Short Stories by Phoenix Hocking

The Creeds

Let me start off by saying that this short paper in no way attempts to lay out the entire history of the creeds, but it seemed good to me that a little history might be in order for those who may not be familiar with this “nutshell” explanation of our faith.
I suppose we need to go back to the year 451 A.D., with the Council of Chalcedon in which the Council came to the following conclusions:
Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; on one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusions, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in now way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the Fathers has handed down to us.
Whew!
Proceeding from this viewpoint came the Creed of Saint Athanasius, which is very long and cumbersome, which I won’t repeat here. However, do you see the problem? In the early church, Christ was seen as “begotten.” And for many years, this was the creed that used in the early church.
Which brings us to the Apostle’s Creed, the earliest written version is perhaps the Interrogatory Creed of Hippolytus, written about 215. The current form is first found in the writings of Caesarius of Arles, 542 A.D. Here is the Apostle’s Creed, in modern terms:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, died, and was buried;
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
He ascended into heaven,
He is seated on the right hand of the Father,
And he will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The holy catholic church,
The communion of saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the body,
And the life everlasting. Amen.

Ok, still a bit of a problem, right?
When the Apostle’s Creed was drawn up the chief enemy of Gnosticism, which denied that Jesus was truly Man, and the emphasis of the Apostle’s Creed reflected the correcting of this error in thinking.
But when the Nicene Creed was written, the chief enemy was Arianism, which denied that Jesus was fully God. Arius was a presbyter in Alexandria in Egypt, in the early 300s. He taught that God, the Father, begot (created) the Son, then proceeded to create the world. The result of this was to make the Son a created being, and therefore not God in any real sense. This view was becoming a very real problem, so the Council of Nicea was convened in 325, with the following Creed being agreed upon:

We believe in One God,
The Father, the Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
Of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
The only Son of God,
Eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
True God from true God,
Begotten, not made,
Of one being with the Father.
Through Him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
He came down from heaven;
By the power of the Holy Spirit
He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
And was made man.
For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
In accordance with the Scriptures;
He ascended into heaven
And is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
And his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
And the life of the world to come. Amen.

Just a quick clarification here: the word catholic in this sense is not talking about the Roman Catholic Church, but is using the word catholic in its dictionary meaning, that of being universal. (catholic: Of broad or general scope; universal; all inclusive. American Heritage Dictionary)

An older translation of the creed has “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” The English word “world” used to mean something quite different from our present meaning. It is related to the word “were”, an old word for “man.” Hence a “world” was originally a span of time equal to the normal lifespan of a man.
Arias said “The Logos is not eternal. God begat him, and before he was begotten he did not exist.” The Athanasians replied that the begetting of the Logos was not an event in time, but an eternal relationship.
I quote here from an article entitled “The Nicene Creed”, in which the author, James E. Kiefer, is discussing the line “true God from true God; begotten not made.” :

This line was inserted by way of repudiating Arius’ teaching that the Son was the first thing that the Father created, and that to say that the Father begets the Son is simply another way of saying that the Father created the Son.
Arius said that if the Father has begotten the Son, then the Son must be inferior to the Father, as a prince is inferior to a king. Athanasius replied that a son is precisely the same sort of being as his father, and that the only son of a king is destined himself to be a king. It is true that an earthly son is younger than his father , and that there is a time when he is not yet what he will be. But God is not in time. Time, like distance, is a relation between physical events, and has meaning only in the context of the physical universe. When we say that the Son is begotten of the Father, we do not refer to an event in the remote past, but to an eternal and timeless relation between the Persons of the Godhead. Thus, while we say of an earthly prince that he may someday hope to become what his father is now, we say of God the Son the He is eternally what God the Father is eternally.”

As I explained to a friend early today, the point of the creeds is two-fold. One is to remind ourselves of exactly what our faith is and the points we hold dear. The other is to be able to present in a clear and concise manner to others what our faith is. If someone asks, “Just what do you believe exactly?” you can’t be more clear than the Nicene Creed.
I have a 12-part study on the Apostle’s Creed, if anyone is interested. I’d be happy to copy the study for anyone who wants one.

