Answer the Call

I sat at my computer, wrestling with trying to figure out how to reformat my latest novel so that I could make it available on Amazon.com for Kindle (their hand-held book reading device.)

I won’t go into detail.  It’s boring stuff, and not really pertinent to the story.

The point is that I was very busy and extremely frustrated. 

I heard a very loud meow coming from the kitchen.  My cat, Spookie, is a talker.  

But he never talks to me from the other room.  He always looks me intently in the face and then talks incessantly. 

So the fact that it was unusual made a split second impress- ion on my brain.

But my brain registered in that split second that it wasn’t relevant, and I went back to by brain-wracking dilemma.  (Sometimes working from home has major flaws!)

But Spookie meowed again – very loudly.  This time from the laundry porch beyond the kitchen.  Odd, I thought for just the briefest of moments.  Spookie never goes in the laundry porch.
 

Registering this surprising fact, I turned back to problem at hand.  

Spookie meowed again…and again,…and again.  By the sound of his voice, I could tell he was moving from the laundry porch into the kitchen.  

His voice kept getting louder with each meow as he got closer rounding the corner from the kitchen and heading over to see why I wasn't listening.

“Spookie, shut up!” I snapped in frustration.  “I can’t think!”

He had reached the couch, and at the sound of my voice, he jumped up on the arm and meowed once again.  Extraordinarily loudly.  After two more really loud meows, looking closely into my eyes, he lay down right next to me and continued to meow.  

I tuned him out, and after a while, he gave up and left.

Five minutes later, my roommate went out into the kitchen and then shouted that the door was open and the dogs had gotten out!  (She hadn’t shut it all the way when she went out a half hour earlier!)

So we went out and hunted and whistled and hollered until we tracked them down.

It was only when we got back into the house that it all made sense.  All of that overly-loud meowing from out by the back door had meant something.  Something very important. 

Spookie was trying to tell me that something was wrong.  He was the warning bell.  And I’d not listened because I was too busy.

That reminded me of a funny story regarding my sister’s dogs.


She raises poodles. When I first moved in with her several years back, I had the darnedest time trying to learn all the names.

There were more than a dozen of them, and none of them were really pets.  She just let them all out in the back yard during the day and crated them up in the garage overnight.  A dozen or more dog crates stacked two deep, each with its own blankets, water, etc.

I watched in amazement as they all came running to the garage door when she called, “Inside!  Inside!”  Almost all of them came running, and she would just scoop them up one or two at a time and put them in their respective beds.  There were always two or three (usually the puppies) who had to be tracked down and either caught under a bush or herded into the garage.  But she made it all look so easy.

I’d lived there less than a week when her office called and asked her if she’d fill in for someone else on evening shifts that week.  She  informed me I’d have to bring the dogs in.  I told her there was no way I could do it.  Her dogs were all wild and still terrified of me (and anyone who wasn't Patty) as they'd never been exposed to strangers.

 

They were basically untrained animals and didn’t know me from Adam.  There was no way they’d respond to me.  And I could never tell them apart to put the right dogs I the right dog crates.  (Most of them shared a crate with a buddy.)

She casually assured me there was no other way around it and left for work.  I started trying to figure out how to pull this bedtime ritual off.

I finally figured I could possibly get them to come at the “Inside! Inside!” call – if I stood back where I wouldn’t get between them and the garage door.  Then I’d quickly close the door to prevent escape and try to bribe them with little beef jerky dog treats.

My plan worked rather well, I must say!  The job was neither quick no easy, but only thanks to the beef jerky, the plan worked.  Eventually everyone was crated and tucked in for the night.

I sealed the rest of the beef jerky dog treats in a Tupperware container and set it on the corner of the table to be ready for the morrow.

Everyone was in bed for the night!  Except for Roxie, the Maltese, and Miss Belle, the tiny black and white teacup poodle.  They both were semi-pets and lived in the house.

With everyone crated, I called to Roxie and Miss Belle, closed the garage door, went through the back yard gate, around to the kitchen door.  I opened the door and told them, “Inside! Inside!”

They dutifully trotted past me into the house.

I made my way back to my room where I was finally getting around to editing some photos I’d taken the week before.  Almost before I got started, Roxie came into my room and barked at me as though she was telling me something.

Since most the dogs were afraid of me, I was kind of surprised to have one actually seek me out.

