April 25, 2005

TODAY'S TUNE [ON/OFF]

"You're My Best Friend"


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"Old Drum"

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Our sweet mini-dachshund, Ruby, brings such light into our home. She relieves my husband's daily stress like a thirsty little sponge and consistently showers us with unconditional love. (Of course, our three cats want me to mention that they, too, are quite wonderful!!)

~ Chelle ~

From the Inside Out
"OLD DRUM"

Ever wonder where the old saying, "A man’s best friend is his dog," came from? Well, if you guessed Warrensburg, Missouri, you were right!

Senator George Graham Vest won a court battle, and the ears of dog lovers everywhere, when he paid his famous tribute to the dog during the 1870 Burden vs. Hornsby court case in Warrensburg.

His speech included the line, "The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog."

The "eulogy to the dog" won the case for Charles Burden whose favorite hound, "Old Drum," was shot by a neighbor, Leonidas Hornsby, who had sworn to kill the first dog that came onto his land.

Although Hornsby had hunted with Drum and acknowledged him to be one of the best hunting dogs he had ever seen, he carried out his threat when one night a dog was found prowling in his yard. That dog was Old Drum.

Burden immediately sued Hornsby for damages and the trial quickly became one of the strangest in the history of this part of the country. Each man was determined to win the case. After several appeals, the case finally reached the Supreme Court of Missouri.

Burden was awarded $50 in damages for the loss of his favorite hunting dog. Vest’s eulogy to the dog, which he made in his final appeal to the jury, won the case and became a classic speech.

Through the direction of the Warrensburg Chamber of Commerce and coordinated efforts by many dog lovers across the country, Old Drum was immortalized in a statue on the Johnson County Courthouse lawn in Warrensburg on September 23, 1958.

While no record was kept of the last half of Vest’s tribute to a dog, the first portion has fortunately been preserved. It was this speech that originated the saying, "A man’s best friend is his dog." George Graham Vest speaking:

"Gentlemen of the Jury, the best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful.

"Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith.

"The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it the most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action.

"The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

"The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.

"Gentleman of the Jury, a man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side.

"He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that encounters the roughness of the world.

"He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

"If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies.

"When the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death."

Senator George Graham Vest (1830-1904): US Senator from Missouri, Confederate States Congressman, Confederate Veteran, attorney, famed orator, conservationist and champion for the rights of Native Americans.

~From www.Warrensburg.org

To Read Many More Heartwarming Stories & Poetry

Yes You Can!
FIND SPIRITUAL NURTURING IN NATURE

Busy, complex lives in society at times can seem to kill the spark of life in us. Dealing with our boss at work or carting the kids to this or that event, we have no time for us. What about our spirit — where is it in all this hurry? Hopefully not dead, but certainly buried good and far down somewhere. Just to survive in a social circle or a career, we may always have to put off achieving awakening to who we really are in our very depths. At times, we can feel smothered, even obliterated. There is an urgency then to recover what we once had, as kids, when we climbed, ran, danced, and played without thought of anything but the moment. Fortunately we have all around us, at any time, both the place and the spirit of that time we long to. It is time to rediscover how to move our bodies, rhythmically and magically, in the spirit of Nature.

In Nature, we can let go of the person we have to be at work and in society, merging in the rhythm of the land and the seasons. We can walk freely in the hills or on the beach, letting our bodies move with their natural rhythm they crave. Merging in the rhythm of the land and the seasons, say, on nature trails or in the mountains, we can feel in our bodies — the wonder of mountain upon stream-filled mountain with azure haze spilling out from the clouds.

In that wondrous beauty, far away from artifice and social care, we feel a vastness hugely bigger than ourselves — than our job at home, than all our associations, appointments and obligations. Like the small human figure in a Chinese nature landscape, we are a tiny speck in the vast world of forces much bigger than us. As we swing our arms in the bracing wind and the rhythm of our breathing harmonizes with our footstep, we perceive in our humble happiness an opening through which we can speak to our original self, the face of brightness which we can find by penetrating our conditioning and habits.

Working the land can also help bring us into harmony with nature and our deepest self. In fact, the great horticulturist Alan Chadwick called gardening true religion: the epitome and mother of all true culture, where by devotion to working the soil, we contact our original nature and partner with Nature to enliven the earth. Through such service to the earth, gardeners help to calm restless thoughts and attain glimpses of the Tao.

Nature embodies what the Buddhists call Emptiness, the meditative cleansing of the mind. Immersion in mountains, rivers, and forests that are far from civilized comforts symbolize that complete merging of our ego self back into the peace of nature. Perhaps we get some taste of the battle for the supreme experience of Oneness with the divine waged by such nature lovers as St. Francis and of the Buddha, who resolved not to leave the wilderness until enlightenment came. All such great figures knew about the wilds of nature and about the floods of anxious, negative thoughts that boil over in the mind in a setting purified of all the feverish activity of humanity. The Buddha under the bodhi tree won pure freedom from the anxieties of the mind.

That is why we today have the rare chance to draw on the rich spiritual benefits such brave souls won. There is a way to gain some of their peace. Out in nature, we can contact and feel in our bodies a harmonious spirit. And in our own private space, we can practice passage meditation, which engages our highest faculties and connects our deepest being with the serene beauty of a calm lake or high mountain top. By concentrating deeply, say, on a nature passage in The Path of Direct Awakening, we gradually gain some of the peace won by those brave souls who broke free into the enlightened state. Their peace becomes ours, if we only want it and ask for it.

I suggest meditating on nature passages for a period of half an hour and submerging oneself in nature at least some part of every day. This brings our life closer to the spirit that flows through nature. Through life in nature, service to the earth, and meditation on the words of enlightened nature poets, we imprint upon ourselves the peace of a mountain lake, a far off stream, or a beautifully tilled field. This will help us to:

1) Pull back from stress;
2) Defeat worry;
3) Reverse bad habits;
4) Give up the compulsion to control;
5) Elevate our self image; and
6) Contact the highest reality and harmonize our life with it.

Dr. Stephen Ruppenthal is the author of The Path of Direct Awakening: Passages for Meditation,
co-author of Eknath Easwaran's edition of The Dhammapada, and the author of Keats and Zen.
Dr. Ruppenthal is an international workshop leader in passage meditation and in courses for those
looking for end of life spiritual care and for the spiritual step component of twelve-step programs.
Visit Stephen's work at: www.DirectAwakenings.com

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