Knowing: a Love story....

I am not getting much done this morning. I have been watching spring unfold. Watching with wonder.

We have had a love story, a true romance, taking place in our yard for the past several years. A few years ago - maybe 4-5 - a beautiful white dove moved into our old trees. She has the most mournful cry, and she kept it up almost relentlessly the whole first spring she was here. She was a loner. All of the other doves shunned her - maybe because she was different, the only all white dove around here.

The following spring, she began her mournful cry again, but before the spring was over, she had found a mate, and her cry no longer sounded so mournful or so relentless. Her mate is a regular ring-necked dove, but he is quite a bit lighter in hue than the rest of the area's common doves. They have been a pair now since they found each other. They generally nest in our flowering crab tree, but a neighborhood cat has been spying there this spring, so they have decided to move house.

The amazing thing is, they have decided to move into our dog yard! One might think, 'out of the frying pan and into the fire,' but I have been watching their relationship unfold with our 10 month Golden puppy, and it has astounded me.


Booker is a real asset to the doves' home-building. He gathers sticks and branches from the yard, and chews them down into twigs just right for the birds nest. The doves gather these, right under Booker's nose. I watched this morning while all three were on the patio, the doves gathering twigs not 5 feet from Booker, who just sat and watched them.


What amazes me is that I would not describe Booker as a 'gentle soul.' He is a rough-and-tumble puppy. Just ask our cat! But he seems to know... and I am not sure what it is that he knows. Does he know from experience that he can not catch them? Does he know that he is their protector from the cat, who will not come into his yard to get them? I'm not sure, but it is clear that he 'knows' something that makes him allow them to be so near and to not harass them at all.


It has reminded me of the things we just 'know.' We know so many things; things that keep us safe. Things that tell us Whose we are. Things that connect us to some people or repel us from others who are a threat to us. I truly believe these things are the things that God has placed in our hearts to help us function in this world. Some would call this knowing 'instinct.' That's as good a word as any, but whatever it is called, in Booker and in myself, I 'just know' that it is a gift from above.