Now, moving on, I would like to tackle, albeit briefly, the question of the canonical books of the Bible, and the various reasons why the entire Bible is not included in Protestant versions as it is in Catholic ones.
Around the time that the Christian Bible was being formed, early Christians used a Greek translation of Scripture called the Septuagint, which included those books that we now call the Apocrypha. Christians continued to use the Septuagint as the Old Testament until around 1500, when the Protestant reformers placed the apocryphal books in a separate section of the Bible, usually at the end of the Old Testament.
Roman Catholic churches continue to use the apocryphal books as part of their Bible, while the Protestants have chosen to remove those books completely. I rather like the Episcopal view on the matter. Taken from the Book of Common Prayer:
Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation… the other Books the Church does read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet does it not apply them to establish any doctrine.”
The Apocrypha formed an integral part of the King James Version of 1611, as they had all the preceding versions from their beginning in 1381. They were certainly part of the Vulgate, edited by St. Jerome about A.D. 400, and remained a vital part of our Bible for over a thousand years.
In those Bibles, the various books of the apocrypha were scattered amongst the other books we currently recognize, and were not in a separate section.
The books of the Apocrypha include: 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, additions to the book of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesasticus or the Wisdom of Sirach, Baruch, Susanna, Song of the Three Children, Bel and the Dragon (which ridicules the worship first of Bel and then of a “sacred” serpent), Prayer of Manasseh, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees and Psalm 151.
These books are NOT to be confused by other books known as the pseudepigrapha, which include books that some like to call the “lost books of the Bible.” These books, while some being in use in some Christian communities for many hundreds of years, were never considered canonical books.
The books of the Apocrypha themselves provide an excellent source of material that properly belongs between the Old and New Testaments as a sort of bridge. The book of Eccleasticus rivals the books of Proverbs for wisdom. And it is in the story of the Maccabeans that we find the reason the Jews celebrate Hannakah.
It is my own view that the books of the Apocrypha complete the Bible, and its books should be discounted in our quest for remaining true to God’s Word. They are a great source of both wisdom and history.

What follows are my notes for a sermon I did on Salt and Light:

Salt and Light
PRAY FIRST!!!
Introduction: Matthew 5:13-16 * Passage tells Jesus’ disciples (and us) who they ARE, what their function is, and gives them a WARNING.
I. Salt in Biblical times – obtained from the salt marshes of the Dead Sea, often contaminated with other substances.
A. Essential to life itself. Dry climate; perspiration. An important mineral in our bodies to keep us healthy.
B. Precious and valuable commodity –
1. Our word SALARY comes from the Latin word SALARIUM, meaning “salt money” and refers to the allowance of salt paid as wages to Roman soldiers.
2. In Biblical times salt was sometimes exchanged for slaves, which is where we get the saying, “He isn’t worth his salt.”
C. Salt as a symbol of covenant
1. Numbers 18:19 “Whatever is set aside from the holy offerings the Israelites present to the Lord I give to you and your sons and daughters as your regular share. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord for both you and your offspring.”
2. Salt Covenant – Men would keep a small pouch of salt with them, and whenever an agreement was made between them they would each put a pinch of their salt into the others pouch. Since it would be impossible to retrieve their own salt from the others pouch, this was seen as an irrevocable covenant between the two men.
The Covenant of salt ‘ 2 Chronicles 13:5 “Don’t you know that the Lord, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?”
3. A sign of the broken covenant – Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” with the spilled salt shaker in front of the figure of Judas.
4. Salt was considered so valuable that salt had to be included in sacrificial offerings. Leviticus 2:13 “Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.” Offerings given to God needed to contain something highly prized and valued. Nothing that begun to rot was allowed to used as sacrifice, so the salt also acted as a preservative until the time the sacrifice could be given.

