Learning about life from Lucie...

I never expected my puppy to become my teacher.  To be fair, I really

didn't expect my children to become my rabbis either but that happened, too. When Jesse was born, we went back to pack ALL our stuff up from Kansas City and head West. One of our Farm Worker supporters - a nun - held her and said something like:  When our babies come into the world they are at peace with everything; then we spend the rest of our lives trying to relearn this truth. Over the years I have affirmed this truth in the upside-down spirituality of Jesus where the last become first, our children become our rabbis and what we thought was unclean becomes precious.  Both of my daughters - when they were small AND as they matured - have become unexpected teachers for me.

Truth be told, however, I didn't think it would happen with my puppy.  Yes, I was smitten by this little rascal when we first visited her on the farm last October.  And sure I was willing to give her time and space to become part of the family.  I just never thought she would touch my heart and call me to be more patient.  Never in a million years - but she has.

You see, she is a nervous girl.  She is easily rattled.  Skittish, even.  Sounds make her jump.  Most of the time she lives in our very quiet and secluded home so she hasn't had much social interaction yet. And besides hanging with my daughter Michal's puppy out on their farm, she doesn't get out much. So yesterday, we took her on a two mile walk - for her health and ours - and she kept getting rattled by the big, black plastic garbage cans.  Like a stupid, adolescent boy this made me laugh at first until Di said, "Can't you help her be a little less neurotic?"  So we started stopping at EVERY trash can.  I would kneel down with her so she could check them out and smell everything. By the end of the walk, she was little less wiggy.

That has become something I do with her a lot - try to help her become a little less wiggy.  I think of her as my very special needs kind of friend who is tender and fragile, beautiful and bright and also just a little off-centered. So we took her to band and choir practice last night to get some more practice with socialization. And after about 20 minutes she calmed down and started to rest.  Same thing happened tonight when I took her to my two evening meetings: at first she needed LOTS of reassurance, but by the end of the evening she was almost mellow.

When we got home tonight (like last night) she collapsed with her head in my lap and slept deeply:  all that interaction and anxiety was exhausting.  Mary Oliver has just written a new collection of poetry grounded in the experience of loving dogs.  Here is one I like:

We become religious,
then we turn from it,
then we are in need and maybe we turn back.
We turn to making money,
then we turn to the moral life,
then we think about making money again.
We meet wonderful people, but lose them
in our busyness.
We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place.
Steadfastness, it seems,
is more about dogs than about us.
One of the reasons we love them so much.

Tonight I give thanks to God for my little "special" friend:  Lucie is a delight.