A TELLING PICTURE

A friend of mine has this picture in his office hanging directly above his desk. He gets lots of comments on it. It's George Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge. I know many of my sophisticated readers knew that and if you didn't, well it reminds me of a story.

In Cub Scouts at age 7 or 8, our son was going through the throes of believing or not believing in Santa Claus. At a den meeting, one of the pack leaders was laughing with the scouts about someone still believing in Santa Claus. She said, "None of you still believe in him, do you?"

Our son thankfully didn't raise his hand to respond, but thought to himself, "Yeah, I kinda do or kinda did till now." So maybe you're like that. You didn't know this picture, but by your silence, no one else knows.

The responses my friend get range from "That's a beautiful horse," to "That's a great picture of George Washington praying." Polar opposites to me.

I love horses. I love animals. But (here comes another story) I think we go overboard in this country over animals. Prairie dogs are rounded up and relocated for protection. What's next--roof rats? (Additional story as an addendum) Our neighborhood has 253 homes inside the gated community. We have HOA's, of course. When street re-surfacing projects or other important information needs to be disseminated, all get a phone call with a recorded message. This week we received a call that a dog was missing with the info for contact if seen. (I started to say "if spotted" but then you couldn't tell if the dog was spotted or espied.) Anyhow, to me that's not necessary to notify 252 other households. We have plenty of places to put up posters. The owner(s) could have called a few others to put out the word. Plus, we have coyotes on occasion. 'Nuff said. Except that I'm not unsympathetic at all. I hope they get the dog back; I really do.

The picture that can evoke such a different response--animal, prayer, leadership--is probably a pretty good picture.

While I appreciate a good animal, a good horse, I appreciate a President to goes to the Lord to seek direction and discernment.