Magda "Maggie" Cum Naughty, our Chocolate Labrador Retriever, celebrated her birthday this week. Actually every day to Maggie is a birthday. Her daily joie de vivre has been a bright light in the rectory ever since she came home on St. John's Day, 2001. There was nothing intentional about that day other than we had agreed with the breeder to pick her up then because it would be down time in the rectory, just right for taking up the demanding routine of a new puppy in the house. Yet in one of those wonderful moments of the Holy Spirit, it happens that Labrador Retrievers, native to Newfoundland, were once known as St. John's dogs. Our four-legged bundle of joy has been an unceasing blessing, worthy of our calendar celebration even if she only just wants her biscuit as always, never mind human artifice and thank you very much!
Retriever grace has been ours for nine years, enfleshing in the rectory everything good about these wonderful creature-children of God, evoking our love and compassion and caring to the point that our adult children now wryly observe, "You never loved us as much as Maggie!" Would it be helpful to respond Maggie never cost me private school educations, insurance, cars, curfews missed, relationships agonized over, unceasing prayer and consternation . . . indeed, Maggie has been all joy, all the time. Even when she gnawed one of Patty's new Salvatore Ferragamo shoes to bare wood (by the way, designer shoes are remarkably well-crafted when observed from inside out!) or scratched and then chewed a large hole in a dining room wall or proudly carried a live baby rabbit home in her soft, gentle mouth . . . she was just being what she is, a Retriever!
Yes, we love our dog, too much probably. Our love and care for her brings many regular satisfactions of the heart that are otherwise inaccessible in human relations, encumbered as human relations are with a dark side, the unreasonableness, meanness and selfishness, greed, willfulness and vapidity of our lesser selves. Maggie is all dog, all the time, without deceit. However annoying her barking or painful her hurts, we wouldn't want it any other way. What we celebrate in Maggie is the flesh ground of God's creation and the fruit of our own good works in her training, care and nurture.
I know our greater purpose and responsibility in human relations, and I do not for one moment mistake the greater value of our human relations even with all the struggle and strife entailed. Yet, in a word there's nothing like the companionship of a good dog at the end of a long run.
Happy birthday, Maggie!
