Looking for Love in Furry Faces

22 June 2003

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And She said that it was good. – Genesis (1:25);

Meister Eckhart wrote, “Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God. If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature – even a caterpillar – I would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of God is every creature.”

“Jesus was [obviously] very aware of the animal world. In Matthew’s gospel alone on 27 separate occasions he introduces us to:

Locusts and birds and dogs and pigs and sheep and foxes and snakes and doves and sparrows and vipers and fish and camels and donkeys and colts and hens and chicks and vultures and goats and a cock. Jesus enlists the animals as fellow evangelists. They tell us of God’s providence, God’s presence, and God’s peace.” [1]

“Jesus’ parables that include animals reveal how humble he was toward them. He sensed the harmony and the interdependence that we share with all living things.” [2]

“Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.” Matthew (6:26);

Including the creatures that inhabit the planet with us in our blessings and in our moments of reverence for life seems to be the least we can do. Biblical teachings are clear about our responsibility to animals, stating that we humans have been given “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” “Dominion over” contains a sense of responsibility to ethical human beings. I believe it comes with the added task of being the STEWARDS of the creation.

Common sense tells that because we humans have been given superior brains to animals (or so it seems) along with the ability, however, to destroy the natural habitats of animals, to abuse them, eat them, over-fish the oceans, and hunt them for pleasure, we are ultimately and collectively responsible for what happens to them.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not better off for it.”

I don’t have to tell you that we are not living up to the stewardship deal very well. There is much to be done in the world to make it safer for both animals and people. In my opinion we humans are NOT acting very superior to animals.

Have you heard the story of the wild geese as told by Albert Schweitzer?

“A flock of wild geese had settled to rest on a farm pond. One of the flock was captured by the farmer who clipped its wings before releasing it. When the geese started to resume their flight, this one tried frantically, but vainly, to lift itself into the air. The others, observing his struggles, flew about in obvious efforts to encourage him; but it was no use.

Thereupon, the entire flock settled back on the pond and waited. They waited until the damaged feathers had grown sufficiently to permit the goose to fly. Meanwhile, the unethical farmer, having been converted by the ethical geese, watched with joy and awe as they finally rose together and resumed their long flight. [3]

Imagine a world where people treated each other as geese treat each other. Just imagine.

So when I was asked to do a Blessing of the Animals service, and after Davidson had a hearty laugh which made me even more inclined to agree without a clue about how to go about it, I saw it as an opportunity to expand the role of minister to include creatures in the web of existence that we hold most sacred. Sort of a way to awaken the parts of us that sleep through the injustices in the world of animals. Make amends and pledge to make the world a better place for ALL living things. And, the idea of “celebrating the animals that share our lives” sounded very appealing to me. [4]

So, I began intensive research on the Animal Blessing ritual and discovered that it is attributed, of course, to St Francis of Assisi.

St. Francis’ blessing of the animals is said to have started when he preached to a flock of birds. As the story goes, Francis and his companions were walking near a town in Italy, when he came upon the flock. He stopped and asked the birds to stay and listen to the word of God. The birds remained still while Francis walked among them and said, “My brother and sister birds, you should praise your Creator and always love him. He gave you feathers for clothes, wings to fly and all other things that you need. It is God who made you noble among all creatures, making your home in thin, pure air. Without sowing or reaping, you receive God’s guidance and protection.”

At this, according to the story, the birds began to spread their wings, stretch their necks and gaze at Francis as if rejoicing in praise. Francis blessed them and is said to have wondered aloud afterward as to why he had not done this before. From that day on, Francis held sermons to bless the animals and was noted for many remarkable events involving animals. [5]

Today, if we saw some weird guy wearing worn out clothes preaching to a flock of birds, we would call the state hospital and try and get him committed. But St. Francis of Assisi has left the world a legacy by his compassionate teaching and from what little I know about Franciscans, their gentle altruistic philosophy follows the teachings of Jesus more closely than any other faith that I know of.

The Blessing of the Animals ritual is extremely popular and practiced all over the world. “At the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, for example, some 4-5,000 people and their animals congregate for the annual ritual.” Normally this ritual is held on October 4th, which the feast of St. Francis.

