Wuff with the Smooth: The gospel according to Waffle

A local man of the cloth recently offered me some advice. He said, “Let your little pooch be your spiritual director.”

I raised an eyebrow: Surely this priest must have lost the run of himself. How could any dog, let alone the most bumbling, hairy fool to ever drool on a bedroom slipper have any impact on anyone’s spirituality?

And yet, this advice stuck with me, like a sticky snag of goosegrass you might pick up on your way through a field. It wasn’t until last weekend that I finally cottoned on to his meaning.

You might remember from a few weeks ago that an ongoing debate at home was whether or not we would take Waffle with us on our holiday to Wexford – Ireland’s Sunny South East. Well, the ‘will we, won’t we’ powwows at the kitchen table continued right up until the eve of our departure when it was finally decided that no, Waffle wouldn’t be accompanying the clan on the road south. While the little humans were disappointed, I wasn’t. I understood a little better perhaps, the practicalities of a Waffle holiday and all that that would entail.

Anyway, away we headed. Six days, 800 miles, three restaurant dinners, two beach trips, a trad session in a pub and one unexpectedly profound walk in the woods – we did it all, and did it without Waffle.

At one point, as we were relaxing in a friend’s house in Blackwater in Wexford, one of the little humans said, “I wonder what Waffle is doing now.”

I didn’t reply but what I thought was, “I couldn’t give a monkeys what that clown is doing.”

At another point, during the walk through the woods on the Raven Walking Trail the same little human suggested, “Waffle would have loved this.”

Again, I stayed quiet but I had to admit, the Hairy Clown would’ve loved it. He would have loved sniffing through the undergrowth and around the trees. He would have loved the hike through the dunes too and the vastness of Curacloe beach. He might even have enjoyed yowling through the trad session.

Belatedly, the priest’s goosegrass started to ring.

However, it wasn’t until the vacation had ended and we returned home that I finally realised what the man of the cloth had been saying.

As I manoeuvred the car through the gate and we crunched to a halt on the gravel, a hairy face immediately appeared at the kitchen window. You could tell even from his face that the tail-wag had reached new proportions of intensity.

“Open the door and let him out before we unload the car,” Herself suggested. “And let him outside in case he pees.”

As I moved towards the front door with the keys, Waffle’s head disappeared from the window in anticipation of our glorious reacquaintance.

As soon as I opened the door, the most bumbling hairy fool erupted from the house, barking and bouncing. He went to each of us in turn, starting with myself, jumping as high as his stunted legs would allow. The tongue was out and he whined and barked and yipped with delight. To all intents and purposes, you’d have thought we’d been away for years instead of days.

And the cock crew…

I understood at last.

It was in Waffle’s barking, bouncing, bumbling welcome. It lives in his faults and his faithfulness. It is Waffle.

I finally saw it: Inspiration, in the most unexpected of fools.

Whilst I might stop short of regarding him as my spiritual director, I see now that there are lessons to be learned from everyone – and perhaps especially from a bumbling hairy fool whose congenital attitude is loyalty and love.

“I wonder what Waffle is doing now,” no-one will ever say again.