Bad haircuts and other frigidities

If you walk by our place sometime, you’ll notice something strange. Right in front of our steps, there are a number of spots where Lucy (our dog) has decided to do ‘her business’. She usually goes further away and finds a place to mark her territory, but I guess it’s far too cold these days. And I don’t think it helps that we gave her a shave. Why we gave her a haircut in the middle of winter is beyond me (why Karen?); but we did, and now she’s as cold as my Paraguayan relatives when they come for a visit. Lucy was meant for something other than our cold prairie winters; or, at least, she was meant to have long matted hair during these insanely cold months. Some things are just not meant to be.

It’s like our holidays this winter. Karen’s family, my in-laws, took their children and two grandchildren to Orlando, FL in early January. Thinking that the weather would be warm and sunny, I left my winter jacket at home. After all, who brings a winter parka, jeans and a sweater to Florida, right? Well, I sure didn’t. I know what my dog Lucy is going through right now. There I was, checking out the race tracks at Daytona Beach (yes… there were drivers doing their time trials!!!), sitting in shorts and a t-shirt. The problem with this picture was that it was drizzling and a mere 3˚C. Our whole week in Florida was chilly. We had frost for three nights in a row. It took all week for the weather to warm up, with our last day achieving a high of plus twenty. I felt out of place.

This disjointedness spilled over into other areas as well. In the middle of the week, we heard about the massive and devastating earthquake only 1500 kilometers away, in Haiti. As I contemplated the ever climbing death toll and my inability to save them, I wondered whether or not my out-of-place-ness was more serious than just my lack of proper attire. How do I reconcile spending a swath of cash on ‘nothing’ within near-earshot of such suffering and brokenness? The pitiful eyes that look up at me, whenever Lucy realizes she has to face the blistering cold, remind me of my own spiritual awkwardness, as I think about my affluence in light of the world’s desperation. I’m beginning to notice, more and more, that I’m not wearing the right haircut for the job; and so I pray that somehow I’ll be made into something different… something better attired for the challenges of our world and its storms.