Dogs and Blessings

Bo the Dog who now lives in Hunt, Texas is a blessing in my life. So much so, that when I was bragging about him to someone the other day, we had to compare photos on our smart phones.

Coming this fall, I hope we can Bless the Animals at Hunt United Methodist Church. Some of us are starting to plan an event for the morning of September 30th.

I am really glad to be visiting homes and offices and hospitals and places where blessed animals reside. I visited with Eloise Massey the other day and met Buttercup, her blessed doggie.

Friends, I pray that your week is filled with opportunities to receive and share in the grace and blessing of God's love. I also pray that your loved ones, especially those furry ones that give love without condition, will be truly blessed.
I like a blessing from John O'Donohue in his book of blessings called To Bless the Space Between Us; it goes like this:
"Nearer to the earth's heart, deeper within its silence:
animals know this world in a way we never will.
We who are ever distanced and distracted by the parade of bright
Windows thought opens: their seamless presence is not fractured thus.
Stranded between time gone and time emerging, we manage seldom
To be where we are:
Whereas they are always looking out from the here and now.
May we learn to return and rest in the beauty
of animal being, learning to lean low, leave our locked minds,
And with freed senses feel the earth breathing with us.
May we enter into lightness of spirit, and slip frequently into
The feel of the wild.
Let the clear silence of our animal being
Cleanse our hearts of corrosive words.
May we learn to walk upon the earth
With all their confidence and clear-eyed stillness
So that our minds might be Baptized
in the name of the wind and the light and the rain."

Much love and many blessings!
Pastor Paul
​Along the Way 

---