Living Like Greg

Beloved:
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          A week and a half until I’m on vacation.  For three whole weeks!  I’m going to pump my brain and body full of sleep, sewing, reading and staring at the water.  No email.  No meetings.  No sermons to compose.  No bigger decisions to make than what to eat next.  It’s my first real vacation in two years and I am so grateful for a job that doesn’t just allow but honors the need for restoration of body, mind, and spirit, and encourages real time off.
          He was forty years old before he lived with a dog, said the author of an essay I read in a magazine mostly about crafts and decorating.  His parents thought dogs were unsanitary and belonged outside.  But his only child was desperate for one and they decided a puppy would be a good playmate.  “I was not ready for how Greg (yes, the dog’s name was Greg) would change my life,” he wrote.  Of the changes he listed, this one really hit home for me:   “[Greg] taught me that it is enough to exist as a creature who loves and is loved.  Forget accomplishments, forget riches – all our human strivings pale next to this.”
          They were the words I needed in the moment and have carried every day since, helping me to slow down and pay better attention to the love available in each moment, between whatever creatures occupy the moment.  Every time I witness gentleness these days I am nearly done in by it.  Like when a golden retriever entertains a one-year-old who has not yet learned not to pull her ears so hard.  She just waits for him to let go then lays her big head on his arm as if to say, “Too much.”  If only humans could be tender toward one another, would our need of vacation be so desperate?  Or, if we all took more time for recovery and rest, might we all be more loving with one another, more able to honor the central truth embodied by a dog named Greg?
          I pray at least some part of this gorgeous day finds you at some gentle task you enjoy.  ~peace & prayers,
​pastor annette