Mary and Martha

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’ -  Luke 10, 38-42

The passage of Mary and Martha always bothered me. Anyone who’s ever hosted guests knows there’s a lot of work to do, making up beds, preparing food and tons of cleaning up afterwards. I remember one time when my son was very little we had friends and family over to watch football, and someone turned to me and said “why don’t you sit down?” And I wondered: why don’t I sit down? Why don’t I just relax like everyone else? I moved over to the sofa and just as I was sitting down I heard my son cry from the other room, and remembered “that’s why I don’t sit down!” Reading the passage as the mother of a small child who worked full time in the church, I often felt like Martha- wishing for a little help with the endless work. I thought this parable reflected the blindness of the patriarchy to the realities of women’s work.

But the thing is, the work really never ends, does it? There is always something that could be cleaned, or put away, or prepared for the future- especially if there are toddlers in the house! And in this story a famous teacher has come to visit, and most likely will not be that way again. If ever there was a time to leave dishes to soak, perhaps that was it.

In the Christian Tradition, Jesus is not only a great teacher, but the divine incarnate. So another way to look at this passage is -- when the divine is visible to us, when the divine is speaking to us, the better part is to lay down whatever we are doing and listen.

We Unitarian Universalists are very diverse in what we believe about God. You notice the children’s story,  The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Baylor, didn’t mention God at all. But it did mention a deep kind of listening, a listening that expects something to speak into it. To me that kind of listening is sacred, regardless of what we believe about the nature of what exactly speaks back, whether it is the divine, whether it is the earth, or whether it is the deepest, truest part of the Self. I tend to be of the theology that whatever is sacred is around us all the time. I believe the divine is not something that comes and goes, the divine is part of everything that is. You could call this the Spirit of Life, because it is part of everything that lives.

When I began my first ever silent retreat last winter, my Spiritual Director gave me these words by Ann Lewin:

"You do not have to
Look for anything, just
Look.
You do not have to
Listen for specific
Sounds, just
Listen.
You do not have to
Accomplish anything, just
Be,
And in the
Looking, and the
Listening, and the
Being, find Me.

This became an important touch stone for me over the course of the 8 days. I’m used to doing things with purpose and intention. I’m used to looking and listening and doing with a goal. But when we truly listen, we can’t assume we know what we are about to hear. Have you ever had a partner or a good friend finish your sentence assuming they knew what you were trying to say, when that’s not really what you were saying at all? Whether you are listening to a great teacher, or to a bird, or to a bush, if we assume we know what we will hear, that’s what we will probably hear. If we want to hear something new, we have to set aside our preconceived notions, our expectations, and just listen. If we expect to see what we’ve always seen then we will most likely see what we have always seen.

As Franciscan writer and teacher Richard Rohr says “We have to learn to see what is there. That’s hard for us to understand. We’re used to focusing on attainment and achievement, a sort of spiritual capitalism… That expectation keeps us from the truly transformative experience called grace.” [Everything Belongs p. 28]

Rohr points out the similarities between Jesus’s teachings, and the teachings of Zen Buddhism. “Jesus Calls us to exactly what the Zen master calls his students to… calling monks who had been [in the monastery] for years to what they called “beginner’s mind” We must never presume that we see. We must always be ready to see anew. [p. 231]

The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:

“Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.” [From Aurora Leigh]

In two different moments we can look at the exact same thing, and some moments it seems like a miracle, and some moments it seems ordinary as dirt.

I used to assume the poet was judging the people in this poem who “sat round and plucked blackberries.” But I think that’s most of us most of the time. As the girl in our story said “I thought there must be something wrong with me because I only heard wind and quail and coyotes and doves—just things that anyone could hear.”

I get that. I used to think that if I could practice hard enough, if I could learn to look at the world the right way then once I could see it I would always see it. They say this is true for the awakened masters. Many say this is what Jesus meant when he said “The kingdom of God is at hand.” But like the heroine of our story, I find that it’s often hard to hear the spirit of life, the still small voice, even when you are looking. No matter how much I practice, I never know when I will glimpse the sacred nature of the world, and when it will seem ordinary. That’s why it’s so important to cherish those moments when the hills sing back, those moments when you really see that every common bush is afire with the divine.

