Dominican Associates

A good friend is a member of the Dominican Associates, a group for lay members who want to follow Dominican principles. She invited me to two meetings. I have been fortunate to have met a wonderful group of very bright, socially committed women.

One woman, Barb, has 11 children. Instead of being beaten down and haggard, she looks years younger than her age, regards raising children as the most unbelievably wonderful thing she has ever done, and is a funraiser for a Catholic charity. She works with people of all faiths to provide assistance to the desperately poor and takes a a universalistic view of salvation. She told me that she never preaches her faith with her lips and believes that if she does good in the world that people will see the spirit of Christ in her, even if they don't think of the name Jesus. I liked that.

Another woman, who is quite young, lost her husband. She began dating and drove home one night when she had too much to drink. She was in an accident and killed someone. She served five years in prison and is still on probation. She was not an alcoholic or a habitual heavy drinker. She was someone who made a horrible mistake. It seems odd but she has a deep and obvious spirituality. I loved her the moment I met her.

An older woman I feel close to was "farmed out" to other people when she was a child because her parents didn't want to be parents. She has a peace about her.

Two of the women there have lost children, one in an accident, the other to suicide.

All of these women with so many struggles and challenges have managed to achieve a deep spirituality that I can only hope to aspire to. They have done it in an inclusive and not an exclusive way, too. Since I left Protestantism because I disagreed with the fundamentalist strain that is overpowering more moderate denominations, I was pleased to find a spirituality that is both profound and inclusive.

Fundamentalist spirituality is often quite deep and genuine but is disconcertingly narrow at times. More liberal spiritualities are broader and inclusive but also watery and saccharine.
Finding the proper balance is tricky. For now, at least, I see the Catholic Church as the best place to find that balance.

Huckleberry

A few years ago, a dear friend was dying. As a young man, he had written radio scripts for some Mark Twain classics, including Huckleberry Finn. My dog had just had puppies and I had named one of the puppies Huckleberry in his honor. I loved this dog and planned to keep him.

Unfortunately, one of the neighborhood children asked for him and because I am unable to say no to kids, I let him have the dog.

Fortunately, the family decided they couldn't keep him and they brought him back.

A few days later, the prettiest of the puppies, one my nephew particularly loved, disappeared. The girl next door put up signs advertising for the lost pup and offering free puppies from the litter. Another little girl in the neighborhood brought him back. While I was swamped by kids looking for free puppies, the girl next door picked up Huckleberry and put him in the other little girl's arms. Because she had returned my nephew's lost puppy, I didn't have the heart to take Huckleberry out of her arms and with great sadness in my heart, I let Huckleberry go to her home. She asked later if she could trade Huckleberry for the dog she rescued but since this was for my nephew, I had to say no. I briefly thought of making the trade and lying to my nephew and saying the dog had disappeared again but I couldn't do it.

I was also taking a medication at the time that had depression as a side effect.

A few days later, I found out that the little girl had not rescued the puppy, she had stolen the puppy and had been forced by her parents to return it when they saw the signs. (I also found out that the girl next door didn't like Huckleberry that much and probably chose that dog to push on the other girl so that I would keep a dog she liked better. Because I had more than half a dozen kids around me clamoring for dogs, I didn't think about everything that was not quite right about this situation and only heard about it later.)I had given my favorite puppy away to a thief. To make matters worse, my brother decided that my nephew could not have the other puppy and I had sacrificed Huckleberry for absolutely nothing.

Between the medication, the impending death of my friend, and the loss of the puppy named in his honor, I was distraught. I cried inconsolably for a month.

I lit a candle to St. Anthony and I KNEW, I just KNEW that Huckleberry was coming back to me.

A friend, a Protestant Christian, told me that probably the girl's mother didn't love the dog very much and I should go to her and ask for the dog back. I got up my nerve--how do you ask a kid to give a dog back--and knocked on the door. It turned out that they were moving and had to show the house they were living in. Since the dog was not yet toilet trained and they didn't want to show a house to tenants if the house smelled of dog waste, they asked me to keep the dog for a month while they showed the house prior to moving to their new house. I went to them the day before they were leaving for the new house. One more day and the dog would have been gone for good.

During that month, they never came to visit the dog at all.

At the end of the month, the little girl called and asked for the dog back. You would think I would be upset but I wasn't. I told people that even if they took the dog, they would eventually give it back.

I waited at home for the people to arrive and take the dog. THEY NEVER SHOWED UP.

This was about a year and a half ago. I have the dog to this day. He is a wonderful dog--gentle, loving, a dog who goes crazy with joy whenver he sees me and who doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Everybody who deals with him--vets, groomers, neighbors--comments about what a special dog he is.

I really believe that this was God showering his grace on me.

I don't know how God works when people go through so much worse and God seems so distant. I am thinking of the children who lost limbs in Iraq.

For that matter, I have struggled with severe clinical depression my entire life as have most of my relatives. I don't know why God allowed me to have this brutal illness that is almost certainly inherited and yet, I know that during my worst periods, he is showering his grace on my in ways that may seem little and yet that bring me comfort.

By the way, my mother says I got the dog back, not because of St. Anthony, but because Huckleberry was so hard to housetrain and they didn't want poop in the new house.

Still, I KNEW he was coming back after I lit that candle.

Christian theology often seems very difficult to believe--the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, the trinity, eternal damnation--but I have a mystical belief in the communion of the saints. The saints are God's gift to us. He knows we need other people--in this world and the next. We can use our trials, hurts, and disappointments as a stimulus to getting to know them. God will step back and let us develop relationships with them in the same way that a loving mother will step back and let her children develop close relatonships with other relatives.

Properly understood, devotion to the Saints does not lessen our relationship with God. Quite the opposite: it deepens my love for God who gave me an entire spiritual family.

And, a year and a half later, I want to say THANK YOU ST. ANTHONY.