The Hound of Heaven

In 2008, the I.R.S. processed 381,000 tax returns suggesting $2 billion in fraudulent claims. In 2011, 1.6 million returns claimed more than $12 billion in fraudulent refunds. Wondering why your tax refund is taking too long to arrive - a search engine may be on to you.

But what about the things that not even your spouse or family knows about? The times that you thought you got away with something took something from you that is tracable. You're alittle less sure of yourself, alittle more edgy, and alot more vulnerable to detection. You think you did a good job of covering your tracks. You're sure that you thought of everything that could come back to bite you. You even went to the trouble of shredding and deleting incriminating evidence.

What if there's a loose canon, religious or otherwise, that has locked onto your scent? "Doxing", like a church doxology, is praise for the personage who knows and reveals your personal habits to yourself and others if needs be. In rabid internet compounds, it's hackers posting information about you online for all the world to see. It's wicked leaks that even the good witch of Oz would try to keep out of the story. These caped crusaders of truth don't monkey around when motivated by forces that are green with envy and black with bile. "I'll get you, my pretty!" is pretty scary coming from the keepers of the key to your secrets.

Hot on the trail of your mail, G-string and A.O.L. (all of life) accounts, it's a process of elimination. Breaching security, tapping wires, and sifting clouds provide more than enough excitement for internet bloodhounds with an ax to grind. A reduced jail sentence is the only compromise to your compromised version of national security.

If this doesn't put the fear of God in you, then try reading Francis Thompson's mystical poem, The Hound of Heaven. You would think that the divine personage would not be equated with a dog; but that's dog-backward for you. You would think that the all-knowing One would be looking to exact punishment from you, not surrender to unyielding love. You would run and hide from the Spirit that is always at and with you, breathing down your neck. You would recoil from the approach of this Being who tirelessly pursues you throughout the years. And you would forget how useless it is to resist the Hound of Heaven.

Like a domesticated animal, whose future has been linked inexorably with your own, you will have a Best Friend who needs you as much as you need a trusted companion. Then cry and rejoice that you can still be the person your Best Friend believes you to be. You just have to surrender to the only Authority that matters.