There are plenty of days to pluck blackberries, days when it’s hard to see that Earth is Crammed with heaven – and fortunately plucking blackberries is a fun and joyful event if you are careful of prickers. What is more delicious than a ripe blackberry? Spiritual Director Gerald May writes: “The problem is not that Martha is working, but that she is obsessed with working. Indeed it is Mary who has the contemplative heart; she has chosen the one thing necessary which is to attend to God. It just happens that in this particular moment she does it by sitting still; in another time, perhaps even in the next moment, she could do the same thing while helping with the work. The story might have been told better that way. It might have been better still if Jesus had been helping with the work. But Martha’s problem was that her preoccupation had kidnapped her awareness away from the divine presence.” [The Awakened Heart p. 210-11]

I don’t believe the bush is more or less sacred on any given day, but I know that what I experience changes. And the way I now hear the Mary and Martha story, is that when the world speaks to you, when you see the sacred in the ordinary bush, when the world seems numinous, the better part is to sit and listen.

If we believe that there is a deep, sacred dimension to life, and if we believe that is important, this parable suggests that sometimes we just need to stop what we are doing and listen. Like the old man in the story said “Most people never hear those things at all… they just don’t take the time you need for something that important.”

The world still needs dishes washed, and beds made, payroll run, and snow shoveled. But sometimes stopping and listening to the teachers around us is the better part. We may go on many walks listening to the hills before they begin to sing back, but still we walk, or pause, or just open our minds so we can “always stop and listen at the right time.” When the hills sing to us, let us listen long and deep.

What do we Believe About the Power of Intention?

If a wish fairy appeared right now and offered you 3 wishes, what would you wish for? When we were kids we often ask each other this question, and strategized about the best wish which is of course “I would ask for more wishes.”

As adults we don’t talk much about wishes, we use words like “vision” or “intention” or “goals.”  Teachings about the Power of Intention are big part of American spirituality right now, so when a  friend recently gave me a novel Magic Mala about the power of intention, I decided I needed to figure out what I believed. Because it is so prevalent in our culture right now that I’d like to take some time to consider together “What do Unitarian Universalists believe about the power of intention?”

One of the big theological questions that seems to be part of every religious tradition is something like “do I have any control over my life?” Working with intentions is one way to explore the answers to that question. If life is a big river, and our own lives a boat upon it, we are tossed by the wind and waves and current unless we have an oar or a rudder to steer. At its most basic level, that’s what an intention is, a rudder to help us steer in a particular direction.

Just being able to know and articulate your own preferences increase the odds that you will get what you want. Have you ever been trying to find a restaurant for a group of people, and no one knows what they want? You are stuck swirling around in indecision until some says “actually, I’m kind of in the mood for sushi.”? Something as simple as writing up a grocery list or creating an agenda for a meeting seems to help me do what I intend. A goal like going to college, or buying a house requires many coordinated actions over a long period of time, it’s very unlikely that your boat will just drift you into home-ownership, so keeping that goal in mind whether it’s a wish, a goal in your journal, or a vision board you look at each day helps navigate in the direction you choose to go.

In the  Magic Mala a couple are down on their luck being evicted from their home. A friend encourages our heroine to set her intention, to write it down and speak it aloud, and then to act on that intention. This is really very similar to techniques used by mainstream corporate organization teacher Franklin Covey. Many people, myself included, find that this kind of process increases the odds that you can achieve the goals you set. A study at Dominican University showed improved outcomes by a couple of percentage points for folks who wrote down their goals, or otherwise shared or repeated those goals.[i] So on that count I would say yes, UUs do believe that intention setting can help us achieve our goals.

In my own experience, I notice that setting intentions can help people feeling empowered, feeling some sense of control over your life, realizing you can make choices that impact outcomes. When we create an intention to manifest something in the world, it can be empowering; it helps us learn something about our agency can allow us to participate in the game of life. Sometimes just identifying and making a choice can be helpful- if you can name it it’s easier to ask for, and to identify opportunities when they come your way. I have seen folks set their minds to going back to school or going back to rehab and through persistence and dedication of purpose, change the direction of their lives. This is an important part of the Wiccan tradition – using ritual to set intention, to ask for what we want. Why does it work? I personally am agnostic about the mechanics of that. Maybe there are forces outside our own self, outside the web of human community that help us, and I’m sure there is a great range of what UUs believe about that.

