And Mary held
the infant
In her arms
new to the world,
fresh gift of her
labored body.

As it was in the beginning
is now and ever shall be
world without end.
Amen

I wrote this poem for the church’s Advent devotional this year. I titled it ‘Mary’s Dreaming’ but the truth of the matter is, the words are what I believe most mothers dream at some conscious level or one that floats below the surface of their knowing. At a Christmas gathering on Wednesday, another person read the poem aloud and affirmed that, indeed, this is what she has longed for her own children, now all grown up, and far from that time when they can be swaddled and held safe. It was an honor to have it read but also to have it affirmed that my instinct was a common one.

Yesterday, our younger son turned twenty-one, a milestone for all number of reasons. Though at eighteen, he could vote which is a signal of adulthood, twenty-one is the age the majority in our culture see as truly be a grown up. And he is. It has been amazing to watch him mature, to see his new found confidence and his love of the precious world around him. To be present to the emergence of another human being may be the greatest gift there is, whether you are parent, grandparent, teacher, neighbor. Whatever the relationship, to be present and observe another discover their gifts, understand their limitations, know what brings them joy and what crushes them, watch them overcome challenges and achieve success, is a privilege beyond comprehension or articulation.

As I reflected yesterday on the immense gift this young man has been in my life, I remembered a statement my mother made when his older brother was born. “From this day on, you will always be a parent.”, she said in all her ever-present wisdom. I knew what she meant and it took my breath away, caused me to shake a bit. No matter the age-infant, toddler, teenage, adult- I would always be a mother. I would always have some small part of my brain and my heart tuned to where my children were. I would always have concern, hope, dreams, and love for them. And, of course, as always, she has been exactly right.

In a few weeks we will gather and read the Christmas story. Children will don white robes and angels wings. Others will cover their heads with brown scarves and carry shepherd’s crooks. The older, taller chosen three will get to wear crowns and carry bejeweled boxes. All on their way to honor the Christ Child. There will be laughter and tears all wrapped up in the gift of memory and promise.

But I will listen with my mother ears for my favorite line in the story: ” And Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

“Glory be to you, O God of the night,
for the whiteness of the moon
and the infinite stretches of dark space.
Let me be learning to love the night
as I know and love the day.
Let me be learning to trust its darkness
and to seek its subtle blessings.
Let me be learning the night’s way of seeing
that in all things I may trace the mystery
of your presence.”
~J. Philip Newell

The coldness of winter has, opened the door, walked in and taken up residence in Minnesota. This has made for incredibly clear nights, a vast expanse of dark blue sky which holds a brilliant moon longing for fullness. Last night as I drove home, the darkness having descended hours before, I felt the pull of that moon. Over the weekend, it will become a glistening, white orb shining its wholeness on us. If we are about the work of staying awake in these Advent days, we would do well to take notice. To stop what is driving us.To pay attention to what fullness might look like. To listen to our own longing for wholeness. Even in the midst of deep darkness.

I still held that image of last night’s sky when I read these words of John Philip Newell this morning. I thought of how the moon seemed so beautiful last night, not because of the light, but because of the dark sky which surrounded it. The contrast made both the night sky and the evolving moon more than either could be alone. It is something to be reminded of, I think, something to ponder not only in these days before the full moon but also in this season when we speak of ‘waiting for the light’. Or as we in the Christian household often say:”Waiting for the Light.”

As I read this prayer as a part of my morning practice, what captured my attention was the phrase ‘let me be learning’. Perhaps it does not sound so unusual with Newell’s Scottish accent. But I can say definitively that I may never have spoken the words ‘let me be learning.’ That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have said it or that I certainly shouldn’t have done all it implies.

When I think of my experiences of Advent, there are so many times I would have been well served by saying aloud to myself or others such things as ‘let me be learning’ to listen more deeply and speak less often. Let me be learning to open myself to the movement of the Holy, not only in the lights and tinsel, but in the dirt and grime along the sidewalks. Let me be learning to let go of the need to create the perfect Christmas for my family or others. Let me be learning to notice the looks on the faces of children and breathe in their wonder and anticipation. Let me be learning to look for one small way the unfolding story of the Christ Child’s birth still holds hope for me. Let me be learning to take more moments to be restful and fewer to be in motion. Let me be learning how this season urges me to allow the presence of God to be born in my life, in my living.

