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A Sermon for Judson Memorial Church
June 11, 2006
Kids Day Service
Andrew Frantz
Gods & Dogs
(for Garp)
"God went forth to create the world, and he took his dog with him."
- Kato Creation Story
In the fall of 2004, around the time of his thirteenth birthday, my dog Garp became an Episcopalian. To be honest with you, I found this slightly bothersome, not because I have anything against the Episcopal Church: I have always loved their red doors, and I really do admire that whole gay bishop thing they've got going on. And even though I could never pass by the particular church Garp joined - Holy Trinity on East 88th Street - without adding the word "Batman!" to its name, as in "Holy Trinity, Batman!," I'd be the first to admit that is due to my own peculiarities, and I have never limited such predilections to the Episcopalians: Holy Rosary, Batman! Roman Catholic Church; Holy Cross, Batman! Armenian Apostolic Church. I'm an equal opportunity offender. No, what bothered me the most about Garp joining the Episcopal Church was that I had raised him to be a Baptist.
For a dog, Garp was unusually familiar with the concept of "church." I began working here at Judson when Garp was less than two years old. "Church" was one of those words I would use, like "store," which Garp understood to mean that I wouldn't be gone all day and thus there was no need to mount me from behind in a vain effort to get me to take him along. However, for all those times when I was stupid or careless enough to use the word "work," as in, "I'll see you later, Garp, I've got to go to work," then we became our own personal conga line of two, me striding slowly towards the door, him in lockstep behind, the claws of his two front paws digging deep into my fleshy love handles.
On the particular Sunday that I was speaking of earlier, Holy Trinity was hosting its annual "blessing of the animals" service. I had never attended a "blessing of the animals" service before, although I had seen pictures in the newspapers over the years of some camel or perhaps a llama lumbering down the aisle of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. But it was a beautiful autumn evening and neither Garp nor myself were ready to go home just yet - and to be honest with you, Garp had had several serious health incidents earlier that year - and so I thought, why not give it a try.
Upon opening the door to Holy Trinity's chapel, we were immediately overwhelmed by the sight and sound of so many people and their pets in one enclosed space. It was absolute bedlam. Dogs were everywhere, their barking and yelping reverberating off the chapel walls. In the midst of this chaos were other animals as well: turtles, exotic birds, a giant snake, bowls of fish, hamsters and gerbils. And there were cats: cats surrounded by dogs. Scaredy cats, who appeared to be saying to themselves, "Holy Crap, it's the Apocalypse!" Other cats, disdainful as ever, and agnostic to boot, looked at their owners as if to say: "This settles it. You must be the biggest moron in all of New York City for ever thinking that I belonged in such a place as this." But mostly there were dogs: big and small, purebreds and mutts, puppies and old-timers, all straining at the ends of their leashes and sniffing each other's privates in celebratory greeting. Garp and I made our way across the room, stopping several times in order that he might say hello to some of his buddies from the neighborhood, until at last we found a seat.
The service started with some opening remarks by a priest that I must admit were rather difficult to hear for all the dogs howling and the cats meowing and the exotic birds - well, you get the picture. Soon we were singing a hymn, accompanied by a piano, a guitar, and a small choir, which, of course, only set the animals off even more, the decibel levels rising to deafening proportions. At one point as we were singing, I remember Garp looked up at me with the biggest grin on his face, his tail just a wagging, and I could tell exactly what he was thinking: This is GREAT! Why have you been hiding this from me all my life? Episcopalians rock! Then he began howling along with the rest of us.
After the hymn, the priest said a few more words and we were invited to line up and one by one come forward that our pet might be blessed. When it was our turn, the priest asked for Garp's name, took his face in his hands and very simply asked God to bless him. And just like that, it was over. Garp, apparently now a member of the Episcopal Church, was given a goody bag filled with treats, and we soon found ourselves standing outside once again in the cool night air.
As we walked home that night, I couldn't help but wonder how Garp's church experience was any different from my own: to have the opportunity to come together with those creatures with whom you share a common interest, or at least a common species, maybe even counting some as friends, and although perhaps a bit perplexed at times as to what it's all about, nevertheless, singing out in utter abandon against the dark night. And if we are lucky, we might get some treats. How blessed is that?