You are invited to come back this evening with your pets on leashes or in appropriate cages for this very special event. We will have a sanitary station and provide disposal bags. We will use extreme care to respect our beautiful grounds and delicate plants. Animals will be segregated by category, at least that is the plan.

Treats will be provided for animals and people. If you have an unusual pet with special dietary needs, you may wish to bring a treat for them so that all will be included in this celebration.

We will begin to gather in the All Ages Playground around 7:00 with animals separated by category, and the blessing ritual will begin promptly at 7:30. (How optimistic is that?) You may bring photographs of living or deceased pets for blessings as well. Tonight we will bless all creatures, great & small, dead or alive.

If you like, bring a can of pet food along and we will collect the donated pet food and give it to Family Elder Care for the pets of people with limited resources.

What does it mean to “Bless” the animals? I see it simply as a way of showing our gratitude or honoring them for the contribution they make to our lives. Pausing to show reverence for the animals that share our homes, become our food, and live in the wild. It is they who bless us. With this awareness, deep gratitude, and a sense of responsibility we will bless the animals that share our lives.

In 1964 Boris Levinson, a child psychiatrist, recognized the positive effects of animals to severely withdrawn children. “He coined the phrase ‘pet therapy’. [6]

Animals are credited with breaking the ice with severely withdrawn children and adults, increasing morale, lowering blood pressure and heart attack risk, and promoting a greater sense of well-being. Contact with animals has proven to be healing. Study after study has supported such findings.

There have always been animals in my own life for as long as I can remember. We lived on a farm when I was four years old in Upstate New York. We had a big Pyrenees Collie back then and a big black tomcat that let me dress him in my doll clothes and wheel him around in a baby buggy.

Later we had a delightful Calico cat named Thumper who was an accomplished hunter. My big brother had an aquarium in his room that housed a frog that he had grown from a tadpole. Every morning, Thumper would stake out Tim’s door waiting for him to go into the bathroom and leave his door open. He never remembered to shut the door, it seemed. Thumper would make his move and the next thing you know we would be chasing this cat around the house with that poor frog hanging out of his mouth with its legs dangling. This must have happened thirty times or more. Amazingly the frog was never injured, well, physically that is. That poor frog endured unimaginable terror.

Unfortunately, one afternoon when my mother was cleaning in Tim’s room she found the frog under a plastic dry cleaner bag, suffocated. Mom ruled it a suicide, and we all agreed it was probably for the best.

Then there was the time when I was in tenth grade and my sister was a senior in high school. I had gotten a hamster for a Biology project. She was named Odessa and I trained her to walk on a T-maze. The object was to see if I could train her to recognize color. On each end of the T, you put a different color and on only one end you put food. If all goes well, the hamster learns which color will always have food. Well, Odessa, like all of our family pets, was overfed and not the least bit interested in food. But, I soon discovered that she loved to escape. So I rigged up mailing tubes and one end was open and the other was blocked. She was very smart and soon figured out which color indicated a few minutes of freedom, which didn’t thrill my mother because sometimes I couldn’t find her for hours. She chewed a few holes in the rug here and there. But, I got an “A” on that Biology project!

Odessa’s cage was in my bedroom normally, but one night she was particularly energetic and running like a fiend on her squeaky exercise wheel and keeping me awake, so I put it under the vanity in the bathroom I shared with my big sister. Well, she came home late that night; she undressed in the bathroom throwing her panty girdle on the floor right in front of Odessa’s cage. OOPs.

I know that some of you are too young to even know what a girdle is. Hideous contraptions. I hate to admit it, but this was the dark ages before the invention of pantyhose. My parents had just put us on a clothing allowance because with three teenage daughters they were going broke keeping us in clothes and stockings. A whopping twenty-five dollars a month. Susan had just spent some of her money that new girdle.

The next morning, I was awakened by my sister’s angry screams. “Cathy, you owe me a new girdle!” What? “I do not!” I mumbled half asleep without a clue how I could possibly owe her a new girdle?

Well, Odessa it seems, who couldn’t believe her luck I’m sure at finding such a treasure tossed in front of her cage, had spent the entire night shredding that brand new girdle and making an absolutely splendid spandex nest. It’s hard to believe that tiny rodent could have done such a thorough job of it all by herself.

