{"id":3347,"date":"2024-01-30T21:23:31","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T02:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3347"},"modified":"2024-02-02T21:35:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-03T02:35:36","slug":"scaredy-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/30\/scaredy-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"Scaredy Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,<\/em> click here<\/a>
 
No one who had a church leadership role on September 16, 2001, will ever forget that day.
 
It was the first Sunday after the 9\/11 terror attacks. 
 
For five days, America had been reeling.  The shock and horror of what happened in New York City, Washington D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania plunged the nation into a kind of living nightmare.    
 
That reality overwhelmed me when I stood for the first time at our early service and looked into the faces of the worshippers.  There were people I had never seen before.  And individuals whom I hadn\u2019t seen for years.  They had come together to mourn.  And to see if God \u2013 if there really was a God who cared \u2013 had anything to say about such evil. 
 
On September 13, I had met with a pair of Christian Science leaders from our community \u2013 a conversation that had been scheduled well before the attacks. 
 
I asked what they were thinking and feeling about the events of the previous 48 hours.  They clung to their Christian Science convictions: The \u201ctragedy\u201d was just an illusion.  Nothing bad had happened.  Our perception of suffering was merely a collective misunderstanding of reality.  A good God, after all, could not allow such things to happen.  Therefore it had not happened.
 
But for those who gathered for worship that Sunday morning, the suffering had been anything but an illusion.   
 
Throughout that fall, church attendance would be higher than usual.  Not to mention sales of Bibles, teddy bears, and guns.  Therapists would see additional clients.  High-end restaurants would add comfort food options to their menus.  Some of those mac and cheese dishes are still around.  President Bush would plead with Americans to go shopping.  \u201cDon\u2019t let the terrorists win\u201d by depriving stores of their customary year-end sales.
 
But all that was still ahead.  On September 16, there was simply sadness and fear.
 
What I remember most about that morning was the children\u2019s sermon.  We customarily invited kids to come forward and talk about our theme of the day.
 
Live animals were always a hit.  Over the years the kids got to experience gerbils, crayfish, a lamb, a boa constrictor, a terrarium filled with Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a lively ferret named Spunky, and a pair of goats who, as it turned out, could have used a bit more toilet training.  Times with the children were often more memorable than the \u201creal\u201d sermon. 
 
That day I brought one our own dogs to church.  Cory was a Shetland sheep dog, or Sheltie.  Imagine a miniature version of Lassie. 
 
I asked the kids if they had ever heard of a scaredy cat.  Hands went up.  \u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201cCory is a scaredy dog.  He\u2019s scared of big noises.  And the vacuum cleaner.  And other dogs who might show up in our yard.  And the nice man who delivers packages to our front porch.\u201d 
 
But one thing always helped, I explained.  If Mary Sue or I stood behind him, he became the bravest dog in the world.  If he knew that we were nearby, he could stand up to any other dog or even the lady driving the mail truck. 
 
I told the kids that this was a week in which some people would probably feel a bit like Cory.  There were things that might make them feel afraid.
 
I looked up at their parents.  That\u2019s when my voice broke. 
 
I reminded them that \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid\u201d is the command of God that appears more times than any other in the Bible.  And \u201cI will be with you\u201d is the Bible\u2019s number one promise. 
 
\u201cThose two go together,\u201d I said.  \u201cWe don\u2019t have to be afraid of anything that will happen today or tomorrow because Someone is always standing behind us.  God will always be with us.\u201d 
 
In many ways, that was a difficult Sunday. 
 
But I would also have to say it was a uniquely special Sunday.  All the curtains had been pulled back.  We were vulnerable.  We were uncertain and afraid.  We needed God.  And we knew it.
 
America, being what it is, tried to regain \u201cnormalcy\u201d as soon as possible.  The sad thing is that normalcy, for all too many of us, is ignoring God \u2013 or at least pushing away the realization that life is fragile, and that trusting God is our privilege and our call every new day. 
 
Even when life is tough, however, we don\u2019t have to be a scaredy dog. 
 
That\u2019s often when we\u2019re reminded of what we most need to remember:
 
God is always behind us.  And he\u2019s not going anywhere<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here No one who had a church leadership role on September 16, 2001, will ever forget that day. It was the first Sunday after the 9\/11 terror attacks.  For five days, America had been reeling.  The shock and horror of what happened in New York City, Washington D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania plunged the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[680,205],"class_list":["post-3347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-9-11","tag-fear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3350,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions\/3350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}