Lent... the least of these

I began getting calls yesterday while I was teaching. First to call was mama...”Are you home? Have you seen them?” Then Leisa and Gary each called to tell me about them because they thought they might belong to one of our daughters. An old, old mixed breed neutered male with a young dachshund male were sitting at our bridge on Lower Flat Creek. When approached, the old dog was friendly but the doxie would growl and show his teeth, protecting his beloved companion. Then they would run away. The old dog has many fatty tumors hanging off his body and on his front paw. Their claws are overgrown but they have been fed and not on the road too long because they are not starving.
They were headed up Edna Roberts Road when I came home. I stopped the car and called. The old one came to me tail wagging. I picked him up, put him on the blanket spread on the back seat, and turned to the doxie. Still baring his teeth, he hopped in the car and snuggled down for the ride up the hill to our house. He was so fierce that I wrapped him in the blanket to bring him inside to the back porch to join his companion. Shaking and frightened, the doxie refused the offers of friendship and growled when I put out my hand. After food and treats he relented and let me touch him. By bedtime he was my new best friend.
Looking in the old dog’s face will break your heart. Wise eyes, sad eyes, eyes that know our capacity for kindness and cruelty and in spite of that, the old dog is friendly to strangers. Watching him try to walk or lay down with his swollen body and front paw is a reminder that courage and perseverance are not virtues limited to two legged creatures.
I wonder what Jesus saw in the face and eyes of the woman who bathed him in perfume. She was judged and dismissed by those who saw what she had done as a waste, a useless offering that could have been sold and used for acts of peace and justice... to feed the poor they said. But Jesus didn’t see it that way. He saw it for what it was... a gift of grace and mercy offered as a way to lovingly care for him. His sharp reminder to those who questioned her judgement puts us all in our place.
It is easy to see the big picture, poverty and injustice represented in large groups of people, but more difficult to care for those closest to us... our irritating older parents, our smug know-it-all teenager, our whiny toddler, our tired spouse, the frustrating co-worker who tells us how to do our job. What I want to pour on their heads is boiling oil, not sweet perfume. “Remember,” Jesus says, “I will not always be with you.” And neither will they. Parents die and leave an empty place in your life. The teenager grows up and leaves home as does the toddler. Our spouse carries their own grab bag of worries and sorrows that we do not know as does that officious co-worker.
“As you do unto the least of these, you do unto me”, Jesus reminds us. So I call Alison for the name of the contact person for rescue work with doxies and I clean up the poop and pee on the back porch. I help the old one up the steps and play with them both. All our tails are wagging. I am the least of these along with you and the old dog. And today I will remember to pour perfume on the persons in my life who need it, even those who left the dogs by the side of the road.