All of these learnings hold the gifts of both darkness and light. They are illuminated and shadowed to create a fullness that, in the end, can only be experienced in the presence of these contrasts. I cannot work hard enough, plan adequately or force the wholeness by trying to shine more light or by hiding in the darkness. This is pure mystery.

Let me be learning to understand this.

” God is a great underground river that no one can dam up and no one can stop.”
~Meister Eckhart, 13th century mystic

Over the last several days I have been watching the river freeze. On my morning drive into the church, I have been aware of the slow, yet deliberate, ice that has been forming on the Mississippi River. For those of you who might think this ranks right up there with watching paint dry or grass grow, I beg to differ.

First of all, more than a week ago there were small, circular groupings of ice pieces. They seemed to want to hang out together in the middle of the river. The ice floes moved downriver with a slow, meditative pace. I am sure there was some ice at the edges of the river but for the most part the ice was gathered in these little mandalas of frozen water moving in a Zen-like fashion.

Today, everything was much different. Vast sections of the river now are covered with a solid sheet of ice. What is interesting is that these icy sheets are mostly at the bends of the river. The curves that make up the landscape between Minneapolis and St. Paul are punctuated with glistening ice that moves swiftly into moving water. I have no idea why the ice freezes in this particular way. But I am fascinated by the pattern and process.

As I was cruising along this morning, one eye on the road, careful of the slick spots caused by this weekend’s snowfall, and the other on the process of ice formations, I began to think about the strength of the still flowing water beneath and between this ice. This is a mighty river and I have seen its force and fury many times. Certainly that same power is still present. It has just collided with other powerful forces. Things like temperature, sunlight, darkness, the rhythm of the seasons.

All this ice-gazing, of course, caused me to think of how sometimes in my life things seem to be frozen in time. Or at least at a standstill with ice forming and knocking about and into my best laid plans. In those paths that have taken a turn this way or that, something powerful moves in and paralyzes whatever dream I held or hope that had such promise. These circumstances seem to derail, not only my action, but my spirit. Does this at all sound familiar to you?

But what I often forget at frozen times like these is that there is a powerful strength that moves beneath all the icy formations. Perhaps the curves or twists have held something captive and stopped me in my tracks but the breath, the creative spark, the sheer will, still moves around and past whatever is frozen in me. Sometimes it is only a matter of relaxing into the moment, of not forcing something that is not yet ready to be born. Other times it is the wisdom to hitch myself to ‘the Great Underground River’ that the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart speaks of. To allow my hopes and dreams to be carried by a force greater than myself.

At some point very soon all traffic on the river will be halted for the winter. Come to think of it, this may already have happened. I have not seen a barge making its way up or down the river for some time. When that time comes, the only prudent and logical thing to do is to stop and wait for the right moments of spring to begin to move the waters once again. The rhythm of this resting and waiting is firmly embedded in the wisdom of the way the world works.

Until then my work and the river’s is to learn from what has come to a standstill and to remember the powerful current that flows beneath and within.

“If you have ever had occasion to be out early in the morning before the dawn breaks, you will have noticed that the darkest time of night is immediately before dawn. The darkness deepens and becomes more anonymous. If you had never been to the world and never known what a day was, you couldn’t possibly imagine how the darkness breaks, how the mystery and color of a day arrive. Light is incredibly generous, but also gentle. When you attend to the way the dawn comes, you learn how light can coax the dark. The first fingers of light appear on the horizon, and ever so deftly and gradually, they pull the mantle of darkness away from the world. Quietly before you is the mystery of a new dawn, the new day.”
~John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

At a meeting I attended last night, our convener began the meeting with this reading. Afterwards I headed home and went straight for this book to reread these beautiful and evocative sentences. I was so struck with them, not only for their poetry, but because I had spent the hour or so before the meeting sitting in a cafe watching this very movement of light and darkness. I had watched the seemingly quick descending of the darkness of the day. I had watched the sky go from pale blue to shades of crimson and orange(where does that come from?) as it moved into a deep, velvety blue. The only contrast was the brilliant white of the waxing moon. The whole process had seemed like an experience of watching an enormous painting being created before my very eyes.

‘If I had never been to the world and had not known what a day was’, what might I have thought was happening? This is a concept that is nearly impossible to get your head around. And yet, in my observation, I was as clueless to the miracle of beauty that was happening as I might have been if I had never been to the world. All I could do is what humans, I believe, were created to do: observe, gasp, wonder, praise. It is the work of psalmists from the beginning of our walking-upright position in the world.

