dog love

I've been carrying a book along with me on this trip. I had planned on carrying (and reading) one book or another about the emergent church . . . but instead I found myself first carrying (and reading) one about a dog.

From the introduction: a friend asks the author, "Is there any religion - has there ever been one - that speaks of a God who loves us as much as dog?" And she then quotes a student: "If I thought that God loved me as much as my dog, it would change everything."

The book is called "Dogspell: The Gospel According to Dog" (I can't figure out how to underline things on this blog, so please excuse the formatting here.) The author is Mary Ellen Ashcroft, and the book is due to be re-released this fall. I was asked to write a "blurb" for the back cover, and received the publisher's proof copy right before leaving for this trip, with the expectation that I'd have the blurb in by July 1.

So . . . I'm carry, and reading, "Dogspell".

It's a re-reading for me. I read this book when it first came out, and have given away many copies over the last few years. But it had been a long time since I've actually read it myself. So I'm re-reading it now.

"Dogspell" is a lengthy parable. Or maybe a series of parables. About God's love. About Mary Ellen's black lab, Cluny, who loved her so deeply, so thoroughly, so consistently. Who taught her about what God's love really looks like. Waiting to welcome her, no matter what. No matter.

Each short chapter of this book is a heart moving look at love. God's love. The love that dog offers. No strings. No conditions. Nothing held back. Ever.

What if??? What if we were able to really believe that God loves us as much as dog does? What if we were able to share that with the world around us?

Dogspell seems to be the perfect book for this journey of mine. God's love. God's faithfulness. God's welcome. Waiting for all. Eager and wagging and yearning to leap all over us and cover us with wet kisses.

Isn't that what we all need? Doggie love. Godly love. Love without bounds. Without reason. Without end.

It's what every one I've met yearns for. And somehow, we've missed telling them that God is yearning to welcome them home. Yearning to jump up on them and tell them that nobody else will do.

As the author says: "Despite years of prayer, religious seeking, theological training, and church involvement, I believed more fully in the steadfast love and faithfulness of dog than of God."

I think that this is what we each want to believe. And what the world wants to hear from us.

Waiting for you to come home, dog is waiting eagerly to bound across the floor and cover you with greeting and with love. No explanations needed. Just welcome. Waiting. Eagerly waiting. Not for excuses. Not for repentance. Not for penitence. Just waiting for YOU.

It is heartbreaking, heartmoving, heartwarming, just to move around the edges of such a possibility.

Can God really love me that much? That easily? That fully?

Can I possibly find a way to let the world know that God loves them that much, that easily, that fully, too?

My husband's black lab, Berry, has adopted me as his own. He waits at home while I travel. He sheds hair in his grief at missing me. The vacuum can't keep up with his love, poured out in hair all over the house.

God/dog loves me that much.

It is enough.

It is more than enough.