Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,
Last Sunday after I officiated at Zoom Evensong, our family went to the home of a family in Rosedale. They were fostering a rescue dog who was picked up off the streets of a town in Mexico. And we adopted her. She is a three month-old puppy, whom Andrew named Coco. While Andrew did not name her intentionally in homage to the delightful Disney movie of the same name, which is set in Mexico and features a street dog, Anne and I immediately pointed out the suitability of the name. Whether, like the dog in the movie, she turns out to be a nagual, a spirit animal in disguise who can transform into an alebrije, remains to be seen. In any event, like that Disney dog, Coco has a wonderfully gentle disposition, and has already found a place in all our hearts.
Now, don’t get the wrong idea. Despite all appearances to the contrary, we aren’t really animal lovers. Even though we moved to Canada with two cats and a mouse, and now we have two cats and two mice, the addition of a dog to our household was not something Anne and I were particularly enthusiastic about doing. It was just that the cats are clearly bonded to the adults in the family, and the mice are without any doubt Margaret’s pets. The cats ignore Andrew, and Andrew’s access to the mice is entirely controlled by their Guardian-in-Chief. That left Andrew without a creature to call his own.
We had thought about getting him a turtle or a lizard or some fish, and I was very much in favour of procuring a hedgehog until Anne reported that they carry salmonella (who knew?), but none of these candidates would have matched our boy’s personality, nor given him what he needs, nor challenged him to grow in his sense of responsibility toward the animal world. Unfortunately for him, Andrew is an extrovert in a family of introverts. Even the cats and the mice are introverted. So, much as we hate to admit it, a puppy like Coco is, in fact, the perfect match for him.
Coco may be perfect for Andrew, but I was enjoying being a middle-aged father with increasingly independent children, so I was not in the mood for the attendant responsibilities and anxieties of puppy care. It’s like having a toddler again. I’ve been up at 1:30 and 3:30 in the morning to take Coco outside to do her business, so that she won’t have an accident in the middle of the night whilst cuddled up against Andrew in his bed. Thus, I must admit that it seemed to me no coincidence that this fate should befall me at the very beginning of Lent, for I find the burden of caring for another creature penitential in nature, and I had to fight against the resentment that this change brought about in my comfortable existence. I am, after all, as Anne likes to say, an “avid indoorsman,” so the thought of long walks in winter (or even only two minutes outside in the middle of the night) does not fill me with eager anticipation.
So, with apologies to all of you dog lovers out there, my Ash Wednesday sermon, which was on the topic of having “an appropriately miserable Lent,” was inspired by the fact that I am a selfish person at heart, which this puppy has brought home to me in an all-too-familiar way. Just as when I was a young father, and even now, being challenged to give more of myself than I want under circumstances not of my choosing brings on a certain kind of misery.
Admittedly, this misery is offset by the benefits of dog ownership, which I am just now beginning to appreciate. As I said to Anne the other day, “Our cats will never improve our social lives. But Coco already has.” Anne has been invited places because of Coco. People smile at us and assume (wrongly, in my case) that we are good people with open hearts.
Why am I so selfish? I am tempted to hide behind the fact that I’m merely human, and humanity is as a whole selfish. But this would be evasive of my own personal culpability. We’re all fallen, sinful human beings. (I write this as someone who is genuinely very fond of my fallen, sinful self.) But we must, especially in Lent, contend with whatever brand of besetting selfishness we tend to indulge in; and there are many brands from which to choose.
In my case, it appears that God, Anne, and Andrew have all conspired to send a puppy into my life to make it abundantly clear that when it comes to caring for others above myself, even though I’m a priest (for God’s sake!), I still very much stand in the need of God’s grace (and consequently, of your prayers).
I had an epiphany this past week, which is appropriate, I suppose, because last Tuesday was the end of Epiphanytide and Day Two (Night Three) of my “Hound of Heaven” penance. My epiphany began this way: I have always prided myself that, unlike the majority of my colleagues in ordained ministry (including, significantly, my own father), I am not burdened with the need to be needed. This has some distinct advantages when it comes to maintaining healthy boundaries, providing pastoral care that’s truly centred in the recipient and not covertly meeting my own needs, and an availability that is open but not intrusive. The down side is that sometimes I don’t want to be needed when I am. The epiphany itself came when I asked myself, “If I do not have the need to be needed, what do I have?” The answer came back, loud and clear: I have the want to be wanted.
The difference between someone who needs to be needed and someone who wants to be wanted is that the former is genuinely other-centred even when trying to meet her own needs, while the latter is essentially self-centred. People who need to be needed end up quite often in the caring professions: nursing, ministry, social work. People who want to be wanted often end up in professions where they are the centre of attention: actors and teachers, writers and preachers. We want to be admired for our wisdom or our skill, our capacity for understanding and giving voice to what it means to be human. We also want people to get something out of what we do, obviously, but we do it in large part because deep down inside, we simply want to be wanted.
In the final analysis, however, both the need to be needed and the want to be wanted are rooted in the same thing: the desire to be desired. To mix metaphors, both are simply two sides of the same coin. The desire to be desired is a perfectly healthy and human desire. It is the part of us that reaches out both in love and for love, the part of us that helps us realize that our hearts truly are restless until they rest in God. But the desire to be desired can also be twisted and corrupted. When our mythic ancestors saw that the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was “a delight to the eyes, good for food, and to be desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6), they were turned from their desire for God to lesser goods. St. John refers to this when he writes that “all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world” (I John 2:16).
And yet, the very desire that leads us astray, whether it manifests itself in needs or wants, can also put us back on the right path, with God’s help. And Lent is the season designed to remind us of this fact. As we read in Psalm 19:7-13,
The law of the Lord is an undefiled law, restoring the soul; /
the testimony of the Lord is sure, and giveth wisdom unto the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, and rejoice the heart; /
the commandment of the Lord is pure, and giveth light unto the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, and endureth for ever; /
the judgements of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; /
sweeter also than honey, and the honey-comb.
Moreover, by them is thy servant taught; /
and in keeping of them there is great reward.
Who can tell how oft he offendeth? /
O cleanse thou me from my secret faults.
Keep thy servant also from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me; /
so shall I be undefiled and innocent from the great offence.
“More to be desired are they than gold.” Lent reminds us that the Law of God, which Jesus taught us, can be summarized by the commandments to love God with all our hearts, and souls, and minds, and strength, and to love our neighbours as ourselves, reorients our hearts toward God and toward those who matter most to God: other people (and creatures, like puppies), whose needs and wants we can, with God’s help, gladly tend to, just as we can trust that our own deepest needs and wants will be supplied by the God who loves us—even more than any puppy has ever loved her guardians! That kind of puppy love is eternal.
Who can tell how oft he offendeth? /
O cleanse thou me from my secret faults.
Keep thy servant also from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me; /
so shall I be undefiled and innocent from the great offence.
Who knew that it would take a dog, of all things, to bring this epiphany home to me? Well, God knew, I guess. And I suspect Anne did, too.
The best thing about Coco is not that she convicts me of my want to be wanted, but that she helps meet the entirely wholesome and valid need that Andrew has to be needed. In this regard, finding myself caught short by the demands of love for Andrew’s sake is worth all the long winter walks Coco will ever require of me.
Yours in Christ’s service,
N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector