Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota

It was early that morning as I made my way down to the river.  I called to "Sky", our nine week-old Canadian Eskimo puppy.  She wasn't sure about going down with me until Toby came rushing past both of us, racing to the river.  Then Sky bounded after Toby, only to stop and look back to make sure that I also was coming along.  She was cautious; she wouldn't go too far with Toby, and she wouldn't go alone with me.  She has been cautious of humans all along.  The dog trainer at Schurke's kennel assured us that it was characteristic of their breed.  Like the wood Ducks that scooted away from the river bank as we arrived, Sky has shown a "keep-your-distance" wildness uncommon for domestic dogs.  I wondered if she was a closer relative to her wild ancestors: the wolves.  Themes of wild and domestic ran back and forth in my thinking.  I was seeing wildness: "keep-your-distance, keep your guard up, and be ready to run from any possible threat" as a mechanism of natural selection.  One of the great historical ironies is that the idea of natural selection came after years of human selection in the breeding of domestic livestock.  Domestication happened when humans selected the breeding partners based on traits that the humans wanted.  Humans took friendly wolves and bred them always refining friendliness until we arrived at a lick-in-your-face spaniel.  Isn't that the story?  I once read of a wolf on the northern range of Alaska that so wild that never having met humans, she was unafraid of them, and therefore was considered tame.  Now, that would be the wolf to start with if we were to try to duplicate the evolution of the dog.

It won't work.  If it happened something like that, and it may very well have, then it was also a one-time event: unrepeatable and unverifiable.  That is evolution, ant it makes a good, if not great, story and ties us all together in a marvelous family of unique and improbably histories.  Some people have struggled to find a loving God in that story.  I guess the story doesn't require it, but when you are down by the river in the Spring with a couple of companions, some flashy Wood ducks, honking Canada Geese, and crowing Hairy Woodpeckers calling back and forth across the river, and your emotions are running full and deep as the river, then God's love seems as close and as real as the moist earth under your feet and the southerly breeze in your face.

Other titles in this series:

• Fall
• Winter
• Easter
• Easter II

• American Widgeons, originally written 1997 for the East Range Epistle.
• Clearing Land, originally written 1997 for the East Range Epistle.
• Dogs, originally written in 1999 for the East Range Epistle
• Good Friday and Trees, originally written in 1998 for the East Range Epistle
• Michigan Sand, originally written in 1998 for the East Range Epistle
• Rivers, originally written in 1996 for the East Range Epistle.
• Skiing Burntside, originally written 1997 for the East Range Epistle.
• Snow Trails, originally written 1997 for the East Range Epistle.
• The Singing River, originally written 1996 for the East Range Epistle.
• Winter Trails, originally written 1997 for the East Range Epistle.

The MEESC assumes that all correspondence received is for publication on this web site. If your comments are not for publication, please so note on your correspondence. The MEESC reserves the right to decide which items are included on the web site.

This page maintained for the MEESC by .