Canine Contemplation

I sit down to begin my centering prayer.

Calling upon God to enter me, I have chosen the phrase “trust God” to repeat over and over.


Before many minutes have passed, my dog, who is lying on our couch sleeping, begins moving her legs and making whimpering sounds.

Is she having a nightmare?

Or is she joyously dreaming of chasing other dogs in a field?


Reluctant to interrupt a pleasant dream, I say in a low,  calm voice, “It’s OK, Chloe.”

This just about brings her to the brink of consciousness, but does not detract from her ability to fall asleep again.

I again begin uttering my phrase “trust God” when again I hear Chloe running in her sleep and whimpering.

I again reassure her and she drifts back to sleep.


But when I return to repeat the holy phrase I have chosen, I find myself saying,  “trust Chloe” a few times before I catch and correct myself.


I laugh internally at this slip of the tongue.

 

But, in retrospect, I wonder if “trust Chloe” is not honoring God as much as “trust God” is.


Perhaps it is not centering prayer or,  indeed, any form of prayer or meditation.


But when I look into my dog’s deep brown eyes, I see a spiritual realm missing in many people.


A colleague of mine at Lycoming College is a self-proclaimed atheist but breeds border collies and is completely dedicated to them.


She was doing the equivalent of daily dialysis for  one of her dogs who faced kidney failure during his last years.


She has a bumper sticker on her car saying “Dog is my co-pilot,” a popular takeoff on the phrase “God is my co-pilot,” the title  of a 1945 movie.


And I think there is a large element of truth to the popular aphorism “Dog is God spelled backwards.”


I wonder if this woman is not being brought to God by a circuitous route through her feelings for her pets.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Doggy Duet

Image
This seems incomplete, but I'm not really sure.                                                                                                                                   Chloe, as a younger dog and today. Our plott hound Chloe has taken  upon herself the task of protecting our home from invaders. Children on bicycles, people strolling by our house, even  sometimes, I think, ants tunneling in the ground all earn a vigorous round of barking. And then there’s our mail carrier. She deserves three rounds of barking. One for when she parks her truck beside our house, one for when she delivers the mail on the other side of the street, and one for when she  actually reaches our house (this  last accompanied by frantic scratching at the door).  But lately the hound side of Chloe’s pedigree is beginning to show itself.  Instead of barking, she has taken to uttering plaintive wails, much like a coyote, with her head thrown back and her eyes shut.
Read more

The Spiritual Taxonomy of a Sparrow

The most amazing things cross your eyes if you are looking for them. The other day, I looked out  my kitchen window and saw three sparrows on our deck eating seed that had spilled from our bird feeder.  Now I am not especially knowledgeable about bird species, but I knew these were sparrows. However, they were a kind of sparrow that I had never seen before, and I immediately dubbed them “chipmunk sparrows” since their markings resembled those of  a chipmunk. They had dark brown stripes on their heads, chests, and wings, alternating with rust colored stripes. They were plump little fellows and seemed to stride around the deck. I asked my husband what they were and he said they were a  form of native sparrow—not English—and he went to find our bird identification book for some  more information. But then I realized that I was not really interested in the taxonomy of the birds. Instead, what appealed to me was the fullness of a God, who had so many patterns to choose from that he could du
Read more

After the Lilac Blooms

  My husband and I planted a scrawny lilac by the side of our front lawn, next to our driveway, about thirty years ago. It has grown so enthusiastically that we have to cut it back a bit so that we can walk on the sidewalk in front of our house, without being slapped in the face by its branches. When it blooms in June, I love to sit on my front porch and simply inhale its wonderful fragrance. I’m always a little melancholy when the flowers die off. But today, as I was getting out of our car, I noticed little green buds on the bush. Excited, I asked my husband what they were. He said they were seed pods, although lilacs usually propagate by putting out runners. I am thrilled. These seeds promise new life and it seems hopeful that as soon as the lilac stops blooming, it begins preparing to bloom next year. I find, as I get older, the signs of nature’s regeneration become more and more meaningful to me.
Read more