Month: February 2020

The vet told me not to give Holly human food but I just cant resist It. There is a deep down vicarious pleasure I get in spoiling her with the good stuff. 

She stands at attention before my plate , holding dead still, like a pointer in the presence of a bird. If I let her at it she will ingest it all in under two seconds, barely chewing or tasting it, and then I resent her for not appreciating the gift. 

If I am going to spoil her with human food then I must find a way to make her to enjoy it like a civilized human, and thereby draw more pleasure out of my role as the benevolent master.

Both Holly and I love cheese, and she is keenly alert to sound of the frig opening, and the little plastic cheese drawer that squeaks when I tug on it, and the thud of the wooden cutting board when I place it down on the stone counter.  

I cut off very small bites, one for her, and one for me. I eat my piece slowly while she inhales hers without a single chew.  I pause for effect before reaching for the next morsel, as if to train her to savor things more, and we just stare at each other.  

Then I begin to see myself reflected in her eyes. I see my own unbridled hunger, my impatience, and my inability to savor and appreciate all the little gifts, the tiny morsels and moments in life. 

Spiritual growth is not about rising above our nature but decending more deeply into it. 

“As God can only be seen by his own light, so He can only be loved by His own love” (Meister Eckart, Sermons)

We tend to think that achieving sanctification and union with God is up to us, but it is not. Yes we must cooperate with grace, but at the deepest point within the soul we are not isolated actors, rather we are participating in God’s being. As St. Paul says, “For in Christ we live and move and have our being”. 

Imagine yourself as an interface between God and creation. We discover our true self out on this frontier, this wild and vulnerable space between us and the divine milieu that we cannot control.  We come alive in the letting go, in the loss of self, in the unknowing.   As we get caught up in this larger drama our small self disappears.