On Dogs, Religion & Salvation, Rigidity & Beauty

Introduction

This is a two-part post with the common thread of how our experiences with animals can connect us to the divine and how our experiences with animals can lead to a universalism and a rejection of certain kinds of dogmatic rigidity.

The first post was written by Chuck F. Queen and was taken from the Progressive Methodists Facebook page with Chuck's permission.

The second post comes from me.

I do not share the view that rigid and conservative people, including Christians, can't or shouldn't change. I don't think that their refusal to change in the face of facts and Scripture and outstanding human needs and planetary crises is okay. More needs to be said here about organizing and solidarity. But I do appreciate the universalism and humanism expressed here and the insight into how anxiety drives rigidity and conservatism and the conservative appropriation of religion.

First Part---Chuck F. Queen

Julie, our Down Syndrome adult daughter who lives in our home, has a little dog named Cuma, part Yorkie and part Chiwawa. Cuma has been a means God has used to teach me about God’s love. Cuma needs to be loved, and you see her cry for love and affection in her eyes and face. She is up in age now and there are days when it is obvious she is hurting, because her face reflects it. I can see the suffering of creation in her eyes. When she was young and full of life and energy, she would bark continuously at people or animals she saw outside, which would sometimes drive us crazy. Now, with her health failing and loss of energy, there are days we will place her in front of the open front door to encourage her to bark. Sometimes that works. What always seems to work, however, is the prospect of table food, and I’m the easy pick. She can no longer jump down from the couch, so if she sees me pull up to the table she starts yelping to be lifted down to the floor so she can come over and get some food. She has always been a highly anxious dog and that hasn’t changed. If someone she is unfamiliar with enters our house, she barks and barks and barks. I pick her up, hold her, pet her head which she loves, and say, “Cuma, this is a good person; she is not going to hurt you.” But no matter what I do, she is going to keep barking. She cannot see what is through her anxiety.

There are many, many religious people, Christian people just like Cuma. They are blind to the oneness of creation and to the universality of the indwelling Spirit. They think their faith is the right, correct faith; that only through their Jesus can a person know their God. Their ego will not allow them to believe that we are all children of God, that we are all one people, that we all belong, that we all live within the force field of God’s unconditional love regardless of what stage we are in along the path of moral and spiritual evolution. Their ego insists that others must be “saved” in the same way they think they are saved, not realizing that “salvation” is a process of becoming. They make scripture bend to their programmed beliefs to justify their faith in a tribal God. And no matter how much we try to shake their foundation, no matter how excellent and often we reason with them using the best logic and common sense available, all our efforts tend to be futile. Like Julie’s little dog, Cuma, they are not going to change. And God will speak softly to them and draw then close like I do for Cuma, and keep loving them, and they will go to their grave believing and worshiping and serving a little, tribal god. And God will welcome them and love them and enlighten them as they are able to receive it.

And that is what we must do. We don’t need to yield to them or bend to their will or in any way cater to their exclusive Christian beliefs and practices. If we are living within the flow of God’s Spirit, we will keep on loving them, accepting that in all likelihood they are not going to change (at least not in this lifetime). And that is okay. I was as dogmatic and exclusive in my Christian faith as anyone at one time, but then a crack opened in my ego and the light burst forth. It does happen. Not often, but there are breakthroughs. God needs a few people who will keep at it, praying, sharing, teaching, reasoning, writing, talking, arguing, and all the while loving and hoping a crack will appear that will let the light in. And when it does, when it happens, like the shepherd who found the one lost sheep, there is much joy and gratitude.

Second Part---Bob Rossi

Many years ago when I lived in West Virginia I heard about a woman in a community pretty far out of the way who had some hounds for sale. Hounds are my favorite breeds and I went out to find her and take a look. She showed me to the barn and yard where the dogs lived. It was feeding time so she set out some trays of food and a litter of puppies and their mama came running out of the barn.

One dog in particular, the only male of the litter, made it out first by pushing, bumping, and jumping ahead. But he didn't eat the food. Instead, he grabbed the main tray in his mouth and dragged it going backwards as the other puppies charged. He backed up with the tray in his mouth all of the way to the fence, or about six feet. And then he tried to push his sisters away. 

Now, I knew right then that I wanted that dog. Any of those others would have made great companions and hunting dogs, but I liked that little guy's spirit and sense of humor. I bought him and we had a pretty good time together.

I think about that adventure quite often these days. You can focus on something that is good or functional or smart and you will be okay. And I do understand that you need to look at everything from many different angles in order to understand what you're looking at, know history, and understand context and development. But, you know, I used to look in that dog's eyes and watch it pick up and follow a scent or watch it running through the brush with what I'm sure was a smile and know that that dog was part of a history that I did not share. There were times when I knew that that dog had an entirely different intelligence and had sense that I lacked. There is a great beauty in that, and beauty has to figure in to this.

What's my point? Well, when I hear someone talking about religion or politics or organizing and solidarity these days I think more often about whether or not beauty and history intersects in what they're talking about. I say this after almost 30 years spent as a union organizer: every project that we embark on in order to find salvation or make change should be a work of beauty, following its indigenous directions and intelligence with spirit and a sense of humor. And you should be able to hear the echo of what we're doing as if you were there with us in the dark night in an abandoned strip mine full of Jerusalem Artichokes us much as we could hear the hounds miles ahead when we went hunting. And we would pause, look up at the sky and follow the stars and the dogs leading us up far ahead in the darkness and know that we were never really going to get lost. Our movement and our salvation needs to work like that.

I think about the bad things going on in the world today. I fight back---not as hard as I should, though. But I also know that I'm in this for as long as I draw breath, and in order to stay in the fight I have to look at things sometimes as if there is a pack of hounds there in front of me and I get to take one home and into my heart. I watch for that one thing that crosses my path every day that has spirit and humor, history and strength, to it and I try to hold on to that and let the rest go on.