What Blue Knew

I got Blue during my first midlife crisis. I’ve heard some men buy a red Porsche, but I bought a dog. But not just any dog. I bought a purebred Border Terrier—which may have been every bit as impractical as the Porsche, only louder and less comfortable.

I had always wanted one. Border Terriers are scruffy and smart, with whiskered faces that make them look perpetually concerned about something. They seemed to come with the promise of turning your life into a James Herriot story: sheep, muddy boots, eccentric farmers, warm kitchens. Everything difficult and funny and beautiful.

Well, I wanted some of that. So I bought Blue.

He weighed about seven pounds when we brought him home—seven adorable pounds of British countryside and roughly seven hundred pounds of bark.

Good Lord, that dog could bark.

Blue considered squirrels, birds, leaves, neighbors, passing aircraft, and changes in barometric pressure worthy of public comment. We would stand inside and yell, “BLUE!”—which was completely ineffective because now the backyard contained two creatures making unnecessary amounts of noise.

I’m not exaggerating when I say you could hear him from the park three blocks away. I know because I once stood in that park and heard him.

That’s my dog.

The Porsche was beginning to look sensible.

But Blue became part of our family, as dogs often do. And it was clear there was one thing he did exceptionally well:

Blue knew how to be a terrier.

Border Terriers were bred along the border between England and Scotland. Farmers needed dogs tough enough to confront foxes, small enough to follow them underground, and sturdy enough to run beside horses across the countryside.

Blue had never seen the English countryside. He had never joined a fox hunt. And I don’t believe he had ever met a fox. But let a squirrel enter our backyard and seven pounds of suburban nuisance became something magnificent.

His head rose. His eyes fixed. His muscles tightened.

Then he was gone.

The squirrel usually won, but that wasn’t the point. The wonder was watching Blue become completely, gloriously himself.

Nobody taught him, but somehow, he knew.

And then came Passover.

One year we were having a traditional Seder meal, and I was cooking lamb. When the smell began filling the house, Blue started trembling. Then he became almost immobile.

This was not normal Blue. Normal Blue was motion, noise, and unsolicited opinion. This dog looked almost catatonic. We petted him, watched him, and wondered whether something neurological was happening.

He remained that way all evening, so the next morning, we decided to take him to the vet.

Before leaving, I carried out the trash, including the remains of dinner and the lamb bones, and as soon as the bag left the house, Blue returned.

The trembling stopped. His body relaxed. His personality reappeared.

Blue was Blue again.

So I did what any responsible dog owner does when confronted with a mysterious medical event.

I Googled it.

I found suggestions that the smell of lamb might have awakened some deep response connected to the work his breed had once done around sheep. I have no idea whether that explanation was correct. But as I looked at him, I found myself wondering:

How deep does knowing go?

Nobody had explained Blue’s ancestry to him. Nobody had shown him a PowerPoint presentation entitled Your Heritage and You: A Brief History of the Border Terrier.

Something was simply there, written deeper than thought.

And I have wondered ever since whether God has written things deeply into us too. We call it vocation. Calling. Purpose. And we usually search for it by looking forward:

What should I do? Where should I go? What is God’s plan for my life?

Those are good questions, but perhaps calling also requires looking backward.

What has always been there? What makes something inside you stand at attention? What have you always done naturally without realizing it might be a clue?

Passover, after all, is a meal of remembering.

Remember who you are. Remember where you came from. Remember what God has done. Remember the story to which you belong.

I think probably calling begins there—not by inventing a new self, but by remembering the old clues: the child who couldn’t stop drawing, the teenager who noticed the lonely kid, the woman who instinctively brought order from chaos, the man to whom people have always told their stories.

Maybe you have spent years trying to become someone while God has been revealing who you are all along.

I have spent an embarrassing amount of my life trying to determine what I’m supposed to do with it. Maybe you have too.

Well it seems Blue had the whole thing figured out at seven pounds.

I still don’t know what happened to him that Passover night. I don’t know what Blue knew.

But I know what I saw whenever a squirrel crossed our yard.

Something inside that ridiculous, deafening little dog awakened.

His head rose. His eyes fixed. And he ran.

Pay attention to whatever makes something inside you lift your head and fix your eyes.

Then run.