In this northern hemisphere we are walking in the darkest days. We may try to ward it off or enhance its beauty with colorful light displays that adorn homes and buildings everywhere. These holiday displays only make the darkness more pronounced. But the profound darkness also makes the lights more magical. Light and darkness are indeed strange, yet imperative, dance partners.

John O’Donohue also points out the very mysterious way in which the arrival of light in the morning is preceded by the very darkest time of the night. It is as if the Universe is saying: “Watch this. This is how dark it can really get.” All this to make us even more appreciative of the light’s arrival.

Of course, light is both reality and metaphor. We speak of people who bring light to our lives. In this season of Advent we speak of the Christ Child who will come to bring light to the world. What might we learn about the light and darkness of our days by remembering how light and dark actually work and dance with one another? Is there comfort in our knowing, in our understanding? Or does this knowledge bring on a greater fear of darkness, a more desperate longing for light?

My sense is that the answers to these questions are shaped by individual experience more than a common one. But for those who are in what they feel are the darkest days, my prayer is for a memory of the miraculous working of light. The ‘darkest before the dawn’ knowledge. And for those who are standing in the light, my prayer is for an appreciation of the gifts of both darkness and light. Those dancing partners which surround us at all times, pulling us in, spinning us, moving us gracefully and often with fits and starts. All the while holding us in the gentle and gracious Light of Holy Presence.

May it always be so. Blessed be.

“Made from earth I am
and in love with the ground,
but this urging persists,
an aching where you etched
onto tendons muscles bone nerve
a longing for leaping
a yearning to soar.”
~ Jan L. Richardson

This afternoon has been spent rifling through books looking for poetry and readings for several upcoming worship services. Anyone walking by my office must have been reminded of Bob Cratchitt bent over his desk, focused on the stacks of coins he counted for Ebeneezer Scrooge. Instead of coins, I was surrounded by books tipped open and laying askew. I think my hair may have even been a little wild where I had run my hands through it in a desperate search for the perfect expression of an Advent Sunday or Christmas Eve or Day, which happens to fall on a Sunday this year. It will be a busy 24 hours!

I was looking for phrases that expressed ‘dreaming’ to illuminate our church theme of “We Are Those Who Dream”. In my page flipping, my eyes fell on the poem above. While it did not really fit the theme, it caught my attention and I read it aloud to no one in particular but myself. It seemed to suit my mood, my frame of mind.

It snowed overnight, you see, and that always stirs something of the creative spirit within me. I know that to many people this seems odd. Creativity is for warm weather, for lazy summer days when you can loll about allowing fresh ideas to spring up like blooming flowers popping up all around. Creativity is for September, when that school-gene gets resurrected, as the possibilities of a new year of learning are underway. Creativity is not for cold, dark, snowy days when morning comes too late and evening too soon.

But the creative spirit almost always creeps into my life in the first days of cold and snow. For me, there is something about rising early and seeing the palette of deep, blue sky punctuated with tiny, glittering stars. Yesterday, as I fetched the morning newspaper from the stoop, I stood outside in my pajamas staring up at the morning’s arrival. A plane moved quickly across the middle distance, its light competing with the stationary, shining stars. A satellite moved slowly in a meditative pattern between the silver-light of distant stars. I breathed in the cold air, allowing my lungs to fill with its freshness, and exhaled my visible presence back into the day, signing on for being alive yet again.

Perhaps it is this kind of recognition that overcomes me and keeps me ‘in love with the ground’, that makes me incredibly thankful for being made of earth. Perhaps it is this loving that also nudges at the urging, the aching to leap with the joy of the gift of life and a yearning to make the most of this blessed miracle of walking in the world. Perhaps it is this Advent season that keeps me always on watch for how the Holy is filling the empty spaces or the overstuffed moments of my day. That habit God has of taking something plain and ordinary and filling it with More.

Whatever it is, I am grateful for it. For this persistent Creator that breathed me into being and holds me with a love that will not let me go. Not in summer. Not in spring or autumn. And certainly not in the early days of winter when the cold calls like a siren from the lakes that are icing over all around.

And what about you? What is yearning to soar within you these Advent days? How is the One who is ‘etched onto your tendon muscle bone nerve’ moving in your life?

May blessings abound from darkness of morning till darkness of night.