My mom, who was trying her best to hold a straight face as she came up the stairs to referee this fight, declared that I did not, after all, owe Susan a new girdle because she was the one who had been careless and threw it on the floor. I was really smug that morning because it wasn’t very often that the rulings leaned in my favor.

Then I had a cat named Catfish when I was a young mother that taught me to trust my own mother instincts. She was such a wonderful, natural mother. Once she had a litter of kittens stashed in a closet and one of the kittens was injured when something fell from the top of the closet on its head. I rushed the tiny kitten to the vet, who advised me to have it put to sleep. I begged him to try and save it. The kitten had fluid on his brain and the vet didn’t hold much hope, but he kept him for a few days, put in a shunt, and fed him intravenously. I was so relieved when he called and said I could pick up the kitten. He told me that the mother may reject him now, so I may have to feed him with an eyedropper. Boy, was he wrong, Catfish heard me coming up the stairs and was waiting behind the door. She grabbed that kitten in her mouth and disappeared into the closet with him.

She didn’t leave his side for days. I was so touched by her tender care for this injured baby. We kept the kitten. He was coal black so we named him Tar Baby and he was a little slow, if you know what I mean, and he was adorable. A little bit of brain damage, I guessed. Catfish knew it. She continued to nurse Tar Baby even when he grew to almost twice her size. She had another litter of kittens and she still let him nurse along with the newborn kitties. Sure was a funny sight to see, but so dear. Pure unconditional love.

Not all animals are blessed with a strong mother instinct. My oldest son brought home a mixed breed sheepdog that soon became his soul mate. He entered Daisy in a dog contest in the mixed breed category and she won second place. When they asked my four-year old son what kind of dog she was he said, “Well,” with a long pause, “She’s part sheep and she’s part dog.”

When Daisy had seven puppies she accepted the responsibility and did what she had to do, but she obviously didn’t enjoy the role of mother much. She always had this kind of harried look on her face, like, “When will this be over?” When she heard PJ come in the door from school, those puppies were second fiddle. You could hear them dropping across the floor as she managed to break free from their hungry mouths to rush outside to play with her master. There’d be a trail of puppies down the hall. I’d pick them up and put them back in their bed to wait for their mother to return. They were gorgeous puppies, good-natured like their mom. Daisy enjoyed playing with them when they got bigger, but she was relieved when we found great homes every one of them and had her spayed.

She was such a wonderful dog, great with kids, and very protective. Once there were some kids with pellet guns shooting nesting doves in the woods near our house. My oldest son tried to stop them and was kept busy rescuing the orphaned baby doves. He had a dove nursery set up in his room and even had me feeding these baby birds with an eyedropper. As if I didn’t have enough to do, a single mother with three kids, the youngest under a year old.

One afternoon a bunch of neighborhood kids came running in the front door completely out of breath and hysterical, “Daisy’s dead, Daisy’s dead!” I was horrified and as I tried to make sense out of what they were talking about, Daisy came running in the front door wagging her tail and getting blood all over everywhere. She had been shot in the hip by a pellet gun, but she seemed oblivious that she was wounded.

I called for help, and my Dad rushed her to the Animal Hospital and had the bullet removed at the and then we called the police. They caught the kid and made him pay for the Vet bill and apologize. Daisy survived the bullet wound quickly and lived for another eight years or so developing arthritis in that hip as she aged. God, we loved that dog. I have a million great stories about Daisy. She was a like member of our family. It was tough when she died. Really tough. I’m sure there are many of you who have lost pets and know how hard it is. Life is filled with blessings and sorrows. Can’t have one without the other, I guess.

Just the memories of our beloved pets are powerful enough to bring joy or move you to tears decades later. Animals teach us to love unconditionally, and then they touch our lives forever. They do indeed bless us.

An eighteen-year old cat named Little owns me presently. You know if you are “owned” by your cat if she sleeps on your head, and you like it. Or, if you put off making the bed until she gets up, and if you have more than four opened rejected cans of cat food in your refrigerator. [7] I qualify on all counts. Little is my best friend and probably the longest relationship I’ve had beyond my own flesh and blood. I dread that day that she decides to leave the planet.