II. The Properties and Uses of Salt
A. As a solid, like a salt lick, animals come to refresh themselves with salt, but they don’t eat the whole thing all at once!
B. As a seasoning, salt is sprinkled or used judiciously to season food. Even Job in his misery cries “Can flavorless food be eaten without salt?” (Job 6:6) If a recipe calls for a teaspoon and you use a cupful, you ruin the dish.
C. As a preservative, salt was used to preserve meat and fish, which were packed in salt to draw blood and moisture from them. Too much salt would make the meat too dry.
D. Salt as a healing property. Salt can be gargled for a sore throat, and a pinch of salt was put on the socket if a tooth was lost. 2 Kings 2:21 “Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, ‘This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.” Salt purifies.
E. Luke 14:34,35 “Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Salt was used in Biblical times as a leveling agent for paddies made from animal dung, which was used for outdoor ovens. The salt was mixed with the dung to make it burn longer and with a more even heat. When the block was used as much as possible it was thrown out onto the road to harden the muddy surface. So, when Jesus says that once the salt has lost its savor, it is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled by men, this is what He’s talking about. If salt is so contaminated that it can’t even be used with the manure, then it is worthless indeed. So, we, then, are to be the leveling agent in an unbalanced world. And if we can’t do that, then what good are we?
F. Just as salt was used to heal, salt was also used to make a land barren and worthless. Judges 9:45 “All that day Abimelech pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it.” And here is the warning….too much salt all at once can actually cause death. Colossians 4:6 “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
G. So, in this passage Jesus tells His disciples what they, and we, ARE: as salt, they are essential, they are precious, they are valuable. Our function is to season our conversation with God’s grace and love; we are to preserve His Word; we are to use His love and His Word to heal; we are to remain faithful to God as in a covenant of Salt. And we are to heed the warning not to make the ground barren or unfruitful.
“If the salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” I think we need to take this warning very seriously, because once salt is made useless, what good is it? The salt that we present to the world needs to be genuine and having life-giving and healing properties. If we allow our saltiness to be diluted, we are worthless for God’s kingdom.

“Just as tasteless salt lacks value to the person who uses it, so does a professed disciple without genuine commitment prove useless for the work of the Kingdom.”
Sodium chloride, or salt, does not lose its taste (or saltiness) except by dilution. One can dilute the Word by adding non-essential and foreign additives to it, or the Word can be “watered down” to make it more palatable to people, but then the salt has indeed lost its savor and is useless.
How can we, as salt, be diluted? By spending too much time with the temptations of the world. Too much TV. How much time do we fritter away on unimportant activities and pursuits? While it may seem harmless enough at the time, perhaps we need to ask ourselves if this activity honors God and edifies His people.
I don’t think all worldly pursuits dilute us, though. We, as Christians, are called to be in the world, but not of it. We need to stay relevant to those who would need our help. I mean, you don’t have to be a drug addict to reach a drug addict, but it sure helps if you understand the lingo.

III. Light – Mathew 5:14-16 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
A. This passage needs to be seen in conjunction with Matthew 6:1-3 “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.”
Jesus here is warning against acting like the hypocrites, to win human praise. The religious life certainly has outward expression and duties, but piety paraded for human notice and approval gets no recognition from God. The disciple must let his light shine, yes; men should see his good works, yes; BUT he must not seek his own honor or point to himself, but instead to show the glory and goodness of God.
B. What is light? Light is what enables us to see. It makes vision possible. Cave story. So, what is the purpose of light? The purpose of light is to illuminate, expose, guide, and direct.
C. If you are a candle, you shed your light outwards, to illuminate what is in the room. Looking at the candle itself serves no purpose. Its only purpose is to shed light elsewhere. So Jesus is telling us that our light is to shine not so that people will see US, but so that people will see where our light comes from.
The purpose of a lighthouse, for example, is not to draw attention to the light, but to draw attention to the dangerous rocks nearby! It is a warning light. So, perhaps, are we called to be “lighthouses,” also called to point to danger.