Another phrase that is popular today is the “law of attraction” which encourages us to think positively- to believe that our wish or intention will come true. The idea is that positive thoughts attract positive outcomes, and negative thoughts attract negative outcomes. The characters in the Magic Mala practiced positive affirmations many times each day. There’s been some scientific research showing that positive thinking can make a real difference in outcomes[ii] and that negative thinking can create more negative outcomes. Positive thinking seems to harmonize with our UU beliefs and values.

But you don’t have to get to far down the river with the power of intentions to find a place where it is hard for UUs to follow. An important part of any theology is how it addresses suffering. Can it hold a tragedy like the fires still burning in Australia? The folks in Australia who have lost not only homes but whole communities to fire- did they somehow bring that into their lives through negative thinking?

How does this theology of intention address issues like poverty or racism? The Magic Mala approaches suffering from an individual perspective- people in poverty have limiting beliefs that keep them from getting out of poverty. Folks who experience hardship are just manifesting their negative thoughts. This simply isn’t compatible with UU theology. About 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.[iii]. Are we saying that all that’s keeping %80 of the world in poverty is lack of imagination? That if the 750 million people who live in extreme poverty (Less than $1.90 a day)[iv] began to really devotedly practicing their intentions and affirmations we could eliminate poverty? Maybe. I’m sure it’s hard to stay positive when you have always been poor. But living in a material world has material limits. I’m sure you’ve heard the statistic that for everyone on earth to live as Americans do it would take 4 earths?[v] No matter how much we all want to live like Americans, the laws of our physical reality make that impossible.

We UUs remember that we are part of an interconnected web of life. We know that everything we do impacts and is impacted by others. We are co-creating this world with billions of other living beings. Yes, we do create our reality, but we do not do it alone.

I want to introduce now an idea called the “pragmatic theory of belief” that was important to James Luther Adams, a Unitarian back in the early 20th century[vi] The idea is that we can know something about a belief from how we act on that belief and how we feel. “Adams urges us to think about human behavior as both a personal and an institutional activity that reveals the actual meaning of a religious belief.” How might this believe system effect my actions? If I believe that poor people are poor because of their limiting beliefs, and all they have to do is start clarifying their intentions and repeating positive affirmations to get out of poverty, then I have no obligation to help people in poverty, and I have no obligation to overturn the kinds of oppressive structures that create and sustain poverty and racism. How might this belief system effect the feelings of one who holds it? It might lead to feelings of superiority, if I am successful in achieving my goals. It might lead to feelings of shame and guilt, if I do not achieve my goals. [vii] I certainly would not want folks who lost everything in the Australian fires, folks living in poverty, folks in the hospital right now to feel shame and guilt, to worry that a negative thought created their tragic reality. These pragmatics make me skeptical.

The Power if Intention and law of attraction are often invoked by proponents of the Prosperity gospel, which tells us that the Rich are God’s chosen. One of the important founders of this school of thought was Norman Vincent Peale, minister of Trump’s childhood church. If we look at the prosperity gospel through the lens of the pragmatic theory, we find that folks who follow this theory don’t tend act with compassion to those less fortunate, and tend to believe their wealth shows that whatever actions they took, these were favored by God. I believe that if we apply the pragmatic theory of belief to the prosperity gospel, we have to agree that it is not creating a better world for all.[viii]

As part of the UU tradition, which believes in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, I cannot believe that the wealthy are God’s chosen, and the poor are God’s cast offs. As a UU I notice that Power of Intention does not account for privilege or for systematic oppression. UUs tend to believe that whenever we have privilege our faith calls us to work toward justice for all. We question any belief that reinforces the status quo in a world where oppression and injustice still exist.

Let’s think about intention from a totally different perspective. Buddhism is built on 4 noble truths, and the Second Noble Truth is “The origin of suffering is attachment”- Buddha tells us that "the attachment to the desire to have (craving) and the desire not to have (aversion)". There’s nothing wrong with making a plan and taking steps to carry it out, but when we get too attached to our objectives, when get attached to having things turn out a certain way, that is what causes suffering. (A study at Cornell proved something very similar- I’ll put the link on the website)[ix] Even if we get exactly what we want, we become attached to what we have, an d because all things are temporary, we feel suffering when we lose what we have achieved.