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
~ Ursula K. LeGuin

I was having one of those moments when I was only partially paying attention to the radio. My mind was wandering back to last night’s meeting. Did I talk too much? Did I listen well enough? Did I step on anybody’s thoughts or feelings? Just as quickly my mind jumped to what I needed to do this morning. Was I ready for my 10am meeting? “Remember to print off that list of names.”, I repeated a couple of times trying to sear the command into my still foggy brain.

That’s when I heard only the briefest statement made by the gentle voice of someone sounding young and yet sad.” This new system would allow people to know where they started and where they would end up but you would miss the journey.” My attention shifted into full gear. Of course, I had already missed the initial part of the report but it seemed to have something to do with a new GPS system that will be, or already is, available.

I tried to imagine what kind of system could give you that starting point and the ending point but wouldn’t allow you to see the path in between. Of course, I realized I was only working with my own experience of and understanding of GPS systems I have used. I was clearly missing some information and a lack of imagination.

Then I began to think of this statement and its possible broader,more metaphorical, meaning. How many times have I only been able to see my beginning point and had my eyes so set on where I was headed that I completely missed the journey? Some whole days have been spent this way. I know where I started. I know where I ended up. What happened in between is a blur. Ever happen to you?

Perhaps this all hit me the way it did because I seem to be surrounded these days by situations and people who are about to be on the journey……..not where they began, not yet where they are headed. Of course, I am having my own experience of being present to them. I am seeing a foot about to step out, a life about to change. I cannot speak to their experience. I can only pray traveling mercies upon them. One is making a transition from the working world to a new life of retirement or at least the ‘what next’. The journey begun at one point is now at a destination. Two young ones I know are at yet another beginning place but unsure what destination to program into their system. The GPS they might hope for might include a tool of discernment for the journey. One dear one is making an even bigger step toward a life that has reached its destination on this Earth. My prayer is that the memories of the journey are rich and deep and full and carry him with angel’s wings into eternity.

Are you at a beginning? Have you reached your destination? What GPS system guided your way? The reality, of course, is that each day is another beginning, complete with a destination. The real work is to be present to the journey, isn’t it? To not miss one blessed moment of any blessed day.

That’s my hope any way. To have more and more days in which I remember not only where I started and where I ended up, but all the bumps and curves, all the twists and turns, all the miracles and amazements along the journey. To make note of every precious face I have encountered and thank God for their beauty. To arrive exhausted and exhilarated with the journey itself.

And, if the blessing continues, to begin all over again with the rising of the next day.

“No long, distant pilgrimages are needed, are they, Holiness of our hearts? For you are in our midst, in the people, in the places, in the sounds and silence of our lives. Open our hearts, open our eyes, and quiet us in holy stillness, even as we journey as Advent pilgrims.”
~Thom Shuman

At church yesterday, we celebrated the First Sunday of Advent. Of all the seasons of the church year, I would have to say that Advent is possibly my favorite. I love the minor tunes of the hymns and the references to darkness and light. I love the dark purples and royal blues that are found in the banners and fabrics we use to dress our worship spaces. I love the Advent wreath with the candles being lit one by one over the four weeks leading to Christmas Eve. I love the scriptures that are on the one hand jarring with images and metaphors about skies opening up and also beautiful with glory shining all around. Truth be told I think I could stay in Advent longer than four weeks.

Most people, I know, are in a hurry to get to the red and green of Christmas. It is difficult to hold back the moving train that rushes toward the celebration that sometimes mentions the birth of the Christ Child. As a culture, it seems we have so much hanging on these days from an economic standpoint. So many businesses count on these days to make a go of it. While I understand it, it makes me sad to think of moving too quickly through Advent.

Sad because Advent is our invitation to stay awake to how the Holy shows up in our lives.Yesterday’s scripture lesson did just that: “Stay awake; for you do not know when or where God will come.” the Lector read. Advent is the season when we can, if we choose, allow our senses to be on high alert for the minute and magnificent showing forth of God’s movement in our very ordinary lives. Of course, it is happening all the time. But Advent is our big excuse to be on the lookout.

I found the prayer above by Thom Shuman tucked within the Advent devotional I am using this year. It caught my attention and my heart right away. I thought of all the times I have convinced myself that I needed to travel far distances or go to some holy place in my search for the Sacred. Most of the time I have not been disappointed. But it seems to me the story that leads us to Christmas proves the point that God shows up all the time…..where we least expect. Places like fields filled with sheep or along dusty roads. In palaces filled with kings and queens and in barns filled with animals. In the life of a young woman who is surprised by a messenger. In the vulnerable and precious face of a baby.