Gods and dogs. It does seem a rather odd sermon topic, even for Judson. What's next? Horses and the Holy Spirit? Cats and Christ? (By the way, the answer for those of you wondering what cats and Christ could possibly have in common is, of course, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Now and forever, baby!)
I know it's probably a coincidence that I've chosen this particular year to talk about dogs when 2006 just so happens to be the "Year of the Dog" in the Chinese calendar, but doesn't it seem as if everyone is talking about dogs these days? The New York Times tends to run an article about dogs every other week or so. Dogs are all over your television, from "K-9 Karma" on the Animal Planet channel, to "Barkitecture" on the Do It Yourself Network, and the number one show on the National Geographic channel (and Abigail Hasting's favorite, I might add), "Dog Whisperer," starring Cesar Millan: "When good dogs go bad, there's one man who's their best friend: the Dog Whisperer."
Dogs and cats even have their own internet radio station, DogCatRadio.com, which also happens to feature a "Spanish Hour" for those little perros and gatos who might be surfing the web.
Dogs are also on the bestseller lists, with what I like to refer to as "dogmoirs," or people's memoirs of their lives with their canine companions. Or perhaps you haven't noticed that cute little white lab, Marley, staring up at you from the windows of every bookstore in America. Marley and Me by John Grogan has sold hundreds of millions of copies and earlier this year rose to number two on The New York Times hardcover nonfiction list.
Writers have always been prolific when it comes to dogs. In their passion may lie some of the reasons the rest of us find dogs so appealing. Carlo DeVito writes, "Dogs have no shame. They are funny, and they don't care if you laugh at them or with them. When you are happy, they are happy." Milan Kundera once said: "Dogs are our link to paradise. … To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace."
Homer, Lord Byron, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, Jack London, W.H. Auden, Pablo Neruda, John Steinbeck, Willie Morris, to name just a few. And Emily Dickinson, who once wrote to a friend, "You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself." Ms. Dickinson knew why she loved dogs: "They are better than Beings," she said, "because they know but do not tell."
Dogs' popularity with human beings is nothing new. In his book, In The Company Of Animals, James Serpell, PhD, the Marie A. Moore Professor of Humane Ethics and Animal Welfare at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, tells of a burial site discovered in northern Israel in 1978 containing two skeletons: "an elderly human of unknown sex and, next to it, the remains of a five-month-old domestic dog. The two had been buried together roughly 12,000 years ago. The most striking thing about these remains was the fact that whoever presided over the original burial had carefully arranged the dead person's left hand so that it rested, in a timeless and eloquent gesture of attachment, on the puppy's shoulder."1
Much of mankind has always had a spiritual connection with dogs as well. I love the story of Nagaicho and his dog, as read this morning by Anne Marie Roderick. This Kato legend is indicative of how dogs play a role in the creation stories of many Native American tribes, acting as God's companion in some or even playing the role of God in others.
James Serpell also tells a wonderful story of dogs and gods "contained in the Hindu legend of Yudhishthira. In the final scene of the Mahabharata epic, the hero Yudhishthira approaches Heaven after a lengthy mountain pilgrimage during which his queen and his four brothers have all perished. His only surviving companion at this stage is a dog that has followed him faithfully since he set out on his journey. Suddenly, Indira, the King of Heaven, appears in a blaze of light and invites Yudhishthira to complete his journey in his heavenly chariot. Yudhishthira happily accepts and stands aside to allow the dog to enter first, whereupon Indira objects strenuously on the grounds that dogs are unclean and that the animal's presence would defile Heaven itself… A heated argument then ensues until Yudhishthira finally announces that he cannot conceive of a crime that would [be] more heinous than to leave the dog behind. At this point, all is revealed. By refusing Heaven for the sake of a dog, Yudhishthira has passed his final test. The dog is suddenly transformed into Dharma, the God of Righteousness, and Yudhishthira is carried off to Heaven..."2
The Judeo-Christian tradition has not been as kind in its portrayal of dogs. The word "dog" or "dogs" is mentioned approximately 39 times throughout the Bible, and not once in any flattering manner. Taking its cue from the creation story in the Book of Genesis in which man alone is said to have been created in God's image and given dominion over everything, Christian thinking has long denied all animals the right to live, the ability to reason, immortality, indeed, their very souls. Even today, almost 150 years after Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species, when it comes to our place within the animal kingdom, the Christian Church is hardly prepared to change its tune and sing along with George and Ira Gershwin, "the things that you're liable to read in the Bible, ain't necessarily so."
