You may remember my blog post of May 26th, in which I spoke of the death of our dog, Daisy. I was not quite ready for another dog, being that I have a lot of things demanding my time: sick wife to care for, clients to service, and a new part-time job in the evenings. Nonetheless, Elizabeth began scouring the local animal shelter and found this loveable goof-ball:

This is Dodger, an American Pit Bull/Boxer mix. The interesting thing is how much he resembles Daisy, from the Boxer brindle color of his coat to the traditional white blaze patch on his chest. I know there was some psychology involved in my wife’s insistent demand that I immediately get myself down to the Fairfax County Animal Shelter and adopt him before anyone else snatched him away. Elizabeth still refers to him with the pronouns “she” and “her.” It shows me that she has not yet come to grips with Daisy’s death.

For a puppy who is just a little over a year old, he is a big boy. Seventy two pounds at the vet’s office, and probably will get close to a hundred before he stops growing. He’s very powerful, but is mostly just a big bundle of love. The ironic thing is that although Elizabeth wanted him for herself, he has quickly become my dog. He follows me everywhere, constantly wants to play (which I love – Daisy didn’t know how to play) and sleeps on my bed with me. In every way he is my dog and he is a good boy!

But he’s a bit of a problem. He’s not getting the idea that he needs to relieve himself outside, which has given me more than one mess to deal with over the last two months of our life together. It is this problem that I was musing on one morning when I thought of how much our relationship – dog and owner – is like the relationship that God has with us. Just like Dodger, my life is messy with the objectionable habits of sin. I just love this dog to death. He is a well-meaning, sweetheart of an animal, but who is, in regard to potty training, about as smart as a box of rocks.

Just like me and my sin.

In the same way that I am trying various means to train Dodger to not go in the house, God keeps trying, through the ministry of the Church and the ascetic practices of Orthodoxy, to train me and get me away from the sins that so easily beset me and make me less than I should be as a professing Christian. Somehow, my participation in the four fasting seasons of the Church, the Divine Liturgy, and personal prayer, has not cured me of a very bad temper and the sin of pride. I swear, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if one day, Fr. David looks at me in front of the Icon of Christ and says, “Same sins as last time?” I mean, honestly, it’s embarrassing to have to come again and again and again for the same thing.

And here’s the part I was meditating on while I walked my puppy in yet another vain attempt to have him figure out that the bathroom is outside: Just as I love him to death and cannot be really greatly angry with him, how much more does God love me in all my failures and repeated spiritual foul-ups? This unconditional love from God is something that I have struggled to understand and get deep into my heart for most of my life. You see, as I have mentioned in other blog pieces, for the greater part of my life, me getting love, respect, appreciation, etc. from others has always been conditioned upon my perfect behavior. I never got it from my father. I was the inept failure at sports, the class clown who was picked on, the boy (and young man) who never felt that he belonged to any place of anyone. That sort of thing leaves deep scars, and it easily carries over into the spiritual life.

I have worked on these feelings for several years now, and I have become better, but there are still those who, through their actions and/or words, make me feel inferior, especially when it comes to having a relationship with my heavenly Father. I have gone through many years of clergy who constantly present God in a manner which shows Him to be demanding and dissatisfied with any attempts to live the Christian life that are not just perfect. There are still those who today make statements which suggest that God’s love is limited to their little group, or only to those who constantly perform. Some statements I have read make it sound like you have to earn your salvation by climbing a ladder of good works and not allowing the devils surrounding that ladder to pull you off and cast you into hell. Hearing such demands on my spiritual life causes me to despair, which is yet another sin to add to my account at the Judgment Day.

I would never hit this puppy. I know for all his foul-ups, he means well and he is devoted to me, as much as a dog can be to his master. Likewise, I mean well, yet I cannot shake the feeling that if I don’t perform just so, I am going to get whacked by God. How is it that I can see myself acting better towards a dumb animal than God acting towards me? Again, I think it is the way that Christianity has been applied to my life by decades of pulpit pounders driving home to me the point that God is angry with sinners every day. He is easily offended and will get His revenge, either now, or in eternity.

A particular event I remember showcases this sort of thing very well. I was attending a “Revival Service” being held by a traveling evangelist in which he told the following story: A man who was a faithful tither one day Sunday skipped his tithe because things were very tight financially. The next week, his car broke down, and the repair bill came out to exactly the same amount as his tithe, right down to the penny!

TO. THE. PENNY!

That is the kind of theological terrorism I sat under for years until I finally had enough and moved on. But it leaves scars, deep and lasting, so that every time something bad happens, I find myself wondering what I have done to make God upset with me. It is a constant fight to remind myself that God is love – unconditional and always doing that which is best for us in love, even when it doesn’t seem that way.

Sad, isn’t it?

But if I can love this canine goofball, with all his annoying habits and his need to be trained, how much more does God, who is pure love, love me and all mankind, despite our wretched behavior, our failures, and even our running away from him as fast as we can?

Maybe I look like a puppy to God – all goofy and loveable and in His eyes, His precious child. It is something I really should think upon more often and repeatedly.