I was participating in my first Faith-Lilac Way Council Meeting on Zoom last week, and before we got down to the business of the evening, our group dwelled for a bit in one of the Psalms. I got to read the line, “The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.” (Ps 145:9) And I had this big wondering: what if everything God has made in all of creation has an element of God’s personality within it? I hadn’t really thought about it that way before, but it began to make sense to me.
We need look no further than our furry, finned, or feathered family members…that is, our pets…to be reminded of how God’s personality is alive in creation. Am I right?
About a year ago, we welcomed our puppy Hazel, a double-doodle (which is a combination of a Golden Doodle and a Labradoodle) into our family. Let me tell you, it was not a great time for such a big commitment. I had just started a demanding job at the hospital and my husband had just had foot surgery and was on crutches. I’m not sure what possessed us to do this, come to think of it. We didn’t even have time to mow our own lawn, much less get up at night with a puppy! Yet train the puppy we did…somehow.
After COVID hit in March, and everyone was trapped at home, we looked back at our decision from a few months earlier and said…getting this puppy was one of the best things we have ever done. To me, Hazel is such a reminder of the radical welcome of God. She knows exactly when I wake up in the morning, and she is the first one to come greet me with exuberant puppy kisses and a wagging tail. Just think: every morning, I have a family member that comes up to tell me I am basically the best thing in the whole world! When my kids are sad or anxious or bored, cuddles and play time with Hazel seem to make everything in the world okay again. No matter what mischief she gets into, no matter how many little socks she swallows or how many tears she makes in the furniture, I will always know her to be a gift from God during a troubling time.
I’m sure that those of you with pets in your care and even those of you who just enjoy creatures in the wild can relate to seeing God’s very personality in animals. Indeed, God’s personality shows up in all of creation. In wind, rain and earthquake; in sunshine, rainbow, and star; in mountain top, moon, and sea floor. If we are in relationship with God, then it seems that we are also in relationship with creation.
On the occasion of the “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation” in September, Pope Francis wrote beautifully, and I quote:[1]
“[This] is indeed a time of grace to remember creation’s original vocation to exist and flourish as a community of love. We exist only in relationships: with God the Creator, with our brothers and sisters as members of a common family, and with all of God’s creatures within our common home. ‘Everything is related, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of [God’s] creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth.”
Today is a day to give thanks to God and bless the animals who we love and who love us so dearly, but it is also time to pause, to look with humility on our place in creation, to reimagine our deep connection to all living things, and to recommit to the stewardship of our world.
May we learn to balance our needs with the needs of all creation, and to walk in ways of life together that sustain us all.
Amen.
[1]http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2020/documents/papa-francesco_20200901_messaggio-giornata-cura-creato.html