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| Hamilton Alexander |
This year, I bless our four "fur babies" -- all four of them. But why?
Let's be honest. Some folks probably see Christians blessing critters as little more than a gimmick. But for us -- as we live our life together as a Christian family -- it's a way of celebrating that these four "pets" are very much a part of our family. Through them and in them, we experience God's good love.
And that love is a direct challenge to a wrong-headed cultural bias that being Christian is just a matter of the interior life. Somehow we've adopted a world-denying concept of being Christian. I say wrong-headed, because being Christian is very much a world affirming protest.
Meeting God in Christ happens in that world. Jesus is met in the faces off the poor and imprisioned and hungry among us (Matthew 25). Jesus is also met in "the least of these" -- which, I'd argue, very much includes our cats. Meeting Jesus happens in the real, material world.
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| Henley |
The Bible affirms -- again and again -- that creation matters. At the heart of our Christian faith is an affirmation: God made all things good. The goodness of the world is reaffirmed in Jesus: He entered it, blessed it, stopped to love it, and even calmed it.
So at the heart of our faith, these two affirmations -- creation and incarnation -- help us understand why this year, and every year, on the 4th of October, we Christians stop to bless our critters.
Part of our cultural problem is that our attitude toward creation is shaped by a narrow reading of part of the creation stories in Genesis. When God creates humans in Genesis 1, God instructs them to "fill the earth and subdue it", to have dominion over the animals. That has given rise to the notion that the world is there for our use and exploitation.
But there's another story in Genesis 2 that corrects that misreading. In that story, God plants a garden, and creates a man to take care of it. In this version, human beings are caretakers, stewards of God’s creation. The goodness of creation exists, not for us alone, but for itself and for God’s good pleasure and there's a sense in which the fall was at least in part because humans showed themselves to be inadequate stewards. (Adam and Eve are responsible for the ground and animals being cursed in Genesis 3.)
Reminding us of our responsibility for a "creation that groans for its redemption" (Romans 8) is part of the reason we bless animals. I'm well aware of our four's dependence upon us for food and water. I'm awakened every morning with a reminder. And if you've had to nurse a pet who's been sick by bringing them downstairs at 11 at night, just so they can eat grass to calm their small stomachs, you know all about a real interconnectedness to life like that in Romans 8 and Isaiah 11.
Creation and incarnation. Christians keep coming back to those. And no time more obvious than when we remember and celebrate St Francis.
In his life, we see an emphasis on both of those central aspects of our faith. Yes, he preached to birds, tamed a wolf that was ravaging a town. He sang of "Brother Sun and Sister Moon". But all of that was not just sentimentality or pious legend. It was the very heart of who he was. For Francis, the joy and wonder he experienced in the world around him was part and parcel of the joy and wonder of his faith and his experience of Jesus Christ. If you've never read his Little Flowers, you're missing out.
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| Ricky with his "mom" |
No where, though, is that joy and wonder more obvious than when he imitates Jesus. Imitation of Christ may be the key theme in Francis' faith and spirituality. He is often credited with setting up the first crèche -- nativity scene. It included, of course, live animals. There is a simplicity and literal-mindedness in Francis' imitation of Christ. He adopted the dress mandated by Jesus when he sent out the seventy in Matthew 10 -- a simple robe, a rope for a belt, sandal.
And at the heart of Francis' imitation of Christ is the cross. In fact, near the end of his life, after he had given up any leadership in the order he founded, Francis withdrew to a hermitage where he spent his time alone, in prayer and meditation. During that time, as his identification with Jesus Christ and with the cross intensified, he received the sign of the stigmata -- for the last months of his life his hands and feet bled from wounds, similar to the wounds suffered by Christ on the cross.
And that's something our culture often forgets about Francis. He was intense. He rejected the idea that Franciscans should own property and various stories about him attest to his visceral hatred, even fear of wealth. He ministered to and among the poor, especially the poor of the newly urbanized towns of Italy.
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| A younger and more innocent Pippa |
Francis is so largely misunderstood and misremembered in our culture that when we see his spirituality embodied in front of us -- just look at the world's fresh appreciation of Pope Francis -- we're not sure what to think. We can see the joy and wonder of his faith on display for all of us. We can see humility and simplicity in his refusal to live in the papal apartments, in his driving an old Renault around Vatican City. And in his love and concern for the poor, we can see echoes of St Francis as well.
It's those lessons in cruciform humility and patient love that I see in our cats, too. In all creation, actually. There's beauty and joy and love to be found in the world. A beauty, joy and love that we find also in following Jesus. So this year, we're blessing our four.
Thanks be to God for Pippa, Henley, Ricky and Hamilton Alexander.