When I lived in London, I was lucky enough to be employed by my local church as the general handyman/cleaner/verger/gardener et al. I had keys to the church and therefore access to it at any time. This meant I could go in and clean without being disturbed and that I had time alone to think and look around and listen to the stillness and take in the calmness that empty churches have. Early morning or late at night there was always a feeling that I was safe and being cared for. Sometimes if I was locking up late in the evening after an event, I would take my dog Harley with me. He loved running round in church and when he had had enough he just lay on the floor waiting for me to finish. Now in Somerset he loves coming to Holy Cross Thornfalcon with me and will run around both inside and out until he has had enough and then collapses in church until I am r
eady to leave. Now when I take him with me if he is not ready to leave when I am he just refuses to get in the car.
This got me thinking, a dog is one of God’s creatures and to misquote the bible “all are welcome in my house”. When looking at the bible, animals are frequently mentioned: from doves to sheep, bears, cows, wolves and ants, not forgetting the donkeys.
Dogs are mentioned both in good and bad ways, mostly bad. We have been known in the past to refer to people as dogs, but is that an insult to the dog?
Dogs are loyal, give unconditional love, make you smile by doing funny things, and make you curse when they roll in some foul-smelling patch of grass covered in animal poo!
We must remember that God loves us regardless of what we do (not sure about rolling in poo!).
Bob Pamplin