I was walking from a bar to my bicycle. On the way there, I saw a man walking his dogs, crossing at a light. The red hand started to blink, indicating that it would soon be dangerous to be out in the middle of the street. So the guy sped up.
And the dogs sped up. The one on his left bounced to a gallop. A gallop! Suddenly! In the middle of a walk, when all that was promised the dog was a walk. He got to gallop! And he was happy.
And I think maybe that moment there, that dog getting to run for a moment, was the happiest moment on the planet. Just for a couple of seconds, no one anywhere was happier than that dog. It was the planet's moment of greatest joy by any living, thinking, feeling creature.
Like, I imagine the planet from a distance, and the creatures on it as little three dimensional bar graph bars, and the height of each bar represents how happy they are. And I stop time, and I flatten the whole planet out, and hover above, looking for the tallest of all the bars.
(Sad people have bars that dip under the planet's surface.)
And the tallest bar is the bar belonging to that dog who gets to run for just a few seconds.
Staring at my chart, I realize how mad I am at God that the dog gets to be the happy one at that moment. And how mad I am when I realize that if I start time back up, and monitor all the happy bars, a dog will always have the tallest one.
But that's just jealousy. It's an emotional state that comes on before I have a chance to think it away. My jealousy is like that dog's happiness. It bubbles up from a part of my mind without language, without tool-making, without opposable thumbs.
Staring at my happy planet chart after I have shooed away the jealousy, I realize how happy I am with God that God has allowed me to see the chart, and empathize with the dog.
And then I try to remember whether or not God exists, and if he or she or it has called me lately. Or emailed me lately
So I need to go check my voicemail. I don't have time to blog.
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Your help is appreciated.
