There is a place and a need for people who think beyond the surface…a place and a need for people who are willing and unafraid to “lift the corners of the universe” and peek at what is underneath as Ann M. Martin describes it in her 2003 Newberry Medal Honor book “A Corner of the Universe”. There is a need for people who look at things a bit differently and a bit more deeply and those people, because they do that, can make decisions that change the course for others, impact lives making a difference.
An example…
A few years back, one morning, I was hurriedly trying to find items my son needed for a school project before I was going to work. At my last stop, the place of my last hope of finding what I needed, there was a stray dog curled up sleeping in a cart corral in a grocery store parking lot. I immediately thought that I do not have time for animal rescuing today and that perhaps it will be gone when I get out of the store and I will be off the hook…. no such luck. I am not the type of person who can look at the dog and say “whatever…it is just a dog.” When I look at it, I see someone’s pet and that someone is missing it…maybe that someone has kids who are at school crying because their dog is gone…I had been there when I was a kid.
So, busy or not, I put my purchase in the car and approached the dog with the warning of “never approach a strange dog” reverberating in my head and the worry that I was going to be spending my day in the ER getting shots if I got bit tying knots in my stomach. But, I did it anyways. As I approached, the dog sat up and I noticed it had a leather collar--“How strange could a dog with a leather collar be?” I wondered. I reached my hand out...still predicting shots in the ER for myself later in the day. Something through the whole incident with this dog kept telling me that this was no “regular” dog.
Well, to make a long story short, I found the dog’s veterinarian clinic via the rabies tag, the vet clinic notified the owner, and several hours later and after me threatening to discontinue care with my own veterinarian the dog was reunited with it’s owner. As it turned out, the dog was no “regular” dog. The dog was a therapy dog that was taken to Children’s Hospital and to nursing homes several days a week to bring cheer to the sick and dying.
So, because I peeled back the corners of the universe…and didn’t see “just a dog” not only was a pet reunited with it’s family, but a dog that was loved and depended upon by hundreds of children and elderly was rescued after being missing for 2 days.
I’m glad I choose to I think in layers…it may be more of a nuisance for some who prefer things more convenient all the time…but, well, I am just not convenient. I am compassionate, and I want to lift those corners and sometimes that means I have to go out of my way and one day I might drag you along too if you are lucky…
Some things in life we should look at simply…but to take everything simply is to be simpleminded. I’m going to keep lifting corners of the universe and I’m going to keep analyzing things because I have a lot of answers that I want and need to find…it’s me, it is who I am…
