The young man holding the dog's leash turned around as he heard us approaching, and he said in a soft voice, "Hi.  Um, I'm wondering if you could please put your dog on a leash or just hold him?  My dog's really scared of big dogs."  A Pit Bull, scared? I thought.  "Sure, I said.  I'm sorry about that."  "The thing is," said the other guy, the one with the cigarette, "we just adopted her, and she loves people.  But she's really scared of other dogs.  We don't know for sure, but we think she got mistreated."  They went on to explain that a neighbor, "a really sketchy guy," had bred the dog for puppies, but after he had sold all the puppies, he was taking the dog to a shelter.  "We just couldn't let that happen.  Nobody would want her.  They would've, well, you know," and he made a slashing motion across his throat, looking anxiously at the dog, as if she might understand what he was saying.

Suddenly I realized that these weren't really men, they were hardly more than boys, and I realized that they were brothers.  They told me that they've been trying to socialize their dog so that she would be more comfortable with other dogs.  "We have two other dogs," one boy said proudly.  "Chihuahuas.  She just loves them.  We think maybe she thinks they're puppies, and since she must miss her babies, she's adopted them."  "What's your dog's name?" I asked.  They told me they had named her Princess.  That's when I noticed her pink, glittery collar and matching leash.  I couldn't help but grin.  We talked a bit about dog training and what a nice day it was for a walk, and I asked the boy with the cigarette to be really careful about smoking in the woods, with the trail so dry.  He said, "Wow.  You're right.  I shouldn't be smoking in here.  My mom's trying to get me to quit anyway."  He took a bottle of water from his back pocket and poured it on the cigarette, checking to be sure it was out.  "Why don't you go around us?  We're just letting Princess sniff around and go slow." 

As I waved goodbye and wished them luck with Princess, I thought of how I had completely misjudged those two young men.  They weren't dangerous, or even tough.  They were gentle guys, too tender-hearted to allow a dog to end up in a shelter, and completely respectful of my request about the cigarette.  I had decided in a matter of seconds that I knew them--or I knew their type--based on their style of clothes and hair, their tattoos, their dog's breed, even their allegiance to professional hockey.

Last Sunday, our reading from Acts was about Christian leaders in Jerusalem calling Peter on the carpet for eating with and baptizing Gentiles.  Specifically, they were alarmed that Peter had baptized a man named Cornelius, who was a Roman centurion.  Peter told them that he too had been resistant at first, but finally he decided, "Who was I that I should hinder God?"  Church authorities thought they knew these Gentile converts--and they were bad news.  Peter too figured at first that Roman soldiers were all alike, and that he wanted nothing to do with this centurion, Cornelius.  As I continued along the trail last Monday, I realized that those young men were, in a way, my Cornelius.  I had decided that they were people I didn't want to be around, people I thought I knew based on their outward appearance.  I had concluded in less than three seconds that they were possibly dangerous, and almost certainly bad actors, worthy of suspicion or at the very least, extreme caution.  Once I talked to them, I realized that I had been utterly wrong about them--and even about their dog.

 Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve as a member of the President's cabinet.  She served President Franklin Roosevelt as Secretary of Labor for twelve years, President Roosevelt's entire term of office.

Perkins was born in 1880 and educated at Mount Holyoke College and Columbia University.  She became a passionate advocate for workers, seeking reform of labor laws that she thought were unjust, and for increased industrial safety standards.  She had a major role in shaping the New Deal legislation.  Following her public service, she became a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University.  She continued to be active in teaching and in social justice advocacy until her death in 1965.

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