Greetings! (plus hair-on-fire emoji) –

            They’re nuts, these humans, I swear – barmy, whacko, off their rockers. They talk about God as if there were this other dude in the room you could smell, touch, lick. God this, God that. And I look around, yippy, edgy, am I missing something?

            I admit I’m easily spooked. By me in the bathroom mirror, say, or in the window in winter when dark comes early. Or by the wind whistling or icemaker belching. And yeh I’ll start barking “at nothing”, my hair on end. But these “nothings” are at least something, right? – a sight, a noise – as if we’d been joined by a mysterious Other – not one I can sniff, granted, but whose odorlessness may take a few seconds to ascertain. And yeh, I may require a few licks and tail-wags to re-center myself, which Jane and Carll find hilarious, hah-hah. But this skittishness – some might argue prudence – is nothing compared to their carrying-on about God, for whom there’s no evidence, not even a fragrant sock. God supposedly sat where I’m sitting now, on Carll’s workbed, you may have read about it, a few years back. Quiz Carll if God was a person – or a dog (God spelled backward) – or a donut-hole (my favorite) – or anything I might investigate – and no, Carll smiles kind of goofily, almost pitying me, He was “a presence,” like the smell of apple pie warm from the oven on a cold day. I mean, really. And when Carll mentions this to another human, do they blanch, shrink back in horror, dial nine-one-one, or take his temperature (with a rectal thermometer, hah!)? You might think. But no, they nod politely, may even start gassing about when this God guy visited them.

            I repeat: Am I missing something? My detection tools are pretty keen compared to humans’ – all but my eyes – and nothing answers to this description of God. Which raises the question, at least from the canine vantage, Why are humans doing this? And not just Carll – lots of them (though not Jane) – they gab about God as if He were here, build buildings to praise and pray to Him, paint His picture… Are they humoring each other? Utilizing the equivalent of petting, ruff-ruffling, making kissy noises, to calm themselves?

            I have no theory about this. You? I’m uneasy even tackling the topic the way it makes humans shudder – heresy, you hear them muttering, unless they’re saying hearsay. This God dude is their big dog for sure, on whose safe side sanity opts to remain.

            My hypothesis – tentative, in formation, not yet peer-reviewed – is humans need God the way I need my chew-toys – not to sharpen their teeth – that’s baloney – but to keep themselves busy doing something so they don’t get bored and go haywire. This Pascal guy Carll keeps quoting wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” – though in French, whatever that is. Note he didn’t say “all of creation’s or creatures’” problems. This runaway brain syndrome is a strictly human disorder. Humans can’t just be, the way dogs can (or cats too, I’m told), they must be about something. So they invent these magic mastiffs, dress them to the nines, and force everyone either to get in on the joke or shut up about it.

           Strange, no? Though paradoxically to our advantage. This same brain-quirk may take dogs for more than we are. The other day Carll scribbled in his journal (I kid you not), “Henry’s almost reason enough to be.” I’m a dog, for Chrissake. Who needs a reason to be?