Category Archives: Stewardship

My Little Lady

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I’m staring at empty space trying to work. I never knew silence could be so deafening.

Princess on a trip to the Mississippi Delta

I’m used to hearing the click clack of little dog feet. I’m used to looking down and seeing big eyes staring up at me. It was an absolute joy to adopt Princess in her last two years of life. Don’t get me wrong, having a geriatric dog can be difficult. She had to be penned in at night and surrounded by pads because she was losing control of her faculties. Most mornings we woke, and we found a mess, but we cleaned it up and moved on without day. She was a little dog, so as she aged, she began to struggle more and more getting up and down the two steps into our back yard. Understand Princess was already in decline when we brought her home, but we knew that whether it was 6 months or years she would be a perfect addition to our home.

Her owner had died, and we loved her, so we thought the best way to show that love was to take care of her little Princess.

Every morning when I came out, I looked at her and said, “Good morning little lady, lets go outside.” She looked up at me with acceptance and love, one of my greatest joys upon returning home after a long day was hearing her excited howl as I approached the door. When I picked her up just right and held her against my chest she would chitter very quietly, almost like a purr, then she would sigh, try to turn and lick my face.

Princess in her pretty sweater

In the last few months, her decline had become obvious. She was tripping over shoes, she could no longer climb easily into her bed, and she tried to hide from us when she couldn’t control herself. That’s when we start having the conversation. If you’ve never owned an elderly animal you may not know what I am talking about if you have you are probably crying just a little while you read this.

See, our animals can’t tell us when they are in pain, and unlike us, they don’t have an active imagination with a wonderful history to pull on. I am not saying they don’t remember, but for them, the moment is primary. I begin to ask, how are the moments that she’s having. More often I would reach down, and she would back away for just a moment because she was frail and sometimes touch hurt. Some mornings she couldn’t get out of her bed and I had to pick her up and walk her to the yard and set her down, and others she would pop right up and be waiting at the door.

The problem is, we don’t want to go too soon, and we don’t want to wait too long. There is no simple answer to this question. I know only that she shy’s away from our touch, she has little control when she has to go to the bathroom, and she sleeps most of the day. Oh, there were other signs but none of these seem good enough, because they are so good at loving us unquestionably and they want to make us happy too, and letting go of that is hard.

Then princess had a seizure.

I first laid her down on her bed, and her mouth immediately locked on her blanket. Then, powerlessly I picked her up and wrapped her in the blanket she was unable to release. She lost control of herself when I put her in my car, and she looked up at me with shame. I knew then that we could never let her go through this again. When we went to see her, she was so excited to see us, she reveled in us, her seizure had passed, but she was still 16 and I remembered her eyes when I laid her in my car to take her to vet, they were like a prayer. Maybe we could have gotten a few more days, weeks, or months of love, she would have given freely, but then I’d have to reckon with her eyes that moment that I laid her in my car.  

Saying Goodbye

She was my little lady, and her eyes alone spoke volumes of joy and love… and trust. The decision is hard to make because it can’t be unmade, because if we can get just a little more love from them if we can just feel that acceptance one more time, but when does that become selfish? That is the price we pay for their love and that is why no one should take on pet ownership too soon. Having a pet is forever, maybe not our forever, but theirs, they trust us, depend on us, they love us, and want to see us happy. It’s more than walks and feeding. It’s more than spending time with them, they are family. The ultimate responsibility we have, is the willingness to say goodbye when their forever is over. And we have to make that decision, they cannot.

See, there is no real way to repay the love that comes from owning a pet, but then true love can never be repaid. But there must willingness to love them truly and that their pain is just as real as ours and they can’t always tell us.  

It has been a day, my little lady is gone, I didn’t have a mess to clean up, I don’t hear the clip clop of her feet, I am not babysitting her to make sure she can get outside in time. But you know what I miss the most, her eyes, her eyes when she gets excited, when she pretends to bite my fingers, or licks my face. I miss the clip clop of her toenails on the floor. I miss the way she sighs when I pick her up and hold her against my heart.

And though I know it was not too soon, I will spend the next few months wondering if she went too early, that is the final price we pay for their love. And it is proof that we loved them truly.  

Spiritual Themes in Earth Day

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A few years ago I watched a youtube video especially dedicated to Earth Day. The man in the video started a gas blower and set it down, then he started a gas weed eater and set it down, then he started a push mower (remember all these things are still running) then a ride-on mower, then his car, and his truck. At the bottom of the screen flashed the words “Happy Earth Day.” The creator of the video was making an obvious statement. He did not support the ideals of Earth Day, and obviously didn’t accept the concept of climate change. This offended my sensibilities. I remember driving an old car with no air conditioner on I-240 in Memphis, Tennessee, reading signs that said, “Smog Warning: Leave Your Windows Up.”

As Unitarian Universalists, we articulate very clearly our ideals through our principles, specifically the 7th principle:

Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

This principle reminds us that that we are part of this world and this world is a part of us. We should, therefore, care for the world so it can care for us. However, even before coming to the Unitarian Universalist Church, taking care of the planet was a spiritual issue for me. Every year around Earth Day when I had the chance to preach a sermon I showed pictures of the great Pacific garbage patch, smog warnings, and oil-covered ducks. Of course, I didn’t start there–I started with the Hebrew Bible.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”-Genesis 1:28

Coming near the end of the creation narrative, this statement defines the roll of man in the new creation. Upon a simple read, it doesn’t say much, the only thing that really ever stuck out to me is the word “subdue.” The word in Hebrew is generally used during war–in referencing the control of something hostile. In this case, there is nothing hostile working against Adam and Eve. They are working in congruence. Quite simply put, “you are in charge.” The next word that sticks out is “rule” (or to have dominion over). This is not being used in a violent context. In essence, humanity is set up as steward of creation. There is nothing violent here. Humanity is never asked to fight against creation but to care for it. In fact, it is one of the oldest commands in the Hebrew Bible. In this context, the world will be shaped by humans and it will reflect their own nature. Later, as we move through Genesis into Noah’s narrative, we find that reflection to be found wanting.

Some Unitarian Universalists, however, don’t really give much precedence to a biblical or Christian argument. We have been presented with scientific studies that inform our cultural milieu in regard to environmentally sound solutions and that is fine. However, I still think it is important to know. I think it is important because as we study the political landscape we often find that those who oppose earth friendly solutions are often aligned with the political/religious right, and in that context, it often means Christians. If we look upon the recent history of our planet, we clearly see that human beings, since their rise to power, have shaped this earth.

Even more importantly it creates a spiritual alignment that connects most religious belief systems; that is, we are connected (or maybe interconnected) spiritually to the world around us and all things dwelling above and below it. Spiritually, we are part of the whole, we are interdependent, which means we are individual and corporate at the same time. In fact, whether one believes they are created in God’s image or not, the responsibility to our home is the same. If in fact one believes this world was created “good,” wouldn’t that mean we should try to keep it that way? Sometimes I struggle working with people with that worldview as they ignored smog and pollution. They ignored species after species becoming extinct and the destruction of the forests necessary to provide us oxygen. I always struggled to understand how any person, religious or not, could look upon the earth we created and call it good.

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