Old Men

“The spiritual eyesight improves as the physical eyesight declines.” - Plato

This Plato must be one of the wisest humans to have walked the earth. I have noticed lately that my sight has gone a bit foggy. My Beth says that this is called cataracts. As my view of the world has dimmed what I get out of it seems to have become brighter than ever. I seem to take more time to smell things like the new flowers that were planted in the garden. I have started to listen more. I find my ears and nose are still working just fine but I feel as though this may not be a forever thing either. I have gotten better at the game of find. Though my sister was breed for such things I have grown more patient and find things more easily than she does. I put my nose straight in the air and take a sniff. I catch the sent on the wind and go straight to the lost object.
I have also found that my coat has begun to change as well. At first Beth started calling me gray beard. My muzzle was once a nice shade of brown and now it is almost pure white. But it wasn’t until a few nights ago that Beth made a startling discovery. My eyebrows! They are going white too. My eyebrows have always caught human attention as they are so expressive and contrast so much with my black face. But the thing that made me the most disheartened of all was when Beth noticed and then said “I guess I am going to have to start calling you “Old Man River” and then proceeded to call her mom and giggle about it over the phone.
I may be going gray but I am sure no “Old Man River”. I am still young at heart. And as we can probably apply Plato’s theory to spiritual youth as well, I am as young as ever!

Photo from the Jim Warren official website: http://www.jimwarren.com/site/index.php?option=com_gallery2&Itemid=57&g2_itemId=467