I’m completely convinced that animals are essential to our health and well-being. This could explains why: [8]

At least 63% of dog owners admitted to kissing their dogs. Of these, some 45% kissed them on the nose, 19% on the neck, 7% on the back, 5% on the stomach and 2% on the legs. An additional 29% listed the place they kiss their dog as other!

Thirty-three percent of cat owners talk to their pets on the phone or through the answering machine.

62 percent of dog owners admit that their dog owns a sweater, winter coat or raincoat.

You can relate to this, can’t you? Have you noticed that our animals have an uncanny way of knowing when we’re sad? I saw a PBS special about dogs that are trained to assist people with handicaps. There are some dogs that have a way of sensing when a seizure is coming minutes before it ever happens. They are trained to alert the person so they can lie down, and then the dog stays by their side until their master is safe and out of harm.

“Altruism is widespread among animals. Animals have the same innate caring impulses that humans have. They nurture their friends and family members, cooperate for the common good, sympathize with others in distress and perform amazing acts of heroism.” [9]

I read a book about a very special dog, named Ginny who rescued stray cats, especially ailing cats. Ginny was a mutt who was adopted from the pound by a handicapped man. She had been abused and abandoned with a litter of puppies, and she was close to death from starvation. It’s a sweet story, Ginny found stray kittens and would run up and lick and groom them. Then she would whine insistently until her owner would take the cat home and add it to the growing brood. All of the cats she chose it seemed had some sort of handicap. One had no hind feet, and one was completely deaf, and another had only one eye. It was as if Ginny had some kind of radar. Or as if she was some kind of canine angel. She certainly had an angelic nature, like so many dogs, a spark of the divine. [10]

I think that’s what Meister Eckhart must have meant when he said, “Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God.”

And, that “it wouldn’t be necessary to write a sermon if you spent enough time with even the tiniest creature.” “Nothing is small to the divine.”

Honestly, if Ginny could give this sermon we might all be a whole lot better off. What do you think?

IF A DOG WERE YOUR PREACHER… [11]

You might learn stuff like this:

**When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

**Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

**Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.

**When it’s in your best interest – practice obedience.

**Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.

**Take naps and stretch before rising. Run, romp, and play daily.

**Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

**Avoid biting, when a simple growl will do.

**On warm days, stop to lie on your back in the grass.

**On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

**When you’re happy, dance around and wiggle your entire body.

**No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout – run right back and make friends.

**Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

**Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.

**Stop when you have had enough.

**Be loyal.

**Never pretend to be something you’re not.

**If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

**When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

My mentor, Davidson, suggested that since this sermon has gone to the dogs, that I should end with “Woof-woof” instead of “Amen.” I told him I aint woofin’. Besides, I think this sermon needs a more reverent ending than that, like a prayer.

As one reverend puts it, our pets are “Ministers in Fur.”

I hope you will join us tonight as we offer our blessings to the animals who share our lives, as our way of saying “thank you.”

Thank you for the Blessings of the Humans by the “ministers in fur.” [12]

I end with this simply prayer. “May we be present to the magnificence of all life’s creatures”, [13] and mindful of our responsibility to be stewards of all of creation.

Amen.

———————–

[1] Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool. http://www.aswa.org.uk/Resources/jonessermon.pdf.

[2] Matthew Fox. A Spirituality Named Compassion. p. 163

[3] Gilbert, Richard. The Prophetic Imperative. Beacon Press. Boston, MA. 2000. P. 97.

[4] Debra Brazzel, Duke University Director of Religious Life. 1998.

[5] Internet

[6] Levinson, B. M., “Pets: A special technique in child psychotherapy,” Mental Hygiene, Vol. 48, 1964, pp.243-8

[7] http://doreen.www3.50megs.com/humor/catownyou.html

[8] www.familypets.net

[9] Callahan, Sharon. The Ministry of Animals.

[10] Gonzalez, Philip. The Dog Who Rescues Cats. HarperCollins. New York. 1995.

[11] http://www.dogpapers.com/teacher.html

[12] Darryl Grizzel. “Ministers in Fur” http://www.whosoever.org/v7i6/ministers.shtml.

[13] Science of Mind Magazine. July 2003.