Rachel Anne Ridge. Flash. Carol Stream IL: Tyndale, 2015. Print.

Flash is subtitled The Homeless Donkey Who Taught Me about Life, Faith, and Second Chances. The book has a kind of cutesy cover of a donkey holding a daisy in its mouth—like Ferdinand, the bull with the delicate ego? The donkey itself is not especially cute, nor is the book named after him. As I was reading Flash, I was not thinking of the typical adopted animal book. Such books can be sentimental and entertaining. For example, I still think Old Yeller is one of the saddest movies ever made.

For one thing, Flash is not really a chronological tale—at least, not after the first chapter which tells us how the Ridge family from the same Texas country town as American sniper Chris Kyle took in an abandoned young donkey and named it Flash. It is not even like Wesley the Owl (a personal favorite) which, like this book, deals with some hard questions. It may sound odd, but Flash the book reminded me of Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

As Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance examined the question of what it means to do something well, so Flash examines what it means to live life well. The donkey Flash seemed to know how to get the most out of the circumstances of his life, and with the author’s help we can learn to make the most of ours. One chapter compares the thousands who turned out for Chris Kyle’s funeral procession with the services for a lonely old lady who died with no family and only a hospice nurse in attendance. How can we make our life count? It is not by being rich or famous. Jesus called it an abundant life. (John 10:10)

Flash is not especially didactic or preachy. Indeed, my favorite line from the book is actually a quotation from C. S. Lewis: “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different.” (178) That is one of Ridge’s main themes. We do change. But if we head in the direction of the life well lived, changes will happen, and the important changes will be good. We might not always be aware of them, but we will be able to look back and say, “What a journey! Isn’t life most interesting?”

I should mention, too, that while the book does mention a few deaths as already noted, the donkey lives. According to the author’s blog, Flash is still alive. So, no, this is not like Old Yeller or The Yearling or countless cat and dog tales where the pet dies at the end. Flash does not ignore the reality of death, but it is primarily a celebration of life…with hints on how to enjoy your own.