Teacher Ram Dass tells us: “The first thing my Hindu teacher wrote on his slate in teaching me was the statement, “Desire is a trap; desirelessness is moksha, or liberation;” [x] But Ram Dass also notes that as many years as he spent in spiritual practices trying to burn away the seeds of desire, the desires continued to arise, and whenever desires arise these “uncooked seeds” are something we need to work through to grow spiritually. So if we desire wealth, or if we desire power, or enlightenment, there are important spiritual lessons available through living out the fruition of desire so that ultimately we can let them go.

So desires happen. We can choose to let them go and cultivate desirelessness, or we can choose to follow them and see where they lead us. Once upon a time I decided to become an opera singer, I worked for it for years, and even though I didn’t achieve that goal, I never have to wonder “what if?” That seed is cooked. And I learned many unexpected lessons in the process.

I do believe that Intentions have power, and this is precisely why it is something we should consider as a faith community. How are we going to use that power? If you are going to choose an intention to guide your week, your year, your life, what is your best intention? Yes, you could use the power of intention to accrue wealth. And that might be just what you need right now. But there are lots of other ways to use the power of intention. Our church’s mission is to live ethically, to serve lovingly, to grow spiritually. An intention to live ethically would take us on a very different journey than an intention to become rich. An intention to grow spiritually could take us just about anywhere on that river.

As you consider setting intentions for the New Year, ask yourself, as the angel in our story did “what is your best wish?” What do you want and need? Is there a spot on the river you have always wanted to see? It’s okay if you don’t know how to get there; if it’s something you really want, just articulating that desire increases the odds that one day you will get there. But be sure to choose your best wish. We can choose intentions to feed the hungry, to fight racial oppression, to slow global warming. We can intend to spend more time with family, or learning about the birds at our birdfeeder. Or we could set the intention to just see where the river takes us, and be open to whatever arises. And if we hold our intention loosely, and understand this all to be part of our spiritual journey, we can’t fail. Because whether or not we learn to paint, increase our retirement savings, finally start exercising, or end poverty in our time, we will learn something about the nature of reality, and about ourselves. We will learn something about when to steer and when to let go and just follow the river.





End Notes

[i] https://www.dominican.edu/academics/lae/undergraduate-programs/psych/faculty/assets-gail-matthews/researchsummary2.pdf
[ii] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/how-the-power-of-positive-thinking-won-scientific-credibility/256223/
[iii]http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats#src1 for US poverty- https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-266.html
[iv] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
[v] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712
[vi] https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/movesus/workshop7/282715.shtml
[vii] https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/the-science-of-setting-goals.html
[viii] In fact, many Christians, both liberal and conservative feel this is in direct conflict with biblical teachings, and call the prosperity gospel a heresy https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/5-errors-of-the-prosperity-gospel/
[ix] https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/the-science-of-setting-goals.html
[x] https://www.ramdass.org/what-is-your-reality/

In Translation

Communicating is hard. Even when you all speak the same language, even when the topic is something as simple as which detergent you were hoping your partner would bring home from the grocery store.

How much more difficult is it to communicate about the ineffable, about the deep intangible layers of life, about concepts like love, or truth, or diversity. Our words are just fingers pointing towards a concept, each of us privately translating in our own minds.

I grew up in a UU church that was very influenced by humanism. We rarely used traditional theological words like “god” or “heaven” in our Sunday services. When I would go to Sunday school with my friend Suzanne they used words like that all the time, and I figured everyone at that church knew what those words meant, and everyone had the same picture of “god” in their minds whenenver they used that word. After all, there was a picture of God right there in our Sunday school booklet. I didn’t believe in a bearded white guy who sat in a cloud judging and punishing people, which was the composite image I had drawn up in my mind. I couldn’t believe we all went to a place in the clouds where the streets were paved with gold, you could have any ice cream you wanted, and bad people were kept out with a pearly gate.

But I also grew up believing that the interfaith dialogue was important. It says right there in our sources that the wisdom of the world religions and earth-centered traditions are sources of our UU tradition. So when I went to worship with other faith communities, or talked to friends from a different tradition, I had to figure out how to engage with them. I had to figure out how to ground myself in my own integrity, in my own beliefs while still trying to find meaning in what my interfaith neighbors were saying.

