Pretzels

Sadie the Wonder Dog embodies all the characteristics of a labrador. It’s a toss-up regarding their priority and, dare I say, her reason for living is to provide absolute joy for everyone around her. But her desires really are also based on food and people that are tied for second place following joy. She is big and powerful so seeing her greet people with a toy in her mouth at the front door is worth the price of admission. In her exuberance she also jumps up to lick the visitor. We have never been able to get her to stop that practice. Her joy trumps a plea for reasonable behavior. When she is outside, the three girls who are our neighbors know where the boundary of our invisible fence is, so they walk right up to the fence line and stand there until she settles down.

Sadie recently ate an entire foot long hoagie that she stole from our counter in the kitchen and came right back expecting dinner which we knew had to be given her as she wouldn’t understand if it wasn’t there. She is like a sociopath with no concept of right or wrong when it comes to food. Those brown eyes melt me. Vicki says that I spoil her, but I think my life should be about spoiling everyone a little bit who comes my way. Our home is on a relatively large piece of property so when she is out of sight, and it is time for her to come to dinner, I simply yell one word, “eat”. Wherever she is, she comes running at full speed.

But there is an aspect of her behavior that has me thinking about Trump. If an alarm went off in the far end of our house, Sadie wouldn’t move. If a cell phone went off, she doesn’t move. However, if I try to sneak a bag of pretzels into our family room and the sound of the opening of a plastic bag occurs, she could be in a deep sleep snoring at one end of the house and she when hears that crinkle, she responds like lightning to sit in front of me to eye me with those brown eyes. She doesn’t respond to the big obvious sounds, just the one small sound that will feed her a treat.

It reminds me of God speaking “with still small voice” after powerful events such as an earthquake and fire. (1Kings 19:12). It is the crinkle that gets the response.

So why would I think of Trump? It is because we need to learn something from Sadie and Elijah. It is the small sound that is the one through which God can sometimes speak. There has been a lot of noise since Trump took office and is now wrecking our Democracy. It is his strategy to flood the zone, so we need to change our approach to him and his administration by listening for the crinkle or the small voice to get our response. We have been in a reactive stance. What we need to do is listen and identify what will help us to have Trump change course instead of just reacting to his daily chaos.

Let me take you back to the decision-making model of Todd Carmichael, founder of La Colombe coffee, which I have written about. His business produces some of the best coffee on the planet. He is an explorer who is the first man to walk across Antarctica pulling a sled of food behind him. His wife, Lauren Hart, had cancer but was in remission when he left on his solo walk, so they talked daily by cellphone. His decision-making model raised the question, what would have to happen to make me halt my goal of crossing Antarctica on foot?  His answer was his own still voice or crinkle requiring a responsible response. If Lauren ever called him to indicate that he her cancer returned, he would stop the crossing even if he was yards away from the goal.

The question for us today is what could Trump do that would require us to stop his relentless attack on our Constitution? He has already freed the January 6 attackers, questioned whether he should follow allegiance to the constitution, and been elected as a convicted felon. Nothing has been done. We have let him get away with everything that he has done wrong.

Just as Todd Carmichael had a clear idea of what would force him to return home, no one has indicated the thing or things that would get Trump fired, if not sent to prison. Make that small but mighty list be the last straw. Otherwise, he will continue forward to his goal which many believe is to have an authoritarian regime. Put it out there. Has anything been identified as that thing that would cost him his job. He has already out done Nixon’s bad behavior.

What do we need to hear and say to get a response that he must stop. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that we need to find the crinkle in that pretzel bag or, for Elijah, that still small voice, a line told to everyone that is a bridge too far for Trump to get his ultimate goal. Leaders don’t react. They act with a plan in place.

It’s really all about the pretzels! Just watch Sadie!