A visit with some friends

Warning - if you are new to my blog, you might want to read April 2nd's post - "My Village" - to get some context for this entry.

I was sitting at a table sipping mojitos with Three Fingers McCoy and Wild God Guy. They were commiserating with me over the loss of Cody. That's the nice thing about the folks in my psycho-village - I don't have to spend a lot of time telling them how I feel or what I'm thinking, or what's going on in my life. I just have to decide that they already know it, and Bob's-yer-uncle, we're ready to talk.

Three Fingers sang a little snippet from Mr. Bojangles -

"...He spoke through tears of 15 years how his dog and him traveled about
The dog up and died, he up and died
And after 20 years he still grieves..."

"You know," he continued, "When Jim Stafford did his version he said something like 'it don't seem fair that a dog can be so young and yet die so old.' "

"Yeah," I replied, "But I don't think I'll be grieving for 20 years."

"Nope, I s'pose not," Three Fingers nodded, "But I've outlived a few dogs in my time. It's pretty hard losin' 'em without much hope of seein' 'em again."

Wild God Guy set his glass down sharply. "Why wouldn't you have that hope?"

OK, I'll bite. "Because animals don't have eternal souls?"

"Well, maybe not, in the sense you're thinking," Wild God Guy agreed, leaning back in his chair, clearly preparing a lecture. "The Bible doesn't really tell us much about animals and eternity, so we just pretty much assume they don't exist forever. It's always easier to make a neat-and-clean doctrine than to think there might be a messy one."

"So," Three Fingers interrupted, "You sayin' all dogs go to heaven?"

"Not exactly. But look, the Bible says that God breathed into Adam, and he became a living soul. I know it's neat-and-clean to say that's what makes man live forever - the result of God's special breathing into him. But maybe God just breathed into mankind the ability to live forever, separate from Him. Maybe everything else, including animals, exists only within God. But man can exist forever outside of Him - evidence Hell. And since God is truly eternal - no beginning or end - can anything that is within Him ever truly pass out of existence?"

Three Fingers and I needed a long sip of mojito at the same time. We both suspected that WGG had already drunk a little too heavily from his.

"Anyway," he finished, "Wouldn't surprise me if someday, when we can experience God without the limitations of our physical existence, we might just find He encompasses some long-nosed furballs with names like Chipper and Lady and Cody."

He got up to leave. "Not a doctrine. Not even an opinion - just a thought."

"Probably wishful thinking at that," he tossed over his shoulder on his way out the door.

"I hope not," Three Fingers wished over the rim of his almost-empty glass.

Me, neither.