Luke 11:33-55 No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar, nor under a peckmeasure, but on the lampstand, in order that those who enter may see the light. The lamp of your body is your eye; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you may not be darkness. If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it shall be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.”
Here our warning is to keep our light pure; once again, not to dilute it with things that are not worthwhile. Else, the light that people see will not shine to point the way to God. Any light that shines with the express purpose of illuminating ourselves is of no use to God.
D. So, when Jesus says we are the “light of the world,” what is He saying? He is saying we are, like salt, is essential, precious, and valuable. Our function is to illuminate the world around us, and make sure our light shines towards the Creator of all light; we are to expose the folly of the world,. We are to use the light given us to guide and direct people to the true path, the one that leads to God, to Jesus Christ, who is “the way, the truth, and the life.” And we need to take warning that we do not lead people to ourselves.
Conclusion: Read Matthew 5:13-16 again.
So, we are not called to DO “salt and light,” but to BE “salt and light.” A porcupine cannot be a pig. So, if we ARE salt and light, that is not something we can put on and remove like a garment. Then salt and light would just be something we wear when it suits our fancy. But Jesus says we ARE salt and light, so that indicates a change in the very nature of our being, right down to the molecular level.
So, as salt and light, Jesus says we are ESSENTIAL to His plan for the world; Jesus says we are PRECIOUS to Him; Jesus says we are VALUABLE.
Our function is to season the world with His love, to preserve His Word, to heal in His name, and to remain faithful. We are to illuminate the nature of God to believers and unbelievers alike; we are to guide and direct people to God, and we are to take care that we do not draw attention to ourselves, but that all our actions reveal God’s love for His people.
Let us pray…..

