Pet Blessing Sunday

October 14, 2007

Subject: Right Relationships

Rev. Rali Weaver

First Church in Dedham

When I first started thinking about this sermon on Right Relationships I envisioned writing about the covenantal relationships that First Church is founded on. I will still write that sermon one of these days, but as the week has gone on I have been increasingly excited by pet blessing Sunday, and I started thinking that it is not only other people that benefit from an intentional bond but our pets require the same type of commitment. These days unless we are in a court of law, very few of our commitments to each other human or animal are written down. Yet defining what we give and what we take in relationships with friends and with our pets is important.

For instance my cats (Grady and Agnes) rely on me to care for them by giving them clean water and cleaning their litter. They also rely on me for comfort a few minutes each day and I rely on them for the same. They appreciate my presence from time to time but generally they come and go and expect me to come and go as I please, with no expectations. My relationship with my cats makes sense to me. This give and take and free flow of energy between us that has few expectations I have with my cats, felt like a perfect example of a right relationship.

That is until Monday, when I adopted a dog. Ever since Monday my life has felt more hectic. Unlike my cats, Sophia (my dog) requires a schedule of her own that is not all my own. Finding a routine and balancing her needs with mine has taken up most of my time this week. And as a result my whole idea of living in right relationship with a pet has taken on an entirely different meaning.

Sophia requires almost consistent interaction. For example as my cats hardly raise an eyeball when I leave them, Sophia wants to be near me every second. While my cats want to be near me only occasionally when the feel like it, Sophia wants to sit beside me, and touch me with a paw or a nose or a tail, every second of the day (if I will let her). And while the cats would rebel if I set a set structure or routine to the day, Sophia is calmed by knowing that she will get a walk or dinner at certain hours of the day. And while I deeply love Grady and Agnes, Sophia offers something new to my life that I didn’t even know was missing but that I really needed.

What I have realized over the week is that each of my relationships with my pets offer and require something unique in the same way that each of my human relationships do.

Doris Lessing (Nobel Peace Prize winning feminist Author) wrote that “this was life that two people; no matter how carefully chosen, could not be everything to each other.”

Isn’t that true for all of us? What we require is not so much one pet or person who is available to meet our every need but a variety of different interactions with differing expectations and gifts.

And just as in my relationships with my cats and dogs all relationships vary in their degree of need and expectation, intimacy and sharing, commitment and reward.

To be in right relationships in our lives we must first and foremost recognize that each relationship will offer us something wholly different than the other.

Some relationships challenge us,

Some nurture us,

Some lift us up

Some drag us down.

To be in right relationships we must first pay attention to how our interpersonal (and inter pet) interactions feed or drain our spirits.

Making our needs and expectations clear is the other.

What I appreciate most about my pets is that they let me know when they need something. When Sophia needs a walk she whines and jumps and pushes against me until I comply. When Grady and Agnes want more food they meow more than I ever here them meow.

I love the fact that my pets tell me exactly what they want, unfortunately people are rarely that obvious. However to live in right relationship with all life it requires that we must articulate our expectations so that others can live up to them.

Can you imagine the resentments that might build up if my dog wanted to go for a walk, and didn’t tell me, but just expected me to know? How angry and frustrated and restless she might become if she only waited for me to think of going outside.

I have found that people do this all the time, without letting expectations known they build up all sorts of resentments that their needs are not met instead of ever explaining clearly to anyone exactly what they need.

In the same way I reward Sophia when she does something I want and chastise her when she steps out of line; to live in Right Relationship with people also requires that we set down our expectations clearly so that we can meet each others needs.

The final element of Right Relationships as I see it is our relationship to the divine. Whether you believe in God or not, there is something more that enters into our relationships that is unnamable. For me this presence is the one that brought my pets to me in the first place and the one I pray to when I leave them alone. This presence of mind is available to me when I can just be with my pets where they are and open to their rhythms.

I believe the spirit of the divine enters into all human and animal relationships and is there at all times evident whenever we need it. Robert Bly has a beautiful poem that I think describes this interaction of the divine in human relationships.

The Third Body

A man and a woman sit near each other, and they do not long at this moment to be older, or younger, nor born in any other nation, or time, or place. They are content to be where they are, talking or not talking. Their breaths together feed someone whom we do not know. The man sees the way his fingers move; he sees her hands close around a book she hands to him. They obey a third body they have in common. They have made a promise to love that body.
Age may come, parting may come, death will come. A man and woman sit near each other; as they breathe they feed someone we do not know, someone we know of, whom we have never seen.

~ Robert Bly ~

This third body, which is celebrated most openly in romantic relationships, is evident in all right relationships, where people and animals come together to be fully aware of each other in ways that are difficult to describe. The spirit that enters into all relationships is both precious and earthly and sublime. May we strive to live more fully and rightly in relationship to each other and on this pet blessing Sunday let us celebrate our pets who feed our spirits in ways we cannot ever fully explain nor describe.