“It was right that we should…be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again.” (Luke 15:32)
R. Mactavish was gone. I wanted to wait until morning to see if he would come back on his own. But the look on the other family members faces vetoed that idea. So we climbed into the car to begin looking for our stubborn Scottish terrier who was far more interested in being lost than found. As we slowly drove down street after street, calling his name and peering intently into the darkness, even I became sentimental. What if he got hit by a car? What if someone else picked him up? What if we never saw him again? But we found him. And by the time we did, I was as happy as the rest of the family to see him. Even though he was a mess mud-soaked, foul smelling, too dirty to be anywhere but the floor Mac was a sight for sore eyes. In fact, you could say that at that moment all three of us, my wife Diane, my son Ben, and I, appeared to be far happier about finding and being with that dirty dog than we were about being with one another.