David McElroy

When a former neighbor asked me last year whether I was willing to adopt a dog who needed a home, I said no — and I was emphatic about it.

I already had more cats than I wanted to admit, so there was no room at the inn. I love dogs — and missed having them around, too — but I was determined not to have another dog as long as I was living alone. Dogs require a lot of work and since I no longer work from home, it didn’t seem fair to have a dog waiting all day for me to return.

I had absolutely no intention of adopting a dog yet. And that was final.

But one year later, my best canine friend is celebrating her first full year with me today. How did that happen?

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I’m sitting in my quiet and darkened office Sunday evening. There are a few raindrops still falling outside and they make gentle sounds as they hit the trees and ground. The only light is from a porch across the street, and that single bulb gently illuminates the rain and condensation on the front windows.

In the stillness, I can hear something which is frequently drowned out by the noise of the world. When the natural silence around me is such that every tiny sound becomes like the crash of cymbals, I can hear something inside myself.

Something in there has a lot to say when I can be quiet enough to listen. My heart feels a lot of things deeply and desperately needs someone to hear those things. My soul seems to know things about truth and wisdom and knowledge that come from somewhere beyond my understanding. Bits and pieces of me have a lot to say — and I need to hear them.

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Who speaks for God? Who has the knowledge, wisdom and authority to say, “In the name of God, this is The Truth”?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that this week, but few people would find my thoughts satisfying. That’s because people want certainty. They want to say, “This is who God is and what happens after death,” or they want to say, “There is no god and nothing exists outside of the physical world.”

And whatever people believe about God, most of them are eager to tell you that you ought to believe what they believe — or else you’re a sinner or you’re a fool.

How can we even talk about what’s true and what’s not? Everything we believe is built on subjective experience and assumptions. Some of those assumptions are shared with others, but very few of them are specifically defined.

You’re not in my head and heart — and I’m not in yours — so we have very little way of truly understanding the core of what other people believe or experience. In fact, the evidence suggests our minds are so complex that there isn’t even a unitary “me” inside each of us with anything approaching consistency of belief. Some of the parts of our brains literally can’t communicate with certain other parts — and those parts frequently have different needs and wants.

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