The School of the Spirit(s)

After we buried the ashes of St. Benedict’s Wilfrid, our 10-year-old Airedale Terrier, I was horrified to see our new puppy, a 10-week-old Goldendoodle, digging up the ashes and rolling in them. What at one moment I found disturbing, the next moment I found rather amusing if not fitting. In the strangest of ways, I believe that this big-hearted Airedale Terrier was passing on his Benedictine ways of spiritual direction to Byron, the new Goldendoodle in our life.

Ten years before this event, I was ending my first sabbatical at the Collegeville Institute at St. John’s University and Abbey. Many friends of the Institute had named their children or pets after Father Killian O’Donnell, the resident elderly poet and revered monk. But I found that no one had named anyone after Brother Wilfrid, the Institute’s liaison to the Abbey, and when this goofy Airedale pup looked up at me, I knew just then that his name would be Wilfrid, St. Benedict’s Wilfrid to be exact.

Several years later when I returned to the Institute for a summer conference on religion and science, I visited with one of the participants whose wisdom I had grown to trust. Dawn Adams was a Choctaw Indian and one afternoon on a long walk we talked about our relationships with animals. She smiled when I told her that I was considering becoming a Benedictine Oblate or finding a Benedictine spiritual director. I had also mentioned Wilfrid’s strange habit of sitting on the deck each night for about 20 minutes, as he smelled the world into his being.

“You don’t need to become a Benedictine Oblate,” Dawn said to me.  “You have a Benedictine creature in your own home and you aren’t even listening to him. Pay attention to Wilfrid. He can be your spiritual director.”

And so it began: my new relationship with a canine spiritual director of Benedictine descent. In those days that followed, I knew that his careful, quiet way of paying attention to the world was exactly what I needed to do for myself. So, every evening, Wilfrid and I would sit in our respective places. Wilfrid sat upright on the deck and I relaxed in a wicker chair. He smelled the scent of the German Shepherd who lived across the fence. Wilfrid looked intently at the branches on the evergreen tree, and he felt the touch of my hand on his back. I gazed at the deep blue of the evening sky, took in the aroma that lingered from the neighbor’s barbecue, and heard the chirping of the sparrows in the nearby bushes.

About 10 years later when Wilfrid developed bone cancer and I could no longer help his pain, I knew I had to part with this King of the Terriers, this wily Airedale. On his last day, when we took him to the vet, I held him in a blanket on the floor and watched him draw his final breath. I began to cry harder than I had ever cried. Wilfrid taught me about unconditional love and how to live in the power of the present moment. As his spirit vanished that day, I knew he had led me to a deeper knowledge of my humanity, my spirit. We had a special bond, canine and human; we parted as spiritual companions.

I knew I couldn’t live without another dog and so Gary, my husband, and I soon found Byron, the reddish curly haired Goldendoodle, who was one of the naughtiest and smartest pups I had met. On that afternoon, when Byron dug up some of Wilfrid’s ashes and rolled in them, I sensed that Wilfrid had passed on the duties of spiritual direction to this new canine of mine.

Byron knows how to play, how to hang out, and how to get what he needs. That canine knowledge and skill turned out to be exactly what his human needed. So, he and I have developed a different spiritual relationship, not one that leads us to sit and gaze at the night skies, but one within which we romp and laugh and play. Byron knows that I long for levity and joy. I don’t always realize this when I have once again become obsessed with grading papers or mastering the hundred new apps on my smartphone. But Byron does. He comes along with that big, wet, black nose and jams it in my arm to let me know, indeed, it’s time for some spiritual direction. And I listen.

Listen to Dogs, by Gary Pederson, a 3-Part Invention inspired by our three dogs running and fighting playfully.

I had thought that when I turned 60 I would have fewer questions about life and more answers. But the exact opposite has happened. As my own mortality looms closer on the horizon of life, my field of vision has expanded the boundaries of life’s meaning and stretched me further than I could imagine. At times I’m more confused and doubtful about what I believe than I have ever been. My Lutheran upbringing taught me that faith embraces doubt, but the doubts that creep into my sometimes sleepless nights haunt me during the day. If I trust anything at all, I know that when the sighs seem too deep to bear, the Spirit will intercede and carry me forward.

I long for new eyes and ears so that I might see anew and hear with a new heart. I need a mentor, a teacher who will accompany me on my journey through these questions. As I drove along a winding rural road today, these verses from the Book of Job popped into my head: “But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.” Job 12:7-10

And the verses wouldn’t go away. This lesson isn’t for me, a new lesson. I have heard it before. I recall what Dawn Adams, a Choctaw woman, said to me years ago. She told me to listen and learn from my Benedictine canine spiritual director. The Spirit of the verses revealed Herself to me in the joy I have when I read the words. The animals, the birds, the plants, and the fish teach me and guide me. All of those non-human creatures were, like me, breathed into being by the life of the Spirit.

I will attend the school of the creatures: great blue herons, bison, dogs, cattle, beetles, corn, sunflowers, hawks, walleye, black-footed ferret, sage, and bur oak trees. I will ask them my questions and learn from them. I’ll ask but also listen. Maybe I should listen first, and see what I can learn. Then my questions might change. The text doesn’t tell me what I should ask the creatures, but simply that I ask them to teach me. For now, I’ll leave my own doubts and questions aside and receive the wisdom that I will  learn from all my fellow prairie creatures. Spirit invites me to let go of all my expectations and to wander into the classroom of Dakota to learn how I might see anew.