Roxie wasn’t afraid of anybody, but she was pretty snooty and always decided who she chose to interact with.  You could call her and sweet talk her til you were blue in the face, but if she didn’t find a reason to recognize your worth in her life, she’d just completely ignore you.

And here she was, seeking out my attention.  I turned from the computer to look at her and she continued to bark.

“What?”  I asked her, and her barking got louder and more animated as she realized I was responding to her.

“What?” I asked again, realizing she was trying to tell me something.  I got to my feet and she jumped in circles barking excitedly.

She went half way down the hall and sat down, barking again until I asked her “What?” again.

Once she had coaxed me into the hall, she knew she had me hooked.  And we continued this step by step procedure until we got to the kitchen.

I looked down at the dog food dispenser and said, “You’ve got plenty of food, silly!”  But she barked again and took me to the back door.

“You just came in!  You can’t possibly need to go potty!” I said.  And she jumped in circles excitedly.

I opened the door and she ran out and over to the gate to the back yard.  Again, she jumped in circles and barked until I let her back into the yard again.  Then she went to the garage door and did the same thing.

I was really puzzled by her behavior and found myself laughing at her sincere antics.  I knew she  felt way above the common garage dogs, so certainly she couldn't possibly want to be in with them!  But she persisted, so I opened the garage door.

Now I was really curious.  How could a dog ‘talk’ to anyone like that and get them to do what she wanted them to?

“Now what?” I asked, laughing, as we entered the garage.  I guess I’d have to just put her in the crate with one of the other dogs.

But she wasn’t done.  

She went over to the corner of the table and sat down.  She barked excitedly to this stupid woman who didn’t speak dog.  I just looked at her wondering what in the world she was doing.

She continued to bark at me until it finally dawned on me.  

There, on the corner of the table where I’d left it, was the Tupperware full of jerky!  Roxie was trying to tell me that it wasn’t fair that all the other dogs got a piece and she didn’t.  

She had dragged me out here to the garage (through a closed gate and three closed doors) to give me what for!

I gave her a piece and she jumped around ecstatically.  Once she got her treat, her mission was accomplished and she led me back into the house - through the door, the gate, the other door...

Fun story, but that’s not all.  (Of course not.  That’s never all.  There is always a moral to the story. And the moral of the story is…?)

Spookie had been telling me very clearly that something was wrong and my attention was needed immediately.  But even though he’d been talking to me, I’d not heard.  I’d just ignored him because I was doing something ‘important.’

And Roxie had definitely been telling me something.  She’d been much louder and more persistent.  But I tried to ignore her too.  This time claiming the excuse that I am a cat person and I don’t speak dog.  

I could have just ignored her until she went away.  But eventually I had to come at her beckoning.  I listened to the call.

And so it is in life.  So often we are called to do something.  Sometimes it's something that anyone can do, but we are specifically called, as in the instance with Spookie.  

He could have told my roommate about the open door and escaped dogs.  She could have taken on the challenge (though she wouldn't have.)  But he told me, and I ignored his calling.

Sometimes it’s something that we are called specifically to do.  Something that only we can do, as in the case with Roxie.  There was no one else around who could answer that call.  The job was up to me and me alone.  

Had I not answered the call, the problem would never have been remedied.  It may not have made a difference to me, but to Roxie at that moment, it was everything.

We are all called to do certain things in life, some more important than others.  

Sometimes we listen, and sometimes not.  If the job will bring us glory, of course, we are more likely to jump at the chance more quickly. 

If it’s something of seemingly little importance, or something which may not have personal reward for us we’d be less likely.

Or worse yet, it might be something unpopular.  We’d be even less likely to jump.

Take for example, Jonah.  God spoke to him; gave him a very specific job to do.  But Jonah had absolutely no interest in listening to that call.  He even ran away from the calling!  He asked God to send someone more qualified.  

It was the same in the case of Moses.  Surely someone else could do the job as well – even better, he told God.  He tried his darnedest to avoid answering that call.

They each finally did the job to which they’d been called - after much coaxing.  And look how well they'd done, despite their insistence that they could never succeed.

Sometimes I forget how important it is to answer the call.

Sometimes it’s something as simple as giving a little old lady a ride up a steep, hot hill in the terrible summer heat.  Sometimes something even more serious like rescuing a little baby crawling in the street.

But I think it’s important to try to constantly fine tune our ‘hearing’ so that we can detect that inner voice we each have; to hear and to respond.

If you lack the courage to start, you have already finished!