THE OLD WOMAN
BY
PHOENIX HOCKING


The old woman waited on her front porch, rocking gently in her rust-colored wooden chair, a handmade quilt upon her lap. Mitzi, an ancient dog of indeterminate breed, curled at her feet, snoring softly. On the railing a calico cat licked paws, then face, then ears, over and over again.
She sighed and ran a hand through her prickly more-salt-than-pepper hair, then covered her face with her hands, briefly, and became still again. She had known it would come to this, eventually, but she was not prepared. Probably would never be prepared.
Around her a Vermont summer had gasped its last desperate wheeze and was becoming a brilliant autumn. Leaves of crimson and yellow and orange flung themselves off the trees in a dizzy dance with the wind. In her garden grew pumpkins big as your head, and gourds of green and gold. A huge maple tree shaded the front of her tiny cottage.
She lived in a world of green and white. Her small white typically New England house with its green shutters was surrounded by a green yard and traditional white picket fence. Geraniums and pansies and Sweet William provided color and grew in profusion along the side of the house. A tall oak tree stood sentinel in the exact center of the back yard. It was the type of house the leaf-peepers took photographs of while cruising the streets of the back-country.
She kept to herself, mostly. Not that she was unfriendly, you understand. It's just that in speaking with her, one got the feeling that she'd had quite enough noise and crowds and people in her life, thank you. Usually, she was content to rock upon her porch in the summer, or sip hot chocolate by the fire in winter.
But today, today she was tired. Tired of running, tired of hiding. Tired of waiting.
When the old woman first moved here she opened a small bookstore and tea shop she named Pekoe, O. Henry and Me. It was a cozy place, a subtle blend of old Victorian charm and New England spirit. She stocked books and magazines of substance, of style.
Not for her the latest pulp fiction or x-rated trash. No video movies or comic books. No, the books the old woman sold were literature of the best kind, books that made you ponder the mysteries of life, taught you something about yourself or your world, made you laugh, or made you cry.
Pekoe's had been a success, no doubt about that. The old woman, surprising even herself, turned out to have a head for business, as well as a love of books. She treated her books tenderly, as old and fragile friends. And if she caught a customer throwing a book down, or snapping the binding back to make it easier to read, or God Forbid! dog-earing a page to hold their place, well!, she would descend upon them with a tongue sharp as any axe and ban them from the premises for an entire fortnight.
Considering that Pekoe's was not just the one-and-only bookstore in town, but also a gathering place for everyone from members of the town council to high school students, nobody wanted to be banned.
Consequently, the old woman's books were treated well, and the old woman stayed happy.
She was friendly, and community-minded, but never talked much about herself. Someone said that she had lived all over the world, but that could never be proven. Another said she spent much of her life in a small Northern California town, where winters were not white enough to suit her, and summers were hotter than a body could bear.
Few knew the truth, and those that did kept it to themselves.
She sold the bookstore a few years back, curtailed her many civic duties, and slowly began spending her time simply enjoying the scenery from her front porch.
Thirty years, she thought. Has it really been thirty years?
The old woman was short and round, a woman who liked hot chocolate in the winter, and ice cream in the summer, and made no excuses for her vices. When she owned Pekoe's, she often baked fresh bread, coffee cake or cookies and brought them in to serve with hot herbal tea or apple cider.
Her hair was mostly gray and cropped close to her head in a fine peppery halo. She wore bifocals that changed with the light, and large hoop earrings usually preferred by teenagers or harlots.
She wore heavy sweatshirts and woolen pants in the winter and long, flowing djallabas in the summer. On days such as this, when the leaves fell and a nip was in the air, she pulled on her knee socks, a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, and went to sit on her front porch.
She looked at her watch, and straightened in her chair. It was exactly four o'clock in the afternoon, just as dusk was beginning to think about falling, when a long, white car pulled up to the curb in front of the old woman's house.
Finally, she thought. Finally.
Mitzi, the old dog, looked up from her nap. She thumped her tail against the porch, yipped once, then went back to sleep. The cat stopped its ablutions and watched as an old man, stooped and frail, eased his way out of the car. The old woman stopped her rocking and stared at the man, her face an unreadable mix of what might have been resignation, sadness or joy.
The old man reached into the car and brought out a three-footed metal cane. He leaned heavily on it as he walked around to the curb, then rested for a moment against the car, looking at the house, and at the old woman who had risen from her rocking chair.
Slowly, he made his way to the gate, opened it, and walked in. He seemed very old, much older than the woman. His back was humped and his wrinkled, veined hands trembled. He made his way cautiously up the walk, pausing every few steps to catch his breath.
The old woman watched, breathing when he breathed, and held her hands across her chest, fists against her trembling chin.
He arrived at the base of the porch, looking haggard and ill. He put a foot on the bottom stair and heaved himself up. Each step seemed an agony, yet the old woman remained rooted oak-like in the spot, and made no move to help him, nor did she speak.
At last, he arrived at the top of the porch. The old woman stepped out of the way and indicated the rust-colored rocker. She herself took a spot on the porch swing. He lowered himself into the chair, took out his handkerchief and wiped his face.
They sat thus for a long while, not speaking. The dusk grew darker and the chill deeper still. Children chattered on the sidewalk. Men and women in business suits hurried home from their offices. Women all bundled up in coats and hats carried groceries home from the store.
