Sometimes, a deep sorrow overwhelms me. I'm missing my little dog. She was an Australian Cattle Dog who just 'showed up' one night. As I arrived home, she growled at me from a dark corner in the garage where my husband bedded her down. I gasped, prayed and walked past her, clutching my breath in my throat. I shut the door behind me and called to my husband, "What is that thing doing in our garage?" He said, too calmly for the state of terror I was in, "I fed her some oatmeal. It looks like she might stay."

Stay she did, and worked her way into my heart. She was my first and only pet. She loved me with a fierce loyalty. We did a lot of things together. Walked and talked. Climbed mountains, forded streams, once fought off a pack of dogs, walked against blizzard winds on Lake Michigan's shores, and endured the leash on the streets of Gainesville. We even won Walmart's "Dog of the Year" contest, with her nabbing the prize: 3 bags of ol' Roy.

I called her Lady Laptop Hasse, because whenever I sat on our outside bench, she put her head in my lap. She spent hours lying near the garden fence, while I weeded and hoed my crops.

Now, she's gone. She was terribly frightened of gunshots and fireworks. On New Year's Eve, when my stepdaughter's neighbors were doing their patriotic noise-making in Gainesville (and I wasn't there to comfort her), my little Lady Laptop ran away.

Her fierce, surprising loyalty to me I never understood. When I started to realize how she clung to me, looked to me, wanted me and only me, and how she loved to do anything with me, I started to understand why people are so nuts about their dogs. And then I started rethinking a poem I had studied in high school. Written in 1893, by Francis Thompson, it is entitled "The Hound of Heaven." I loved its rhythm and its beautiful use of words, although much of it I still don't understand. But there is a refrain in it that haunts me, and forever will. Thompson goes through different stages of his life, and then after each stage comes the mournful and majestic words, describing the Hound's trackings:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days…

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter…

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat-and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet

'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.'

Still with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

Came on, the following Feet,

And a Voce above their beat-

'Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.'

Having tried his hand at human love, and "all swift things for swiftness did I sue;" Thompson continues his lament, describing his search for meaning in nature: "I," he said,

Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.

I knew all the swift importings

On the wilful face of skies…

All that's born or dies…

I laughed in the morning's eyes.

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,

Heaven and I wept together,

And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; …

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.

For ah! We know not what each other says,

These things and I; In sound I speak-

Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.

Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;…

My thirsting mouth.

Nigh and nigh draws the chase,

With unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;

And past those noised Feet

A voice comes yet more fleet-

'Lo, naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

How the Hound pursues him! He will not let Thompson go. How He pursues us, this loving Hound of Heaven. How majestically high above a mere dog's loving loyalty is His fierce love for us.

Dear reader, embrace Him, whose feet's "undaunted instancy" chased us down our labyrinthine ways. "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me." Thank you, Lady Laptop. Thank you Sir Francis Thompson. And thank you, O thank you, dear Hound of Heaven! Please never stop your loving pursuit, for Lo, all things flee me, if I fleest Thee.

Columnist Chris Hasse, 15 year resident of Calhoun County, will hold a series of Bible study meetings at Upper West Fork Community Park through May 10. Click Here for further information.