The fable of Balaam and his donkey, this morning's ancient testimony, is one of my favorite Bible stories of all time, even though it is not about a dog. Balaam was a holy man, a professional diviner, who had been summoned by King Balak of Moab who, fearing a possible attack by Israel on his tiny kingdom, wanted to hire Balaam to put a curse on Israel. There was just one small problem: apparently, God didn't want Balaam to meet with the king, at least not then. Three times an angel of God appeared before Balaam, holding a sword and blocking the way, but could not get Balaam's attention.
What does it say about your qualifications as a holy man, a seer, if you will, if you can't see an angel of God standing right in front of you - but your donkey can?
My favorite moment in this story occurs not when Eeyore - hey, we've got to give this poor creature a name - speaks for the first time. It's what happens next when, without a moment's hesitation, Balaam answers that donkey as if she had been talking to him all his life. Having a conversation with your pet is nothing new for most pet owners; but when they actually start talking back, well, you just have to be aware of that.
My dog Garp had a large vocabulary, which is to say he knew a lot of words, most of them having to do with food. About the only word he didn't respond to was "No!"
Garp was a gift from my sister Cammie. I say gift, although to be honest there were times over the course of that first year together when I wasn't so sure whether Garp was my sister's gift as much as he was my sister's revenge for any childhood slights I may have caused her when we were younger. If you've ever raised a puppy in a New York City apartment, you have some idea of what I'm talking about.
One day I came home from work to find that Garp had de-braided a large oval rug in the foyer of my apartment. Apparently, there had been a loose thread in the center of the rug which caught his attention and he spent the day chewing and pulling and turning circles until my once beautiful L.L. Bean braided rug resembled a large doughnut with a hole in the center and this long, thick, wet noodle of a braid lying on its side. I couldn't believe it. I think I was in shock. Garp looked up at me, exhausted from his labor, yet obviously very proud of his accomplishment, and gave out one of the loudest belches I have ever heard in my life.
For more than thirteen and a half years we lived a life together, sharing the same apartments, wending our way on thousands and thousands of walks. And I wish I could stand here this morning and say that I'm not one of those of people who are just a bit too over the top when it comes to their dog, but you know me better than that. After all, here we are. Plus, there's the little matter of all those pictures with all those hats.
Every summer Garp and I would spend a week in Vermont, just a couple of city dogs off leash, wandering the back roads, swimming in Lake Champlain and hiking those beautiful Green Mountains. One of the stops on our annual pilgrimage is a place called Dog Mountain, just outside of St. Johnsbury in the Northeast Kingdom. It is there that the artist Stephen Huneck has built a chapel just for dogs. It's a small, white clapboard church complete with a steeple featuring a Labrador with wings ascending to heaven. It has stained glass windows with pictures of dogs and the words "faith," "love," "friend," and "joy" inscribed underneath. There are pews with golden retrievers and black labs carved on either end, and there is a remembrance wall for people to post pictures and/or notes about their dogs. In front of the chapel there is a sign that reads, "WELCOME ALL CREEDS, ALL BREEDS. NO DOGMAS ALLOWED." Sounds a little like Judson, doesn't it? It is truly one of the most serendipitous places you will ever come across, complete with a couple of ponds, fields of wildflowers, hiking trails and, of course, Mr. Huneck has a gallery with art works to sell on the side. If you find yourself in New England this summer, whether you have dogs or not, please scoot on over to Dog Mountain and check it out.
The genesis for today's speech actually occurred as I was struggling to decide on a topic for a Kids Day service five years ago. I was torn between speaking about one of my favorite writers, Eudora Welty, or talking about dogs. I had recently finished a novel by Diane Jessup, entitled The Dog Who Spoke With Gods. It was about a dog who magically develops the ability to speak. Ms. Jessup has a wonderful line in the book: "In my heart is a secret belief that the only real 'magic' is the power of love." Ultimately, I chose to talk about Ms. Welty, who promptly died less than two months after my speech. I'm not superstitious, but after learning of Ms. Welty's death I went home, looked Garp straight in the eyes, and promised, "I will never preach on dogs as long as you live." A year ago this past May, I was freed from that promise when Garp, after battling the effects of a brain tumor for almost a year, passed away while on a walk in Central Park.