Our work during these Advent days is to be open hearted enough to notice. Our work is to be still enough to keep ourselves from drowning in the fury of the world’s speed. Our work is to allow the darkness to hold the glowing ember of what might be born. We don’t need to go to any particular place that is more holy than any other or surround ourselves with any special tools. We simply need to walk with intention through our lives. Looking and listening for the Breath that has always been there.

And so another Thanksgiving day arrives. It feels to me that, as a nation, as a world, we are in times of deep transition. We are no longer who we perceived we were and we are struggling for a vision of who we might become, who we are being called to be. Some of the brightest among us, those whom we have entrusted with our votes and leadership,behave more like children on a playground tousling over a toy, but the toys they play with are people’s lives. In our churches, we wrestle with how to be the people shaped by sacred stories handed down to us by people who seemed to understand them in ways that seem foreign to us. And because we live in the midst of the Technological Revolution we know more quickly, have more information about all this than any time in history.

In this morning’s Minneapolis Star Tribune, the editorial was reprinted from one written in 1968. The assertion was that many of the events happening in that turbulent year mirrors the times in which we find ourselves. I thought back to that year. I was an impressionable, passionate adolescent filled with a heart for justice and active for peace. It was a time I tangled with my parents more than any other time in my life, mostly over political issues. This morning my heart softened toward those loving people who allowed me my spirited way of being in the world. Their ages allowed them to see my passion with wisdom I did not understand in a way I do now. They had lived long enough to know that life is complicated, that no one person or political party has all the right answers, that a pendulum swings in how we make our life together, sometimes toward our shadow side but most often toward the greater good. I give thanks for this and for them.

I heard someone this week say that Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday because it comes with so few expectations. We gather round a table, share thanks for the food we have, enjoy that food, clean up and go home. I suppose in some ways that is true. But this year in particular, I am thinking of those who find it difficult to conjure up their thanks for any number of reasons. And to those who find it difficult to figure out to whom or what they are offering that thanks.

I won’t be so presumptuous as to offer any suggestions for either of these dilemmas.
I will, however, say that I believe it is an important part of being human to do so. Saying thanks reminds us that none of us made it here on our own power. People, our parents and others,sacrificed for our very existence and continue to do so in ways known and unknown to us. If we eat, others worked to provide our food,animals and plants gave their lives. If we breathe, the trees around help create the oxygen that fills our lungs. Those three things alone should get us started on the Thank-you Train. You can fill in your own additions for the ways your living is provided by others. Saying thank you is good for those who deserve our gratitude and for us. It has been scientifically proven that our thoughts and words of gratitude contribute to our overall health.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am grateful for so much and will offer my thanks to those with whom I come into contact this day. But I want to offer my gratitude to all of you who continue to read my thoughts and to those of you who offer your comments. It is a great gift to me and encourages me to continue to mine the places and experiences I have daily as I keep myself open to the movement of the Holy.

Today I offer this poem by W.S. Merwin entitled ‘Listen’ as a testament to Thanksgiving 2011:

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster and faster then the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

“Move over the face of
my deep,
my darkness,
my endless restless chaos,
and create,
O God;
trouble me,
comfort me,
stir me up,
and calm me,
but do not cease
to breathe
your Spirit into
my waking soul.”
~Jan L. Richardson

My new, preferred route to get to the office is along the East River Road which winds along the Mississippi River. I have written several times in this space about people and things I have observed as I travel this path. Since I began taking this less stressful, more grounding drive during what is known as ‘rush’ hour, I have observed leaves in their full greenness turn to whatever colors already lived in their DNA. I have watched as people moved through wearing walking or running in shorts and tanks to the many forms of layering that is a Minnesota art form. I have been present to the change of the seasons as if it were a film in which I am a mere walk-on or drive-through as the case may be.

Now that the leaves have gone through the change of colors and most have fallen to the ground, the view of the Mighty Mississippi is much clearer. I am now able to see the barges moving at their slow, metered pace guided by the humble tugboats that maneuver the loads around the many twists and turns of this water turnpike. Soon that sight will also be a memory as the waters get colder and freeze. But for now it seems pure gift to drive along as I watch cargo that is mystery to me be delivered to unknown places.

