But ask the animals
and they will teach you;
the birds of the air,
and they will tell you;
ask the plants of the earth
and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea
will declare to you.
Who among all these
does not know
that the hand of God
has done this?
In God’s hand is the life
of every living thing and the
breath of every human being.
~Job 12:7-10

Yesterday we celebrated our annual Blessing of the Animals in a worship service that extended the table to include those faithful companions and confidantes that normally get to sleep in on Sunday mornings. This is truly one of my favorite worship experiences of the year coming in just an inch below Christmas Eve. The joy that fills the room is palpable and also audible. Once you mix into the choir of human voice, the varied sounds of barks, meows and birdsong, it is difficult to even describe the sheer happiness that is experienced. This service brings music, words, scripture, and prayer all together with what is so often missing from worship…..laughter!

The service concludes with individual human blessings of the animals gathered. I have always been touched with the ways in which people line up, as they have been taught over the years, much as they come to receive the sacrament, and wait patiently to have their pet blessed. Standing in line will be dachshund and dalmatian,corgi and cat, rat and Rottweiler, all together in one place. In print it may sound like pandemonium but, believe me, it is not. It is pure sweetness.

Yesterday as I held each animal(except the hamster!), cupping its face in my hands, I asked those with words the name they had given their pet. Emmett. Cookie. Alita. Hoover. Ruthie. Beegee. The names rolled off their tongues like honey. And as I uttered the words: “May God bless you and keep you safe all your days and may you continue to be a faithful companion.”, I became aware of how nearly every animal calmed, looked me square in the eye and received my words. It was a holy moment for me.

I thought of the scripture we had read from Job……but ask the animals and they will teach you. I thought about Job and the multiple messages of this wisdom story nestled in the texts we name as sacred. Job, who wrestled with God and argued till he was blue in the face and covered with boils, tried desperately to make sense of a life that had been troubled and unfair. After each round in the battling ring, the Holy One would try to bring Job to a place of stillness and remind him of the many ways he was blessed even in the midst of suffering. It is a story humans have lived out over and over. It seems it is a difficult lesson to internalize.

But yesterday, as I gazed into the brown and green eyes of animal after animal, I heard the voice of the Sacred, reminding me to allow the animals to teach me. To teach me how to calm my fidgeting body long enough to be in the present moment. To teach me how to hear the sound of my name called and to respond. To teach me how to look in the face of blessing and to receive it with every fiber of my being. To teach me that I am loved unconditionally and that loyalty is a good thing.

Yesterday I blessed and was blessed in return. I am pretty certain it almost always works this way. For humans, it is just a more difficult lesson to learn.