Finding God in the howls and poop…

So yesterday Pearl and I received a call that all dog owners dread to receive, if you have children or pets you may be able to sympathize with me. You know the call I’m talking about, the one where the conversation goes something along the line of “ I hate to inform you but I believe your dog (or child) has just recently been inhabited by the devil, cause they just did...”

Yesterday we received such a call.

As Pearl and I where listening our hearts where pounding as we waited to here what our apparently demonic dog had recently accomplished. Had he cleaned out the refrigerator, again? Had he pooped and peed through the entire house? Had he chewed a computer? What did he do?

Matt Bellis, a friend who lives with us, called to let us know that as soon as we left for work our Newfoundland, Captain, became lonely and for the first time in his life howled. Bellis said Captain howled and howled and howled, unceasingly. Until, he finally drug himself out of bed and comforted him.

Yes, I said howled! Howling, what a relief. Howling doesn’t cause repair or replacement or cleaning, just annoyance, so I’ll take howling over a chewing, peeing, or pooping any day.

But Captain, our dog that spends the vast majority of his life sleeping, eating or leaning into you for a scratch decided to take up the art of howling. Now his howl is rather weak and sad, but it’s still a howl, and the reason is rather cute. Our first-born dog, our wonderful newfy, missed us.
Well we love Captain, he’s one of the best dogs a person could ask for, but he has a way of letting you know his feelings. After coming home from work and giving many hugs, pets, treats, and play our Captain crashed in his usual corner for his evening nap. While he was asleep we slipped out for a New Years Eve party. The party was pretty low key but really fun; it was great to connect with some different couples.

When we returned we found the dogs eager to greet us and say hi, but we also discovered their disappointment with us. See our dogs are animals of routine. If their routine is broken things don’t go as planned, they don’t behave as planned, as they have been trained to behave. But I must confess that in my laziness I broke their routine, I didn’t walk them; instead I had watched a movie. So since I had broken their rhythms they said thank you in their own little way. Zuri did the usual thank you by pooping in her cage, but Captain, our howling lonely Newf, made this thank you personal. He could have simply pooped on the landing in his normal spot but no, this time he walked into Bellis’ room and peed next to his clothes, a little thank you sir, and then he searched till he found my scent and on that scent he left his gift, a big huge dump, right on my scent, right on my new house slippers!

Needless to say this is not how Pearl and I wanted to start the New Year. But last night after cleaning up the messes and crawling into bed a thought slipped into my mind. Rhythms are what make up life. We are all rhythmic beings. We have our morning routines, our work routines, our evening commute routines, our dinner rituals, we generally find our weeks playing out in a similar fashion, and our months and years pass to a consistent beat.

I have many rhythms, you have many rhythms; but a rhythm that has been lacking here as of late, well to be honest for a while, for me is the rhythm of pausing.

Pausing: to take time and be, to not be rushing, to slow my mind down and reflect on life, faith, beauty, good, and other things of God, to intentionally connect with the God I love and who loves me, to realign with the kingdom, to be still and know.

A rhythm of pause.

My dogs have a rhythm, my faith has a rhythm

When Captain’s rhythm is broken he howls and poops in your house shoes,

when my rhythm of pause is broken, God misses me, He waits for me,

but if doesn’t poop in my shoes.

I once believed that God would poop in my shoes, may be not literally but that he would do something to spite me, to punish me whenever I broke my rhythm with him.

God doesn’t poop in your shoes, He waits, He whispers; he calls our hearts back to him.

So as I cleaned poop this morning at 1:30 my heart was called back, invited back into a rhythm of knowing him, of pausing

Happy New Year!