So when I went to seminary at the Graduate Theological Union, with 8 seminaries and a bunch of  centers from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and our UU tradition, I took many classes with my neighbors. One day in our theology class the professor broke us into small groups to talk about what we believed about the afterlife, and what we believe about heaven. One of my Methodist colleagues said yes, she did believe in Heaven; not a place in the clouds with gold streets, but a reunion, a return to a loving source after death. I had to ask her to repeat herself. “But you’re Christian!” I said. Here all these years I’d believed that all Christians believed in the heaven pictured in my Sunday school workbook.

It was an Episcopalian teacher who first suggested that we stop using pronouns for God, because God was not a man or a woman, God was God. I’d assumed that only UUs and pagans were concerned about the gender of god, daring to imagine that God might not be male. That God could be female, or might be both or none at all. Visiting a Catholic Mission in Guatemala, I was surrounded by the phrase “Dios es Amor” God is love. And began to imagine what that might mean.

Another teacher, at the Center for Jewish Studies, introduced us to the idea that God does not exist, because to exist implies living a finite duration in material form. God does not exist in the way that you or I or this pulpit exist. It occurred to me that maybe if God was love, had no gender, was not a person, and didn’t exist, I was no longer sure that I didn’t believe in God.

The more I talked with people of diverse faiths and beliefs, the more expansive the word “God” became for me. The more it could hold. Now when I heard people talk about God I had to wonder, what do they picture when they say that word?

UUS share not only 7 principles but also 6 sources. We believe there are universal truths that are common among human beings across widely divergent religious and philosophical traditions. At one point in the 20th century the Universalists were even exploring the idea of a “religion for one world.[i]” Could we find essential religions teachings and practices that could truly include everyone?

As a practice, we tend to emphasize our commonality of our shared humanity. That’s why I love to use metaphors from science and nature instead of traditional religious language. Anyone who lives in the northeast as we do has a common experience of the lengthening nights, and the bare and dormant deciduous trees common in winter here. And we can all see with our own eyes that each year the days grow long, and the seemingly bare and lifeless things become green and grow again.

When our differences threaten to divide us, when they seem insurmountable or scary, it is a useful practice to look for the things we have in common, the universal experiences that connect us with al of life, and to establish that foundation.

Here’s the tricky bit- in the part of California where I used to live, the rains come in autumn and the dry brittle grass and dormant trees spring back to life. In a good year the drenching rains turn the hills a beautiful emerald green in time for the winter solstice. By summer the rains have stopped, and the hills turn yellow and the dry season begins. If I wanted to talk about those times when your spirit feels barren, and hope is hard to find, I could say “like March” to you folks, and you would know what I mean. Oh my …that long grey month where we begin to fear that spring will just never come. But if I said “like the hills in March” to someone from the San Francisco area, their mind would conjure images of brilliant green hills at the peak of life.

We UUs are very theologically diverse even in our little congregation. We were raised in all kinds of different traditions, or without any tradition at all. We have different life experience, and have biologically unique eyes and brains and ears. Part of the reason we have 7 principles is that we figured that, diverse as we are, here are 7 ideas that could unite us, principles we could build community around. But if whenever we talk about theological ideas at all, we are going to run into our differences.

And some differences matter. In this region after the deciduous trees bare their leaves, we see the green patches on the hills where the evergreen trees become visible in a new way. For us the Evergreen is a reminder that life persists even in the cold snowy season. Donna told us a beautiful story one year from a native American tradition that lifted up the shelter and food that evergreens provide our small animal friends in winter. Evergreens were part of a winter celebration called “Yule” in the Germanic peoples, whose seasons were much like ours. At some point the evergreen tree got folded into the Christmas celebration even though the part of the world where Jesus was born is not known for its Douglas fir trees. So when you see an evergreen tree over the winter, maybe it reminds you of the birth of Jesus. Or maybe you think of it as a winter solstice tree, honoring the cycles of the earth. Or maybe it’s just something fun that Americans do, part of the great shopping party that happens at this time of year. For many folks who are don’t celebrate Christmas, the image of the classic evergreen tree is a symbol of cultural imperialism.

