The Concrete Dog
Facebook Post
Bud Powell,
April 18, 2011
What has four legs, barks at squirrels, chases rabbits and
cats, chews bones, has hair, two ears, a tail, is called "man's best
friend," licks your hand, and is full of cement?
Arf?
I
used this "riddle" for years as a joke on my students. I think
I put it on a test one time just for fun. The joke, of course, was on the
person reading the "riddle." You pose the riddle,
wait for a decent amount of time until someone says "We give up, what is
the answer?"
You
reply, "A dog" and turn back to your paper grading or whatever.
A moment goes by, and some one asks, "Wait,
wait. What about the cement?"
That's
when you look up, say, "I put that in to make it hard," and go back
to your work. Then the students realize that the joke is on them, they
roll their eyes and give the Al Hartman response: GROAN. Your operation has
been a success, and they go home and play the joke on their siblings or
parents, if they have no self-respect.
The
joke, of course, is in the answer, "I put that in to make it
hard." Does "it" mean the riddle or the cement, or the
dog? The joke wouldn't work except in the nature of a pun, which depends
upon a double meaning. As applied to cement, "hard" means not
soft, not pliable, solid, something on which you might bang your head or bloody
your knuckles. As applied to a riddle, "hard" means not easy,
difficult. Math can be hard in the second sense, and oak wood can be hard
in the first sense. An iron will can be hard in the second sense, but not
in the first. The first sense is the proper or the "concrete"
[another pun]; the second sense is the figurative or the improper [but real]
sense. A math problem may be hard, but not soft; jello
is not hard, but that doesn't mean it is easy.
When
Jesus said that he was a shepherd, a door, a lamb, and had the keys of death
and hell, these words must be taken in the figurative sense, or you end up with
something that has hinges, wool, a crook, made of brass or iron, etc., all at
the same time, an absurdity. God is light is of the same order, or you
might be worshiping the sunlight if you are outside or a GE bulb at night.
But
in the "riddle" neither meaning of the word "hard"
fits. It fits the cement if you use the proper meaning, but the proper
meaning doesn't fit the riddle itself. When I put cement in the list of
attributes, I didn't make the riddle difficult, I made it
impossible. A hard math puzzle is not an impossible one.
Climbing a mountain may be difficult, but it isn't necessarily
impossible. So the "solution" is a joke on the reader, asking
him to accept two meanings of the word "hard" at the same time; all
he can do is "GROAN" like Al Hartman. He's been had.
You
might indeed fill a dog with cement, and provoke Tom King in the process.
You might get a hose from a cement truck, pry the dog's mouth open and fill it
with cement. But it would no longer be a dog, but a door stop,
maybe. You also would probably get a call from the Humane Society, or PETA if you are really unlucky.
But
there is more here, and illustrates the absurdity of the way people read the
Bible. To insist upon the "proper," the "concrete,"
meaning of words in every case reduces it to an exercise in absurdity. It
doesn't make the Bible "hard" to understand,
it makes it impossible, just as adding concrete to the "riddle"
didn't make it difficult; it made it impossible.
When
we read of the attributes of God, we must understand that the words that are
used in Scripture are carefully chosen by the Holy Spirit to convey real truth
about God, but we must also understand that earthly things are used as figures
of something that we could not at all understand in itself.
God is a Spirit; a flaming fire; a Father; A Spirit, an Eagle, a Man of
War, a Rock, a Refuge, a Shepherd, a Judge, a Door, a King, a Husband, a
Friend, One who Tears in Pieces, etc., etc. If you always take the
"concrete" meaning you will be wrapped in--not difficulty, but
impossibility--and your mind will whirl and fly apart and leave you in
perpetual GROANINGS, irrational and lost.
The
result is a spiritual and mental bottomless pit [what is the concrete meaning
of THAT term]. This does not mean that the Bible is a riddle book that
means whatever you decide that it means, but it does mean that God has first of
all revealed Himself in the book of Creation, which is explained to us in the
Book of Books, the Bible, that speaks of lilies, sparrows, stewards, sons,
brides, feasts, marriages, and shepherds and mountains and smoke and shakings
and new births and baptisms, etc., and endows these earthly things with
heavenly meanings to lift our hearts and minds above the earth to heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. There is no Al Hartman GROANINGS in this
wonderful grace, but understanding and wisdom.
Have
a good day. Gotcha.
