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Sermon Index

ALL GOD'S CRITTERS

by the Reverend John Parker Manwell
and the Reverend Phyllis L. Hubbell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 29th of September 2002

READING

I want to tell you about a T-ball game, a story credited to storyteller Bill Harley. If like me, you grew up before T-ball, you need to know that it's a game like softball, but with gentle rules for 5- to 8-year olds, kids just starting out in life.

Now the particular T-ball team Bill described had a girl on it well call Tracy. Tracy had coke-bottle glasses and hearing aids on each ear. She came every week though she wasnt very good. She tried hard, but she never hit the ball, not once. Never came close. Everyone on both sides of the game cheered for her anyway.

The last game of the season, Tracy came up to bat, and through some fluke, she creamed the ball. Smoked it right up the middle, through the legs of the 17 players who had all come in close expecting an easy out. Kids dodged as the ball went by or looked absentmindedly at it as it rolled unstopped, heading into centerfield. When Tracy saw what she had done, she stood at home plate, delighted at her feat.

Run! yelled her coach. Run! Her parents were on their feet screaming. All the other parents rose too. Run, Tracy, run, run! Tracy turned and smiled at them, and then, happy to please, galumphed off to first base.

Keep going, Tracy, Keep going! yelled the first base coach. Happy to please, Tracy headed to second. By the time she was halfway to second, seven members of the opposition had reached the ball and were passing it among themselves. The ball began to make its long journey home.

Tracy headed to third. Adults fell out of the bleachers. Go, Tracy, go! Tracy reached third and stopped, but she was very close to her parents now and she got the idea. Tracy started for home.

Then it happened. During the excitement, no one had noticed the 12-year-old geriatric mutt that had lazily settled itself down in front of the bleachers five feet from the third-base line. As Tracy rounded third, the dog, awakened by the screaming, sat up and wagged its tail at Tracy as she headed towards home. The tongue hung out, the mouth pulled back in an unmistakable canine smile, and Tracy stopped, right there. Halfway home, 30 feet from a legitimate home run.

Tracy looked at the dog. Her coach called, Come on, Tracy! Come on home! The crowd cheered, Go, Tracy, go! She looked at all the adults. She looked at her own parents shrieking and catching it all on video. She looked at the dog. The dog wagged its tail.

She looked at her coach. She looked at home plate. She looked at the dog. Everything went to slow motion. She went for the dog! It was a moment of complete, stunned silence. And then, perhaps, not as loudbut deeper, longer, more heartfelteveryone applauded as Tracy fell to her knees to hug the dog.

Two roads diverged on a third-base line. Tracy went for the dog.

SERMON

Cute story. But telling a story is one thing; having a dog or a cat in your house is something else. Let's get serious. Why would anyone want, several times a day, to pick up poop or clean a litter box? Haven't you sometimes wondered, you cat lovers, when just before company comes you find a hairball on the sofa? Haven't you wondered, you cat and dog lovers alike, when you're waked up in the middle of the night, when the cats want to romp, or be fed, when the dog needs to go out one more time?

My dog, Trooper, for example, interrupted me twice during my first hour of work on this sermonthe second time, just because he wanted to run, run around in great big circles. Trooper is a herding dog. He needs to run. I'm a minister. I need to write sermons. We're obviously incompatible.

Again last night, as I climbed into bed, Trooper let me know he wasn't ready to settle down, though we'd just had a long walk, and he'd had his dinner. He is, though, a refined dog. A civilized dog. He knows I'd rather get up and let him out than the alternative. He wouldn't think of messing up his home. So daytime or at night, I let him interrupt me as if I had a choice.

But why have a dog or a cat at all, or a bird or hamster or snake, with all this hassle? (I can't tell you how many times I get to church to find dog and cat hair all over my suit, even after I had run a lint remover over it before I left home.) And why have an animal blessing service, when we have so many serious issues to confront?

This afternoon when we get home, our animals will crowd the door, waiting to greet us. When I wake up tomorrow morning, Master Bart, our big cat, will burrow under my armpit. Or he'll lick Phyllis' ear. Aside from food, exercise, and a place to do their business, our animals love us unconditionally. People, let's face it, can be prickly. We all have our rough edges, our moods, our ego needs, our defensiveness, and control needs as well. Garfield notwithstanding, dogs and cats can be easier to love.

We can learn from our pets the importance of responsibility, reliability, and simple faithfulness in all our relationships. We can learn from our pets that when we love unconditionally, we are loved in return.

They remind us that we are part of an interdependent web, along with all the animals that remain in the wild, or that we raise for food or fiber. We do not dwell today on these othersthey raise so many serious ethical issuesbut we know, as Albert Schweitzer reminded us, that all life is sacred. We can never take it lightly.

To bless a dog or a cat is to remember the miracle it brings to our lives. Even as it grows old and can no longer jump into our laps, or we must carry it up the steps, we remember the joy it has brought us and all it has taught us. And we dedicate ourselves to its well being.

Tracy saw a miracle sitting in front of her on the way to home plate. She saw it even with her coke bottle glasses. Presented with the chance for once in her life to shine in front of her parents, her coach, and her teammates, to wipe away all times she had gone down swinging, to score a home run, still she chose the mutt. She chose the miracle.

May we see the miracles of life and love in all the animals with which we share our livesin the cold nose of a dog, in the warmth of a cat on your lap; in the wondrous otherness of the hamster and the songbird, in the graceful beauty of the goldfish. Bless them all as they bless us.