What God Wants For Your Life

Our dog Hilda loves nothing better than a quick tour through the shower, if the door is open.

We were busy working and didn’t notice that she had taken off for the bathroom.  Nor did we realize that she had taken a tour of the shower until we found her downstairs, looking somewhat confused, a bar of soap lying on the floor of the den.  Evidently somewhere between the shower and the den she discovered that her ill-gotten gain was no prize at all.

There are times when we bite off more than we can chew.  There are other times when we bite off something we don’t want to chew at all.

Achieving balance in the spiritual life is often about slowing down long enough to examine our motives and the consequences of the choices we make.  Slow down and when a “big” desire surfaces, ask yourself:

Why do I want this?

How will having it change my life?

Will those changes enhance or impoverish my spiritual life?

Is there a deeper desire behind the thing that I want that can’t be achieved by getting this?

Are there fundamental spiritual desires and needs that will go unaddressed by fulfilling this desire?

Or more basically, ask:

Is this desire “of God?”

Hilda didn’t have the capacity to ask those questions.  She enjoyed the tour of the shower.  The bar of soap was something she knew she shouldn’t have, but wanted.  She had no way of asking, “Am I biting off something I don’t want to chew?”

We do.

I had a conversation with our dog the other day.  She was wandering off to another corner of the house and I asked her, “Hilda, what are you doing?”

She responded with remarkable clarity, “Dog…dog is what I do.”

It strikes me that dogs are utterly and completely at home in their dog-ness.  They aren’t redefined by any moment of activity.  They are what they are.

But it isn’t nearly as simple for us human beings.

We frequently let jobs and titles tell us who we are.  As a result, we are often disenfranchised.  We prepare to do what we will be doing.  We are laid off, home sick, or retire —- and suddenly we find ourselves at sea, without an identity.

You are not a job or title.  You are you.

Take a dog’s view of life.

Rejoice in the life you have.  Not the jobs or titles.  Those come and go.

You are here to stay.  You are what God made.

Our dog, Hilda, is a bundle of fuzzy desires — food, affection, throwing her tennis ball, watching and chasing birds and squirrels.  And, being a bundle of desires with a very short, short-term memory, she can’t remember having her desires satisfied.  So, her life appears to be a continuous and endless series, punctuated by sleep.

Human beings are — or should be different.  A life of disordered, endless, non-stop desire might be fine for a dog, but it destroys human life.

Rightly, spiritual masters over the centuries — and, in particular, Ignatius of Loyola — have seen the spiritual quest as one that is shaped by ordering those desires — with God at the center of them.

It is a helpful starting point for true creativity and joy.

I’ve noticed that our dog does not have an off switch. She will eat endlessly. Open the pantry door and she shows interest, even if she has just eaten.

We can’t have everything we want and if we managed to get it, it would not necessarily serve our best interests spiritually.

Balance is not about deprivation. Balance is about availability — our availability to God and to others. And, by contrast, uncontrolled self-indulgence undermines our availability.

That is why gluttony is considered a deadly sin. It isn’t the impact it has on our bodies or our psyches. It is the way it undermines our ability to be available to God — and the way in which it elevates our indulgences to the level of a god.

Breakfast may never be the same for Hilda, our dog. Much to her dismay a small cat (a fraction her size) has begun sitting on top of the fence just outside the kitchen window. Hilda’s water and food are parked in a tray inside the house just below the same window.

But now Hilda never eats her breakfast before looking up at the fence in order to check for the cat. On the rare occasion it is there Hilda goes into a barking, jumping frenzy. But more often the cat is not there.

But the cat’s occasional presence has ruined breakfast for Hilda. She lives in fear of something that is smaller than her. It is of no real threat, and it rarely materializes.

How often do we let fears rob us of joy, undermine our resolve, and shrink our dreams? Jesus said, “Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” Live in the moment. Don’t obsess over the future. Don’t confuse fear with planning or prudence.

And don’t let the cat ruin breakfast.

I took our dog out for a walk this morning. We had another record-breaking snow in Dallas and, though by northern standards it just does qualify as more than a flurry, it’s the source of huge excitement here.

And the dog is really excited. Pulling, half running, head down — a snoot full of snow.

Too often our spirituality is largely a cognitive thing. We are alienated from our surroundings.

That’s no surprise, really. The technological advances that keep us safe and warm during cold weather are also the dynamics that isolate us from the world around us. The upside is that we are safe and warm. The downside is that we fail to revel in the world around us.

One of the distinctive gifts of the Jewish and Christian traditions is the conviction that the world that God has made is a good gift. Take time to enjoy it. The experience will leave you in awe of the world we have been given and the love that God has for us. Nature can be a Sabbath gift that frees us from the tangle of our minds and the narrow preoccupations of our lives, leaving us to breathe a bit freer, aware that it is not all about us.

There are worse things than a snoot full of snow.

The dog had an unexpected treat this morning….beef in her kibble. You could almost hear her ask, “What did I do to deserve this??”

That, of course, is a question we all ask ourselves in good times and in bad. There are times when we do deserve one or the other. More often than not we deserve a bit of both and perhaps even more frequently our lives are filled with moments that have little to do with what we do or do not deserve. Jobs are found or lost; friendships are deepened or shattered; opportunities come and go.

How do we navigate the landscape of life in a spiritually and morally responsible fashion? A few thoughts:

If there is an obvious connection between the choices you have made and the experiences you are having and you don’t like the results — change the choices you are making.

If there isn’t an obvious connection, let go of the borrowed and unnecessary guilt, and move on (as best you can) in conversation with God.

If what is happening to you is good, remember, whether you deserve what you have or not – it’s all grace. Look for ways to give out of what you have, use the gifts that you have for good, and give thanks.

The dog didn’t do anything to deserve beef for breakfast, neither did we.

From time to time I thought I would post something on the lighter side and no small number of those observations will probably will involve our Gordon Setter, Hilda.  For example, Hilda has taught me something about occupational hazards.

We are all socialized by our work lives in one way or another; and it is important to remember that what the work world wants from and offers us is not necessarily congruent with what we are meant to be.  For example, academic life requires exacting attention to the scholarship on a given subject, detailed substantiation for the arguments made, and a long, carefully reasoned defense.  Those are requirements that are usefully observed when seeking tenure or writing an article for an established journal.

They do not translate quite so easily into every day life.  As my dear wife is wont to observe, “The dog doesn’t need paragraphs.”  She does not need to have the commands, “sit” or “down” justified.  She is not a consequentialist…”If you don’t stay, you will need to go to your crate.”  And she is incapable of grasping the suggestion, “Visitors won’t enjoy coming, if you jump on them.”

We would all do well to double check the way in which we have been socialized at work.  It does not all translate easily, obviously, or well beyond the walls of the workplace.  There are times when the dog doesn’t need paragraphs, nor do others we love.

Happy Sabbath…wherever in the world you might be.