What Does My Dog Think I Do All Day?

My dog lives to play. She likes tug of war and fetch — though she has yet to realize if she gives you the ball back, you can throw it again. Her very favorite thing is her frisbee.

She’s also fond of treats. Or people food. Any people food.

First thing in the morning, she wants to play. But I’ve got to work. She stares at me, wondering why we’re not playing. She can’t be in the room with me, because she’d be harassing me, trying to get me to play. I can’t get her to understand that toys and treats require money and I have to do things to get that money.

In the evening, she wants to play. But I’ve got to deal with laundry or dishes or helping the kids with homework — all things beyond her ken. Then I get tired and just want to sit down. And she wants to play.

If she doesn’t understand “work”, she’s really not going to understand computers or Zoom calls or radiation therapy, much less Bremsstrahlung radiation or Compton scatter or free radical production. If I can’t explain to her why I’m working, I certainly can’t explain to her what I’m doing.

Dogs are fairly smart creatures. We can communicate with them, and they can even reason, figuring out problems and even applying that to new situations. They’re much closer to us in intellectual ability than simpler mammals like rabbits or mice or cats, which in turn are much closer to us than birds or lizards or insects.

If I can’t explain “work” to my dog, I certainly can’t explain quantum mechanics to an ant. They are so small, we barely inhabit the same world. Their perspective is totally different, their senses operate on a completely different scale, and their brains are so very tiny.

I submit that ants are much closer to humans in intellectual ability than humans are to God.

Whatever the animal, we are all finite creatures with limited life spans and narrow perspectives. We have different but similar senses, and we have the same basic needs.

God is eternal; he has always existed and always will. He knows everything that has ever happened and ever will happen. God needs nothing.

I have trouble playing chess three moves ahead; God plans things out thousands of years in advance. I have trouble following a recipe; God made a universe. I have trouble being selfless with my family; God is selfless with people who hate him.

We were made to know God, but we are so limited. We are invited to know what God has revealed to us, but we shouldn’t think that we can know any more than the tiniest fraction of the whole. When we want to know “why did God” or “why would God” or “why doesn’t God”, we have to remember that we are very, very small.

“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
   or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
   or weighed the mountains on the scales
   and the hills in a balance?” (Is 40:12)?

Who? The same God who said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Is 55:8).


Image via Pixabay