Green or Yellow?

A few weeks ago, one of our pastors preached on the “little foxes” described in The Song of Solomon 2:15. One key point was that they are a metaphor for things that can enter our lives and push us away from God, little by little. While an excellent message, I found my mind wandering to our dog Sasha, Annie’s predecessor. Hang on, this relates.

While living in Maryland, we had a fenced backyard and lots of wildlife – deer, possums, the occasional raccoon, and one particularly irritable groundhog that we named Gary. I’m pretty certain that the plethora of wildlife had something to do with the small jungle taking up the back half of the yard. In my defense, we did eventually clean up all that foliage and made it look nice...shortly before we moved.

You have to understand that Sasha, our German Shepherd, considered the backyard to be her domain, which was quite understandable. She chased all the animals away when they invaded her space. She discovered many things in the process. For example, she found out that deer can jump straight up and over an 8-foot fence without a running start. She was more confused than anything when the deer suddenly disappeared. However, deer magic aside, two particular incidents stick in my mind of Sasha defending her territory.

First, she would periodically go after Gary. Gary was old, slow, and rather plump, so when he ran it looked like waves of groundhog fur rippling over his tiny legs. Gary was also not to be trifled with. I remember one afternoon in particular. Sasha was barking like crazy and running around Gary in circles so he couldn’t escape. Meanwhile, Gary was up on his hind legs, claws extended, and hissing fiercely. I ran into our backyard at full speed to rescue our dog from imminent harm. You don’t get to be Gary’s age by being a lousy fighter. Gary was a cute little creature, but his outward appearance hid a much more ferocious side – something we had not previously seen.

Despite the incident with Gary, Sasha’s defense of her territory continued unabated. The second memorable occurrence happened one night at roughly 3:30 a.m. We woke up to Sasha going nuts downstairs. In true husbandly fashion, I grabbed a flashlight and went to check things out. There was Sasha, front paws on the backyard door, looking out the window and barking like crazy. I learned many years ago that if you have someone or something on your property that shouldn’t be there, especially at nighttime, you let the dog out first to handle the issue. Sure enough, I let Sasha out the back door and, looking like some sort of furry missile, she launched herself off our deck and into the overgrown part of the yard. I heard snarling and saw lots of brush moving, and then I saw something I’ll never forget.

As I shined my flashlight on that part of the lawn, I saw two bright yellow eyes flash back at me, as well as a set of menacing dark green eyes. The fight in the bushes quickly turned into a chase, but when I could finally make out the animals, I had a huge surprise. The bright yellow eyes belonged to a fox, and the more sinister-appearing green eyes belonged to my beloved dog. It was completely reversed from what I had first assumed. The point here is that we didn’t see those sides of Gary or Sasha until they were engaged in a ferocious fight (in case you’re wondering, the fox escaped, which was fine with me).

Something like those two stories can happen in the world of public policy. No, lobbyists do not chase legislators around a backyard, although it may sometimes feel like that when they’re cornered by a lobbyist at the Capitol. However, humans try to attach labels to people: friend, foe, nice, angry, trustworthy, and so on. As NDFA, we also need to make those judgment calls in the political arena: who to work with, how best to approach someone with a request, and whether they support our collective values.

I’m happy to say that we get it correct the vast majority of times, but it’s sometimes very unclear who to trust or how well they will work with us through the legislative process. As somebody said to me recently, “Your values may be black and white, but the political world where you work every day can be very gray.” For this reason, we ask that you continue to pray that we may have wisdom and always follow God’s lead in plotting our course in the political arena, especially as we prepare for the 2027 legislative session. We need to remember that those green eyes may look ominous at first, but they may belong to a friend who will have your back when things get tough.