But the sight that has captured my attention from my perch above the river is the ability to see the many caves that dot the river’s edge. Caves, dug out of the sandy banks,are tucked into the landscape, like white doors leading to danger or adventure. I can imagine rowboats of pirates or bootleggers floating in, unnoticed, to hide their booty. I can see lovers slowly disappear into the mouth of the cave for a kiss or a well-planned romantic proposal. I can imagine that over time many teenagers have found their way into these caves searching for the kind of rebellious shirking of rules and defiance that is the purview of the young.

We are people who once knew caves. Through a series of geological movement that is lost on me, caves formed and made the perfect home. No building. No gathering wood. No hard labor. Caves seemed to be the easiest place to move in and set up housekeeping. Build a little fire. Scare away the bats. Decorate the walls with a little mud tinged by the color of this plant or the other. Tell the story of the lives lived so, later, others will know a little bit about who called the cave, and the time, home.

Perhaps I am fascinated by the caves because my own Celtic ancestry was peppered with those who made their homes in stone hives, human-made caves, built along the water. Stacking stones gathered and hauled from the countryside, these early ones kept watch from their cave-like structures. They kept watch for those who would be friend and those who sought to conquer. From their rounded doorways, they sent their prayers out on the fierce wind to be carried by the water to the One who would hear them.

Soon we will walk into the season of Advent, a time of waiting and watching for the coming of the Light after the darkest days of the year. I often equate Advent with going into a cave. We enter the darkness, carrying only what we need. We enter the darkness, hoping to discover within ourselves the light the Holy One planted within each of us. We enter the small space we can call home for a while, as we remember the Light which came into the world. The darkness has its own gifts. Like the cave, it offers a place to rest awhile, to call home, a place of safety, rest and reflection. Advent invites us to rest in these darkest days we know in this northern hemisphere in November and December. Going into the cave requires building a fire that is just large enough to warm and nourish. Going into the cave also invites us to tell our life stories once again, even paint them on the walls of this safe house.

I will continue to watch over the Mississippi caves as I move in my 21st century ways. I will watch as the water no longer laps at their doors but, instead, freezes into glistening ice crystals. I will watch as the days get shorter and the darkness deeper. I will do so knowing that in a few short weeks the light will once again increase its beam upon us.

But for the time being, I will glory in the gift of the cave-like darkness.

Did anyone else catch the interview yesterday on MPR with a woman who has recently written a book about Rin Tin Tin? The author Susan Orlean spent eight years researching this real and fictional character of book and early television. It was a fascinating interview. While I have to admit I have never thought much about this hero-dog, I learned so much about him and all those who played him on TV, his owner and what his inspiration brought to so many. I found it so interesting that I just might purchase this book.

However the part of the interview that intrigued me most came from a caller who phoned in to talk of his own experience of being the owner of a German Shepherd. His dog is a ‘helping dog’. How does he help? He goes into elementary schools so children can read to him. I can’t stop thinking about this! The visual person in me has imagined these dogs,trained in this special way, sitting with a child as they sound out words and maneuver through making sense of black marks on white pages. My heart just goes immediately soft thinking about it.

This practice of using dogs as reading partners was a new concept to me. Apparently I may be alone in this. When I mentioned it to our son he readily reported that it has happened for some time and is instrumental in allowing children with speech difficulty or lack of self-esteem for any number of reasons to read without judgment. Again,my heart went limp. Imagining these young children, fearful to read aloud, laboring over words on a page while warm, loving, brown eyes watch attentively.

It reminded me of all the bumper stickers that reverse the letters for ‘God’. Things like ‘Dog is my co-pilot’ or ‘Dog is love.’ Indeed, in these reading relationships Dog is a co-pilot, riding shot-gun with a fragile being full of possibility, walking with hope and a wounded ego. Dog is also love, the kind of unconditional love we faithful so often equate with the Holy One. I would be so bold as to say that, in this instance, Dog and God might be one and the same.

We have been blessed recently to have a dog in our house again after several years. I have to admit that I am fascinated with his behavior and his devotion. How is it possible to have so much love in your body? But he does and so often I am the recipient of it. I don’t deserve it. I don’t even ask for it most of the time. But he is there, ready to offer this love whether I want it or not, whether I feel I deserve it or not. Sounds a lot like the words we preach on Sunday mornings.

Today I am thankful for dogs, those who listen to stammering stories without ever flinching. Those who smile their dog smiles and allow their eyes to look deeply into human eyes without ever feeling embarrassed or shy. Those who continue to love us when we are unlovable and down right mean. Those who, without knowing it, show us the kind of Love that will not let us go.

No matter what.