These days when I think of Garp, I can't help but be reminded of those words in the stained glass windows of The Dog Chapel up on Dog Mountain: faith, love, friend, and joy. And I'm not sure how you are supposed to sum up a life lived with anyone in one word, but if I had to choose, it would be this: blessing.
I'm afraid I haven't offered much in the way of theology this morning, so let me close by throwing you this bone, pun fully intended. I don't have to tell you how difficult life can be at times, so full of pain and unbelievable sorrow. And like Balaam, it is easy to become so obsessed with our own journey that we fail to see what has been standing right in front of us all along. As ridiculous as it may sound, it's been my experience that dogs have the power to speak to us in surprising ways, and even to save our lives, as Balaam's donkey once did. It's simply the power of love. Love, "the real magic," which, no matter the source, be it two-legged or four-, can change our world, allowing us to see joy even in the midst of suffering, to see possibilities when all we knew was despair. Love, which allows us to communicate when there are no words.
*****
Special thanks to John Irving and The World According to Garp. I am forever in your debt.
1 James Serpell, In The Company of Animals: A Study of Human-Animal Relationships (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 72.
2 James Serpell, The Domestic Dog: its evolution, behaviour and interactions with people (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 250-251.
Ancient Testimony: Numbers 22: 21-35
New Testimony: from Dog Love by Marjorie Garber:
"Lassie was my favorite show. We watched it every week, but we never could figure it out. We never could figure out how a dog would understand everything the people would say, and how the people would understand everything the dog would say.
Did you ever notice how Timmy would talk to Lassie? 'Lassie, Lassie, go get Mom and Dad and tell them that I am down by the beaver pond and I am stuck under a pine tree. It is a loblolly pine tree, not the long-leaf variety. They are on the north forty Lassie, not the south forty, but the north forty, on the red tractor. Do you understand? Now go, Lassie, go!'
And Lassie would take off. She would be getting across that field, and Ruth and Paul would see Lassie coming and automatically know, 'Here comes Lassie, looks like trouble.' Lassie would get up there and they would say, 'What is it, Lassie, what is it girl?'
'Woof!'
That would be all Lassie would say, but Ruth would respond in a very excited voice, 'Oh my God, Paul. Timmy is down by the beaver pond stuck under a loblolly pine tree!'
How did they know? I never did figure that out. I had a collie and I could never even teach him to say 'Woof,' much less communicate to my parents when I was in trouble. If he knew the difference in pine trees, he never told me."
Native American Testimony: "God Had A Dog," a Kato Creation Story, retold by Maria Leach, Rutgers University Press, 1961 (www.jssmith.home.mindspring.com)
"Nagaicho, the creator, set out to create the world, and he took along a dog. He placed four big pillars at the corners of the earth to hold up the sky. He created man from the dirt, and then he created woman. The sun became hot, the moon was cold, and trees grew everywhere. Waves danced on the surface of the ocean and all the creatures of the seas swam in it and were happy.
Then Nagaicho saw that the creatures of the earth needed water. He dragged his feet deep into the earth and created rivers. He poked his fingers into the earth and created flowing springs. Then Nagaicho piled rocks around the edge of the water and made lakes and ponds. 'Drink the good water,' he said to the dog. And the dog drank from the sweet water, and Nagaicho himself lay down and plunged his face into the water and drank. 'It is good,' he said. 'Bears and people will drink here.'
Then Nagaicho put salamanders and turtles and little eels in the creeks. He put grizzlies and deer in the mountains and panthers and jackrabbits. So Nagaicho walked along, creating the creatures. 'Walk behind me, my dog,' said Nagaicho. 'Let us look at all that is made.' Acorns and chestnuts hung on the trees. Berries crowded the bushes. There were many birds and snakes. The grass had grown. Grasshoppers were leaping about. There was clover. 'We made it good, my dog,' said Nagaicho.
And so they started back, Nagaicho and his dog. The mountains were high; the land was flat; the creeks were full of trout. The good water raced over the rocks. They walked along. 'We are nearly home, my dog,' said Nagaicho. 'I will drink water. You drink too.' The face of the earth was covered with growing things. The creatures were multiplying upon it. And Nagaicho went back into the North with his dog."
(The Kato are a Native American tribe located in northwest California.)
All Photographs Copyright 2006, Andrew Frantz
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