Every morning I am blessed by a puppy...

Almost every morning after I get up, I spend a few minutes "snuggling" with Lucie on the sun

room sofa. She is waking up and I am, too; she stretches and puts her big head on my shoulder as I scratch her belly, her back, her ears and her butt. She likes to enter the day slowly - and so do I. She stretches and licks me a few times and I rest knowing that I am loved simply for my being. It helps that I like to snuggle - and feed her - but I really don't have to do very much for her to share her morning blessings with me. Mostly I just show up. 

After a while she goes out to do her business and I make a pot of strong black tea. Then I head in to check my emails and read various news papers and blogs. The best days often end with me sipping a glass of red wine while she falls asleep on my lap. It is the perfect way to close the day and keep things in perspective and balance.

Some days we get to be outside in the woods together and that is a treat, too. She loves to run until she is exhausted. I love to watch her.  She is so pure, so free, so eager to please. I think of Psalm 131:
 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
   my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
   too great and too marvelous for me. 
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
   like a weaned child with its mother;
   my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

Earlier this week I read Richard Rohr writing a reflection on Eckhart Tolle that included this:

... animals give God glory just through their simple existence. Ducks do the duck thing, squirrels do the squirrel thing without any resistance to themselves or envy of the other. Eckhart Tolle, in his book Guardians of Being, says, "We have forgotten what rocks, plants, and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be--to be still, to be ourselves, to be where life is: Here and Now. . . . What is it that so many people find enchanting in animals? Their essence--their Being--is not covered up by the mind, as it is in most humans. And whenever you feel that essence in another, you also feel it in yourself." I think that is very true.

Every morning my big puppy Lucie reminds me to get grounded and know that I am loved just for being me. It is the perfect prayer for a guy like me.