(Look, I hate to be crude, but what else do I call it?)
There were a few times I had to pick up random stray animal poo outside my apartment (hidden in the leaves ... sigh) and many times, especially toward the end of his life, that I picked up the poo of my best friend, Baby Snickers.
This summer, I've picked up a lot of poo belonging to Asha, Joe's (and now my, too, I suppose) dog. So he didn't have to get up extra early all summer to walk Asha, I have frequently been walking her in the mornings. I meet her downstairs, clip her leash on her collar, and get going. There's a path around the neighborhood we follow every day, and almost every day she goes to the bathroom and I pick it up.
Now, if you'd asked me if I'd prefer for the first thing I do every morning to be picking up dog poop, I'd probably have said, no thank you. And, although I do love Asha, it's not as though picking up poop thrills me.
But here's what I realized the other day.
Picking up dog poo is humbling.
We're the masters of the dogs/they're our pets/they belong to us/they live on our schedule. None of that matters when it comes to picking up their poo. They poo, they watch us pick it up.
(I don't know about you, but no one picks up my poo. Just saying.)
And as I picked up Asha's poo the other morning, I really thought about how humbling an action it is. It doesn't matter how cool I am (I'm not), what job I have, what I think about myself, etc., when Asha poos, I have to pick it up.
Starting your day every day by picking up poo is incredibly humbling. It's been an outstanding reminder (which I need) that the Son of Man came to serve and not to be served. Which means that I, too, am here to serve and not to be served. I am especially thankful for this reminder as the school year is getting ready to start.
None of us, including me -- especially me -- is too good to serve. No matter what that service is.
And that's the lesson in dog poo.
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