If you can take criticism and blame without resentment…
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend….
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time….
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it…
If you can honestly say that regarding race, gender, orientation, religion or politics,
that you have no absolutely NO bias or prejudice….
Then you my friend, are probably . . . a dog [dog brought in]
That’s right, who among us can compare to the loyalty and honesty of a dog? From Lassie to Clifford, Old Yeller, Benji, Scooby-Doo, Bolt, Porkchop, Toto, Beethoven, Spike, Max …we have been blest with good role models of canine faithfulness.
But notice with this dog [as dog runs around church], that it is also observant. It is so focused on details, smelling everything. Curious about everything. Those of you who have a dog, you know how difficult it is to walk with a canine, because they want to explore everything.
Yet one of the best all-time traits about dogs is that they are thankful. A dog says, “oh sure ignore me, get mad at me, even laugh at me….I’m always going to come back excited to see you.” That’s just the way dogs are …they are grateful.
And I’m going to say that a dog does an even better job than the man in the gospel, for the man was grateful because Jesus did something for him. What would the world be like if more of us were as grateful as dogs? Just happy to be here? Just happy about life?
A friend of mine told me that he recently met a living saint. No, not a dog, a real person. In describing him, my friend said that he was a saint because he was so awed. Not odd, but a-w-e-d. He took delight in the simplest things, he giggled with glee at small details. It sounds odd (o,d,d) but what a wonderful way to live…with awe (a.w.e). Most of us get too cynical, too sarcastic. Hence we don’t notice little things, to pay attention. We would do well to be more like a dog.
Now most of us probably won’t come close to acting like a dog. But maybe we could be more like the man in the gospel. Now he was a Samaritan. That is, a no good person. Samaritans were the smucks from up north who no one liked. Jesus sends the ten to the priests, well a Samaritan wouldn’t have been allowed into the temple anyway. And of course as we know all healing only comes from God, and Jesus was the instrument through whom healing occurred. So the Samaritan leper is the only one who recognizes where God’s healing happened and he goes through Jesus to say “thank you.”
How often have we missed opportunities to say “thank you” to God. Oh sure it’s easy to complain to God…if things don’t go our way, if something rotten happens…we get mad at God. But what about the praise to God? Or our thanks to others. I believe that this is most ignored with those we are closest to…we often forget to thank those we live with. We’ll be SO grateful to strangers….what about the ones who are with us every day?
I would suggest that for today (this time) you be more like dog….to become more attentive to
the details of creation; become more curious to the little mysteries all around you; to be grateful for all that you have been given. For when it all comes down to the simplest truth, as my favorite mystic, Meister Eckhart, says, “If you can only make one prayer in life…to say ‘thank you’ that would suffice.”