Finally, the old woman spoke. "Henry," she said. It was a sigh, a statement, as if entire worlds were brought into being by the very sound of the word.
"Yes," the old man said.
"How did you find me?" she asked.
He fixed his eyes on her, taking in the plump, round body, the gray hair, the glasses that perched on her nose. "I looked," he said.
"For thirty years?"
"Yes.”
Around them, in the deepening twilight, sounds wafted in on the breeze. Sounds of dinner being prepared, children laughing, television sets expounding the evening news. Lights came on around them, making the porch on which they sat seem doubly dark. Fat old Mrs. Wilson, and her smelly guide-dog Jake ambled home, oblivious to the deepening dusk.
The cat rose, stretched, yawned, then jumped from the railing into the side yard. Tail high, it marched around the corner and was lost to sight.
The old woman pulled her quilt about her shoulders and shivered. "I had to leave, Henry," she said.
The old man was silent.
"It wasn't you," she said. "It was never you.” Suddenly it was imperative that he understand, and her voice took on a desperate, shrill quality that stuck in her throat like old sand. “It was never you. It was me."
Still, the old man said nothing.
"I went from being a child in my father's house to being a wife and mother in yours." She stared out into the street, breathing deeply. Fireflies began to appear near the oleander bush in the corner. "Child. Wife. Mother." Her voice caught, as if the words hid barbs that bit into her throat. "I was always what someone else wanted me to be. I never got to be a person, Henry," she said.
"And have you been a person here?" the old man asked.
The old woman thought back to those years just after she had left her family. She had just walked away one day; walked away without a thought in her head except to get out, get out, GET OUT! Took the $4,312 dollars they had in savings, an almost sizable sum then, and left. For years she had felt hunted and frightened that they would find her and take her newfound freedom away.
She remembered driving aimlessly from one state to another, one town to another, searching for a place to be, staying briefly, but running away again when she felt she was close to being found. But, when she crossed the Vermont state line, and beheld the picture-postcard New England of her earliest childhood fantasies, she knew her days of running had ended; she had finally come home.
The reality was much different from the fantasy, of course. The winters were far colder than she had imagined, and more than once, as she scraped ice off the windshield or unfroze the lock or bundled up against the shrill shrieks of winter, she had wondered if she’d made a mistake. Or in the summer, when fish could swim through the humid air, and black flies seemed to be the state bird, and she shed clothes as much as modesty would allow, she thought about going “home.”
But this was home. She remembered the first piece of furniture she had bought, the first bread she had baked, the first snow.
She remembered opening day at Pekoe's. Her bookstore was the only one in town then, and it seemed the entire population had turned out to wish her well. They ate her fresh, homemade bread, drank her special hot apple cider, and bought books, books, and more books, hungry for more than physical sustenance.
She remembered Mitzi, who arrived at her doorstep one cold winter's day and never left. And the cat, abandoned as a kitten in the trash can behind the bookstore. She could still see them curled up together on the hearth, the little dog giving her warmth to the tiny kitten bravely holding on to life.
The old woman thought of the many committees she had served on: the library committee, the beautification committee, the Meetings For Sufferings committee after she had joined the Quakers. She thought of the Guatemalan refugees that occasionally slept in the front parlor, using her little cottage as just one stop on this modern Underground Railroad, on their way from persecution in the south to the relative safety of Canada.
She looked out into her yard, at the oleander bush and the maple tree, planted with her own hands, at her pumpkins peeping from the side, and thought of the many vegetables and flowers she had grown here, of the jams and jellies and vegetables she had laid by for winter, and the unmitigated joy of being able to write for hours undisturbed.
She remembered the last day at the store, when she had turned out the Closed sign for the final time. She had cried then. But after she had shed her tears, she walked home to her cozy little cottage and her front porch and was content.
She remembered all these things, and said, softly, "Yes, Henry. I've been a person here."
A speckled red maple leaf wafted in on the breeze and settled in the old man's lap. He plucked it off with gnarled, old fingers and studied it carefully. "And now?"
The old woman thought of the years that stretched behind, and the few that remained. She thought of lovers not taken, triumphs not shared, sorrows not divided and joys not multiplied. She remembered how cold it was in the winter here, even though she had learned to love the snow.
Inside, the little cottage was dark. Wood was already laid in the fireplace, awaiting a match to bring its cheery light to life. The kettle was on the stove; it would only take a minute to bring water to a boil and share a nice cup of hot chocolate. A plate of cookies, fresh this morning, waited on the counter.
And beside her, a man. An old man who had searched for her; found her; loved her still.
The old woman got up from the porch swing and put out her hand to help the old man to his feet. "It's getting cold," she said. "We'd better go in."
She opened the screen door and held it for him. Mitzi slipped in between Henry's feet, almost upsetting him. She reached out a hand to steady him. The old woman held on to his sleeve a trifle longer than she needed to, then laughed.
His eyes brightened, then closed, a few tears trickling down his cheeks. The years fell away from his face as if by a magic hand. "Ah," he said, "but I've missed your laugh!"
The old woman closed the door behind them, and before long the sounds of a dinner being prepared, the crackle of a fire, and laughter came from this bright little cottage, on a small New England street.




