Vachon Imagined

When I was training my dog not to jump on the couch, I learned something important:

He could be retrained through motivational learning.

And oh by the way, good luck.

To anyone attempting this, bring treats.

Lots and lots of treats.

Because I discovered my dog’s favorite motivation.

Cheese.

Oh, that little glutton would do anything for cheese.

I could barely say “Che—” before that dog was running toward me like a bat out of hell, except apparently hell had just discovered cheddar.

Che—

He’s gone.

And humans aren’t much different.

We hear half a sentence and decide we know who someone is.

Demon!

Hang her high, you lowly mortals!

Someone says the wrong thing.

Someone wears the wrong thing.

Someone believes the wrong thing.

Someone laughs the wrong way.

And suddenly we’ve built an entire religion around our judgment of them.

Meanwhile, we’re just animals looking for cheese.

So, take a seat on the endless couch of merry-go-rounds.

Relax.

We’re not nearly as sophisticated as we think we are.

We learn through reward and punishment.

Do this, get cheese.

Do that, lose cheese.

Good dog.

Bad dog.

Good human.

Bad human.

We’ve been training one another like this forever.

Someone makes the story about themselves, and hardness rushes in.

She’s so selfish.

He’s so cruel.

They’re just bad people.

And there we go.

We’ve taken a moment of life moving through another human being and hardened it into an identity.

We forget that reality is moving through us too.

We take something alive, something temporary, something passing through—and we make it permanent.

We harden it.

Then, before long, we’re walking around permanently hardened against a life that is still moving, still existing, still loving.

A life that loves the hardened.

The righteous.

The unrighteous.

The free.

The afraid.

The people who get it right.

And the people who haven’t got a damn clue.

Until someone comes along and says:

Hey.

You always had the cheese.

You didn’t have to earn it.

You didn’t have to behave perfectly for it.

You didn’t have to become good enough to deserve it.

You just had to learn how to trust it.

And suddenly you’re walking in more cheese than Wisconsin can produce, with enough left over to put a cheesehead on every Green Bay Packer twice.

You just forgot.

So put down the punishment.

Put down the reward.

Put down the endless measuring of who deserves what.

Rest.

Rest in the body you’ve been given.

Rest in the life that’s already moving through you.

Because you are alive.

You are walking in it.

And it is walking in you.

You were never separated from the cheese.

You just forgot where it was.

And where it lives.