My dog and the New Creation

 

 

This morning, while procrastinating a talk I’m supposed to give tomorrow, I began staring blankly at my dog who had wandered into the office to lay down beside me. Scout is a mutt whom Annie and I salvaged from eastern Kentucky while running an outdoor program for impoverished kids there four years ago. She was just a pup at the time–a couple of weeks old–and had been found floating down a river in a soggy cardboard box in the days following one of that region’s worst floods in recent memory. (Why we didn’t name her Moses is a question we still lament over.) Stray dogs were in ample supply there and we figured that it would be a more appropriate place to adopt one then back home in Boulder where even the pound seems like a Ramada.

And so Scout became a Powell; but not without a difficult road. She had been badly abused and was an incredible pain in the rear to train. Eventually, she grew to care about what we said to her and after an arduous road, her true personality began to come out. Now, I’m convinced she’s the best dog in the world. I hate overly needy dogs. Those dogs that incessantly beg for attention and petting and like to drool all over ones crotch quite impolitely. (Disclaimer: don’t get me wrong and take that to assume that I’m a cat person because of that taste.) Scout is independent. Does not demand affection. She is part Border Collie so she likes having a job to do and gets restless and whiny when she’s bored. And I can respect that. She does enjoy affection, but only on her own terms–and only after you’ve earned it. Her bark is unfortunate; Scout’s not a terribly big dog (about 45 lbs on a good day), but has the high pitched yelp of a lap dog. No ones perfect I suppose. She gets along well with other dogs, unless they’re jerks, and then she wants nothing to do with them. She’s great with kids and babies, and, I gather, considers it her vocation to sit nearby and guard them against any impending danger. (This is good news considering our newborn–due any day now!)

So how does this relate to the theme of New Creation, which, I suppose is the overall theme of this blog? I’m not sure. I am convinced however, that my dog will have some role in the New Heavens and New Earth. Hopefully, her bark will be less obnoxious there though. Dogs (and animals in general) are not hindered by concupiscence. They have no temptation to do what they ought not–apart, that is, from our own human brokenness, which we afflict them with. It’s good to remind myself that whatever flaws Scout has (separation anxiety, nervousness) were probably inflicted by the creeps who beat her before we met each other. This follows with what St. Paul says in Romans 8 when he declares,

…creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility [brokenness], not of its own will, but by the one who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children  of God. (Romans 8:19-21)

In other words, the redemption of the created world (dogs, trees, etc) is dependent on usdoing our job as Christians. Likewise, any discord with the natural world, it seems, (bears, tornadoes, etc.) was likely caused by our (or Adam’s, or whoever’s) sin. This news should both trouble us and give us great hope.

For now though, I’ll content myself just to look at Scout (who is now snoring loudly next to my chair) and remember that she’s counting on me to live out the hope that Christ gives me.

 

Snow, gardening and a longing for Eden

 

We had an unseasonal snowstorm here in the Denver area this morning. It caught me a bit off guard and my wife and I were not able to cover our budding herb garden or our flowers in time. My hope is that they’re hearty enough to take the cold, but I can’t be sure. If they die, I will lament a bit. Not just because I worked hard to grow them, or because I spent money on the seeds and garden boxes. Rather, my sadness will come from someplace far deeper. The theologian-gardener Vigen Guroian has convinced me in his writings that all gardening is, at its root, a longing to return to the Garden of Eden–that place where man was called to gardening as his primordial vocation.  Indeed, every time we garden, every time we till the soil or work the ground in an effort to bear new life, we participate to some degree that original life of harmony in the Garden. We return to that time when the earth did not oppose us; when all gardening was an act of true joy. If my little garden dies, its loss will be a remembrance–however faint–of the loss of Eden because of sin. The failure of my garden speaks to the reality of a broken world. In his book, The Fragrance of God, Guroian quotes St. Augustine, who says,

Perhaps we should say that what man cultivated in the earth…he guarded or preserved himself by discipline.

In other words, says Guroian,

Because man obeyed God, the earth obeyed him, so there was harmony within man, and he, in turn, was in harmony with his surroundings. Yet “in the end, since he [man] did not wish to remain obedient and guard within himself the likeness of Paradise, which he cultivated”, Augustine continues, “[Adam] was condemned and received a field like himself, for God said: ‘Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth.’

Guroian adds,

I am not speaking merely metaphorically. My meaning is sacramental. Paradise is truly present even in this fallen Creation, even in my humble garden. “Do not let your intellect be disturbed by mere names, for Paradise has simply clothed in terms akin to you (St. Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise)…Paradise is in this world. It is inside of every earthman and earthwoman and all around them, waiting to be reclaimed. We all should be gardening Paradise, since “All bliss consists in this. Do as Adam did,” says Thomas Traherne.

Guroian concludes,

I believe that gardening is the first and final sacrament of blessedness. Both the first Adam and the last Adam were gardeners.

I strive to be a gardener in the shadow of the last Adam, Jesus, who appeared to the holy women on the morning of his resurrection as a gardener, standing in the garden from which his glorified body had freshly bloomed. I pray that the garden of my backyard as well (and much more so) as the garden of my heart, will not be killed by the threatening chill of the lingering winter.

 

The Pretention at Spiritually Longing Ridge

A friend of mine recently told me that her and her husband were moving from their home in Florida to a place called ”Grove City” Ohio, apparently a suburb of Columbus. This reminded me of a theory another friend has that most modern suburbs and subdivisions are named after whatever had to be cut down or killed to build them. Denver has places like Fox Ridge, Wolf Canyon and Antelope Bluffs. My boss lives in a town called Lone Tree, which was probably a pretty easy place to conquer. Even my wife and I live in a neighborhood called Pheasant Run. Pity. Those are (were) lovely birds. Thinking about this, I stumbled across a blog which deals with a similar topic. It’s an urban planning site called “DenverInFillBlog”. I particularly enjoyed the included table with which you can mix and match names of Denver subdivisions to form your own ridiculous sounding places like “The Enclave at Antelope Bluff Butte”. 

http://www.denverinfill.com/blog/2006/09/guide-to-suburban-denver-subdivision.html

It’s quite interesting to me that so many of us have become so driven to feign a connection to the outdoors while maintaining our well-protected urban or suburban lifestyles. In most of these neighborhoods, the only connection to the natural world is a soddy greenbelt or a little park (all good things–don’t get me wrong). But, as the aforementioned friend has also noted to me, what all of these fake Tuscan villa, slate stone lined, rustic fire pit in the backyard houses suggest is a longing for something real. Perhaps a return to the bygone days when these things were actually necessary for life. When slate floors made sense because slate was the most logical resource available to you; when houses were large because they needed to shelter large families, and massive kitchens served the purpose of gathering people together.

It’s no coincidence that people buried in suburban sprawl long for the natural world. It is, as theologian Vigen Guroian points out, ultimately a longing to return to the Garden of Eden. To that place where man lost his primordial home because of his own selfish desire to conquer it. We pine after what we’ve neglected, and our hearts–ultimately–will remain restless until God renews and resurrects not only our own physical bodies when Jesus comes again, but also until he renews the natural world itself back to the Eden it was always intended to be–the New Heavens and New Earth promised by the prophets and the book of Revelation.