“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him all good things–trout as well as eternal salvation–come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.” Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

 “Get brave,” Sheila said. “It’s only paint.”

I’m sure that my grandfather practiced his religion as he did the art of fly fishing: with little separation between the two. My grandfather, in waders and vest, spent long hours walking up and down the banks of the Gallatin River in Montana. He cast his line into the clear mountain waters, practicing the 10 to 2 o’clock rhythm. Occasionally, that steady rhythm broke as he jerked back the line, a rainbow trout on the end.

Unlike my grandfather, I failed at the art of fly fishing. I practiced casting, over and over. I tried tying the microscopic knots onto the tip of the line. But, when practice met reality and I went with Gary, my husband, to fly fish on the  Boulder River, I discovered I had little patience. My interest in this sport waned each time I had to disentangle the line from the bushes. I retired my fly fishing vest after a summer of failed attempts.

Unlike my failures in fly fishing, I learned the art and rhythm of practicing scales, arpeggios and Hanon exercises on the piano for endless hours. I began my piano lessons in fourth grade and finished them when I gave my senior recital in college. My years of practicing the piano and flute revealed that “all good things . . . come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.” I learned to practice the piano as Norman Maclean learned to fly fish: set the metronome to the steady beat, and then repeat the task, over and over. Grace comes measure by measure, hour by hour.

This year I’m learning to see through the eyes of visual artists. Seeing is like listening: both are active practices. I realize how passively I “look” at the world, instead of actively “seeing” with the world. On a warm, sunny afternoon in April, I sat in on a class of art students who had come to work on their projects. The three women, about my age, arrived at the studio with their sandwiches, art supplies and their eagerness to create. Each artist painted on a large, door-sized canvas, producing their view of the South Dakota prairie: sunflowers, cornfields, a sunset in the Black Hills.

They donned their chef-like white aprons and looked at art books for inspiration. The banter between the women ranged from what colors to use to the exasperation they felt at the news that yet another spring snow storm was en route. I would have felt out of place with this crew of visual artists except the energy of anticipation and preparation reminded me of all the instrument tuning and chatter that precedes musical rehearsals of which I had done a plenty.

Sheila worked with each artist, providing both critical and encouraging comments. I could tell from the joking between the women, that while they appreciated the comments, they nonetheless expressed frustration. The women hesitated to move ahead, as if the paint they put on the canvas at that moment was indelible. They were limiting the process and denying the possibilities. Sheila sensed their hesitancy and said, “Get brave! It’s only paint.”

Learning to fly fish, play the piano, or paint a landscape requires many of the same skills: practicing over and over, learning from critique, risking failure, and enjoying the process more than the result. Yes! “Get brave,” Sheila said. “It’s only paint.” And as a good teacher always knows, bravery begins with the art of practicing. And practicing is the art of living in the grace-filled knowledge that, no matter how many times we fail “it’s only paint.”

When they run and play, the three dogs know exactly how to move in a synchronized dance of delight. Brindle, a gray Standard Poodle, leaps with a lightness to her being as she bounds across the field. As the youngest of the dogs, she can outrun and outplay both of her senior male dog friends. Jack, a buff-colored Standard Poodle and bigger than Brindle, chases her in large circular movements, arcs of flying dog. Byron, the overweight Goldendoodle, lumbers straight at them, knowing it’s the quickest means to an easier end, flopping down and chewing a knotty brown branch from the bur oak tree. At first Brindle ignores Byron’s posture on the ground and grabs his long tail in her mouth and yanks as hard as she can. Byron rears up and chases after her. For a while. Within moments Jack joins the two and soon the three are spinning, chasing, and biting each other in a whirlwind of motion. Finally, Jack and Brindle shove Byron to the ground as he wears out, his old joints tired. He’s always been a lazy dog, more content to chew a stick than chase it. These three canine friends know each other intimately: every smell they take, every move they make, they simply love to be together.

Often I find myself joining in their play. Brindle invites me into her game of fetch. I find the large blue ball on a rope and fling it upward so that Brindle can chase and bring it back to me. Byron and Jack, bored by such a silly game, lumber off to bark at the neighbor dog or relax in the shade. Brindle has an endless need to fetch blue balls, and I always tire out before she does.

We are friends, the four of us. Three dogs and one human–companion species on the run, in the moment, working off each others’ moves and needs. To be a companion literally means to break bread with, to accompany. These dogs are more than pets, more than “just animals.” They are my companions, my friends. But they are dogs and I’m not. We get along much better when I honor their “dogness” and try not to turn them into furry humans. We are different. And yet we are so much the same–I’d say we love each other. We, who are different species, dwell in an intimate relationship with another.

Dogs and humans have evolved together, co-companions in their evolutionary dance. We need each other. Dogs scrutinize humans–they watch my every move, showing their love for me. They seem to know before I do what they can lure me into doing for them. We are family, part of each other’s clique. I suspect that they know way more about my habits, my every move than I do about theirs. And even with all that they know, they love me. Yes, love me. And I for one, am glad to count among them as their friend. We honor that we are different species, and celebrate our relationship. We share bread with each along our journey. We are Co-Companion Species: Brindle, Jack, Byron, and Ann in a dance of mutual love.

Listen to Dogs, by Gary Pederson, a 3-Part Invention inspired by our three dogs running and fighting playfully.