG HAS A CLEARER UNDERSTANDING of what it means to be a dog than you and I have for understanding what it means to be human. Not only that; they are happy about it. It is difficult to imagine a dog musing about being a dog, or writing about the “virtues of being me.” She might see this as a waste of her time. I suspect she gives it little thought, if any. And she is the happier for it. “Self” is very plain to her. Not only is it plain to her, she lives with sort of a healthy detachment from it. She is free, therefore, to invest her energies in more worthwhile pursuits. It’s a big life, after all, and there is little time to get it all in.

To say that the dog lives at capacity, is to say that the dog lives in that enviable state of absolute selfhood. Awareness and acceptance live in agreement together. She knows who she is, and she accepts who she is without debate. She can do this because she is fully aware of what that means, of what selfhood is. Life takes on the glow of authenticity. You can see it in her bounce, in the buoyancy she brings to life.

Her perceptions are not distorted by vanity, or other psychological saboteurs. Shame has no voice inside her. She can approach life with concord and with hopeful anticipation, because of the clarity that such awareness affords her. If speech were an option, you might hear her say, “I am happy to be me, because I know what that means. I am at peace with myself. I know where I fit in the scheme of things. I acknowledge nothing that frustrates me from being me. And I can love you fully, because I live fully. My surrender is absolute, because I understand myself absolutely.”

Of course, her god is a visible one.

For you and me, things are a bit more complex. We have psychological knots and tangles that the dog will, with all probability, never suffer. If love seems elusive, if it seems aloof or a bit too much work, it is usually in proportion to our attachment to or our absorption in self, that part of us which is just as elusive, just as aloof, just as demanding. Self behaves rather like a god, and because of this, our allegiance becomes obscured and divided. One master per dog; that’s the rule. Of course, the dog knows that.

An adaptation from Chapter Six — THE JOY OF BEING WHO I AM

Goodbye, Isabelle

YOU HAVE RECORDED EVERY SOUND, the tap of her feet on your wood floors, the small sound of her breathing, the contentment she makes audible as she sits by you, or as she sleeps, happy at the mere fact you are there, and for no other reason.

I prithee, sweet wag!

 

THIS HOMAGE WE PAY to the dog is nothing new. She has maintained a presence in literature consistently since man was first able to record his thoughts. I suspect that an image of the dog, or something like the dog, was painted on cave walls. It seems we can’t get enough of them, these creatures that are so purely themselves, that love with such genuine effervescence.

Let sleeping dogs, well, sleep.

Note: We received the following story from one of our readers [the picture above was included with it]. It was too good to pass up. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. —David

ONE DAY A DOG WANDERED INTO MY YARD. I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home and was well taken care of.

So inevitably dog

THEY HAVE NO PLANS TO WORRY THEM. Everything is NOW. If you don’t believe that, watch them eat. Immediacy is all. Dogs have an indifference to wealth that is difficult to understand, as well as an indifference to trends and fashions of the hour, even spiritual ones. Celebrity means nothing to them. They are unmoved by the media. They just seem to live life authentically, in every moment, which is in itself a form of worship, that is, living according to some original design, and to the delight of the Creator of that design.

To err is human, to forgive is canine

DOGS ARE ABLE TO FORGIVE with an ease you and I seem incapable of. There may be many reasons for this, but I want to suggest that time, or rather the dog’s indifference to time, has something to do with it.

The Noselessness of Man

OKAY, SO YOU’VE DECIDED TO TAKE ROVER ON A NICE WALK. A little exercise. A little sunshine. It doesn’t get any better than this. The rhythm between you and the dog is a happy one. The leash, like life itself, is firm in your grip. And then, WHAM!, against all hope, that calm quiet walk is overturned by a sudden burst of lunge and desire.

It’s almost like being in love

DEVOTION IS NOT A GAME TO THE DOG. She takes it seriously. She is vigilant. She seems to know how it works, and why it is important. Devotion is visceral. It defines her. It makes the awe of nature visible, almost audible, telling quite profoundly of a Creator that somehow stashes bits of himself in all he creates;