That’s the wonderful thing about symbols -- each of us imbues them with a lifetime of experience and observation and cultural associations. A fir tree in winter means something unique to each of us will be different, even when we are looking at the exact same tree.

This is the challenge and the gift for we who are Unitarian Universalists. When we gather in community on a Sunday morning, some folks who are humanists or atheists are relieved and feel fully included when we talk about our human commonality using the language of the real observable world. When we talk about the hushed beauty of a winter’s night drawing us to introversion and contemplation, the reassurance of the scientific surety that days will soon be getting longer and the inevitability of spring is all the reassurance a person could need.

Others of us who gather in these same chairs, miss spiritual language when it is absent. They find words like “God” and “spirit” and “prayer” a helpful reminder that they are not alone, that they are part of something bigger. For some hearing the story of a child born 2000 years ago helps make sense of this season and this time of year.

Our challenge is to listen beyond the words. Sometimes words that seem to separate us actually reveal hidden similarities when we inquire more deeply. Sometimes we use the same word to mean totally different things. We lose something in translation when we minimize or silence our differences

The gift of our UU tradition is discovering those places of connection, the places where we are united. Our gift is also uncovering the amazing depth of the true diversity of our experience, like all the bright lights in a dark winter’s sky hiding behind the word “star.”



[i] https://www.uuworld.org/articles/religion-common-thread

What my little dog meant...

Sometimes my little dog Trey comes to the kitchen holding a toy in his mouth. He looks at me, he looks at the back door. What do you think that might mean? I generally assume it means he wants to go outside.

But why is he bringing a toy with him? He's kind of a nervous dog so maybe it gives him a sense of security? Maybe it's his transitional object?

But the thing is, most times he leaves it outside.

Maybe he likes the way it smells when it’s been outside? Maybe he’s perfuming it?

Whenever I try to "help" by bringing it back inside, he brings it right back out.

Maybe there’s something wrong with it? Maybe it has fleas?

What do you think it might mean? Because he won’t tell me. He knows a lot of words, like “toy” and “outside” but I don’t speak dog very well apparently.

He started bringing more and more stuffed toys outside until every one of his toys were out there. We used to argue with him about this, where I would grab the toy from him on his way out the door, and say “toys stay inside” but it didn’t work.

One winter there was a whole line of them that froze over and were there until the thaw came. We got him a couple new toys for Christmas, and he brought them all outside too.

Then one time we had mice in our house, and he would stand and stare at the wall, wherever he heard the sound. He would lay with his nose under the fridge, where we already suspected mice were living

When spring came, he started doing the same thing outside. He would go lay with his head in the hole the groundhog dug or sit and stare at the stone foundation of the neighbor’s house.

Our exterminator had told us that those old foundations have so many gaps in them it’s almost impossible to keep critters out.

One day he was begging to be let out, with a toy dangling out of his mouth.

He set the toy down next to the wall where he had been staring. He seemed very worried.

Then he looked at me purposefully. He looked back at wall by the toy, then at me, then at the wall.

Less than half an hour later he repeated this with another toy. He set it down by the wall, then looked at me, back at the toy looked at me. Scientists tell us that dogs do indeed communicate with that following gaze, so I think he was trying to tell me something. [i]

What do you think that might have meant?

We decided that it meant he was trying to keep a perimeter of dog smell around our house so critters wouldn’t come in. I don’t argue with him anymore, I just let him take them out and put them along that wall.

Recently, he started bring a few toys out front. I figure it might be trying to ward off the skunk that sprayed him, or the cats that like to sleep on our porch. Or maybe he just wants to let the new dog that moved in next door whose block this is. What do you think it might be?

That family next door also has a toddler, so other neighbors assume that the toys belong to the little boy and that he has dropped them; they put them on the neighbor's porch to “return them.”

Sometimes it’s really hard to know what someone is trying to communicate- even if you are both humans, even if you both speak the same language.

I’ll never really know why Trey does that thing with the toys, even though he’s tried to tell me. I tell myself lots of different stories about why, but they are just stories. I like the story where Trey and his toys are heroes saving us from being overrun by critters.

[i] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/not-bad-science/dogs-follow-the-gaze-of-humans-especially-when-there-8217-s-food-involved/