What the Greyhound Finally Discovered
Everybody is chasing some prize.
What’s yours? What are you chasing? It’s worth sitting for a moment and thinking about that, because most people live their whole lives feverishly pursuing something they’ve never actually named. Feverish pursuits, by their very nature, preclude reflection. It’s all happening so fast we don’t have time—who has time to reflect? Are you kidding?
The spiritual quest is pretty simple, really. Who has time to reflect? That’s it. Whoever has time to reflect has a foot in heaven’s door. That’s why Jesus keeps saying, “Whoever has ears, let him hear,” and “Whoever has eyes, let her see.” It’s not, Whoever can solve the riddle of the universe, or Whoever lives a perfect, spotless life. It’s just: You got eyes? Open ‘em. You got ears? Listen. It seems almost absurdly simple, until we remember that everybody’s running so crazy it’s all blur and cacophony.
So now I ask you again, once you have had a moment to quiet yourself: What are you chasing?
Renowned preacher, theology professor and storyteller Fred Craddock swears this happened to him. He was visiting in a home of one of his former students after graduation, and after a great dinner, the young parents excused themselves and hustled the kids off to bed, leaving Fred in the living room with the family pet—a large, sleek greyhound. Earlier in the evening Fred had watched the kids roll on the floor playing with the family dog. “That’s a full-blooded greyhound there,” the father of the kids had told Fred. “He once raced professionally down in Florida. Then we got him. Great dog with the kids, that greyhound.”
Well, sitting there with the greyhound, the dog turned to Fred and asked, “This your first visit to Connecticut?”
“No,” Fred answered. “I went to school up here a long time ago.”
“Well, I guess you heard. I came up here from Miami,” said the greyhound.
“Oh, yeah, you retired?” Fred said.
“No, is that what they told you? No, no, I didn’t retire. I tell you, I spent ten years as a professional, racing greyhound. That means ten years of running around that track day after day, seven days a week with other dogs chasing that rabbit. Well, one day, I got up close; I got a good look at that rabbit. It was a fake! I had spent my whole life chasing a fake rabbit! Hey, I didn’t retire; I quit!”
That is a great article!! We used to have greyhounds, that I could “see” the logic behind his thinking. ha! It is a great point… we do need to stop and make sure all this running is not for a fake rabbit.
Excellent word for the day, David. Really spoke to me–what the dog saw when he got close enough. It’s like what Dorothy saw after walking so long along the yellow brick road. So much of what I work so hard for, when I finally part the curtain and look inside, is a rabbit, and a fake rabbit at that.
Yeah, it usually takes a while to see the thing we’re pursuing for what it really is. There’s so much ego projection, which depends so heavily on willful ignorance, on fantasy. It usually takes a lot of years before we’re able to acknowledge the thing for what it is. And if we’re ready to get honest with ourselves, it may simply be–as in the case of the old dog–that we’re just too tired to pretend anymore.
Oh, that made me smile.
Yes David – You do reach that point – “too tired to pretend anymore…” That is not at all bad – in fact, you start to realize that you are truly human – that it really is ok to take some steps back and do what you can and when you can, and know that you no longer feel guilty! Ginny
Amen to that.