THE END

DOROTHY, THE GOAT-DOG

BY

PHOENIX MARY GRACE HOCKING




Blueberries stained her muzzle, and three cherries were between her paws; another six or so had rolled under the table. I spotted a beet in the middle of the living room floor; God knows where the rest were.
In the time it took for me to put the sack of fruits and vegetables on a kitchen chair and go out to the car for more, Dorothy, my little goat-dog, had struck with gleeful abandon, scattering berries, cherries, beets, carrots and rutabaga in all directions. Only the potatoes were spared, wedged in the bottom of the sack.
She’s not really part goat, of course. Dorothy is a Beagle/Jack Russell mix, heavy on the Jack. If you look up the word “mischievous” in Webster’s, you will find a picture of Dorothy there.
God brought Dorothy to us. Or, more precisely, we were in God’s house when Pam, another member of our Christian community, brought the six-week old imp, along with her siblings, to church. I had recently had to put my old Sweetie dog to sleep and was not in the market for a new dog. It was just perfect having only two dogs again and didn’t really want another. Or so I thought.
But when it comes to matters of the heart, just imagine a shrugging of the shoulders and a deep sigh, because one look and you’re a goner. Feisty? Lord, yes! The little brat was busy trying to chew the ear off one of her siblings, little puppy growls and tail wagging all at the same time.
She was beautiful. White, with black dots all over, including one placed perfecting on the top of her head, and just the right smattering of brown around her eyes, Dorothy looked at me with those sad Beagle eyes and I was hooked.
“No,” I said. “No, no, no. Don’t want another dog. Don’t need another dog. Certainly don’t want a puppy.” And all the while I have the little heart-thief in my arms and she’s licking my face and trying to crawl into my hair and biting my glasses and my earrings. I might as well have been speaking Chinese.
I took her inside, where my husband Chip was chatting with a few men at the lunch table. I was a little far away, but I could swear I saw him roll his eyes when he spotted me.
“Chip, meet Dorothy,” I said, “Dorothy, meet Chip.”
“Well,” he said, “just be sure the other dogs will accept her.”
In about two seconds flat Pam and I were headed over to the house. We came in the gate and put Dorothy down so the others could get to know her. They sniffed her all over and wagged tails.
No problem!
Of course, I don’t think they realized she was actually going to STAY. They might have had second thoughts!
She is one smart dog, though, I’ll give her that. She had the doggie door figured out the very first night, and potty training didn’t take but a few weeks. Once she figured out what “POTTY OUTSIDE!!!” meant, she hasn’t had but a couple of mistakes inside since, usually when she was stressed or the weather was bad.
It didn’t take long to figure out that she thinks she’s part goat, however. This dog will eat EVERYTHING, or at least try to. This includes shoes, slippers, paper, plastic flower pots, almost all things edible (except apples; for some reason they seem to be safe from her), leaves, twigs, bark, and bugs. Especially those huge beetles that fly around the porch light at night. She will chase them down and devour them with a mighty crunch like she’s eating potato chips.
The thing is, even with blueberries on her chin and cherries between her paws, there is just something about the girl that makes one want to pick her up and love on her. I think it’s because even when she is guilty as sin, she looks so sweet and innocent.
Of course, training is training, and unless one wants the dog to run the house, Dorothy needs to learn that such behavior is not acceptable. So, a verbal reprimand consisting of a strong “Dorothy, NO!” sent her under the table, those sad Beagle eyes looking at me reproachfully and with complete and total innocence.
Sighing mightily, I stoop to pick up the blueberries, the cherries, and all the other debris from the kitchen floor. I step on a cherry and reach for a rutabaga. “Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy,” I mutter, “what AM I going to do with you?”
She watches me with grave concern, her head on her stained chin, eyes up, ears flopping on the ground. “Who, me?” she seems to say. “What did I do?”
Later that afternoon I sit at the computer, poking around on eBay. Ah. Now, what’s this?
“Training your Jack Russell Terrier.”
Now, there’s a book I can use. I put in a bid, and feed Dorothy a bite of Chex cereal. She crunches happily, then flops down on her blankie, rolls over on her back, and promptly goes to sleep.
Dorothy, my little goat-dog.