It has been a summer. We had so many plans this year. This spring I anticipated one of my best summers. My wife and I were signed up to work at a favorite summer conference center where we have been going for years. We expected to renew friendships with a bunch of friends we enjoy, and make new connections. We expected to attend a long-awaited family reunion with cousins on a lake and travel together in late summer. This summer held so much promise.
That was until Memorial Day when my wife got sick, and landed in the hospital for tests. We did not know what was wrong but we never expected her to get a cancer diagnosis. Suddenly, in matter of days we were canceling our well-laid plans because we had a new itinerary. Not that we really wanted to do those other things now, but still it was a journey we had not expected. We felt dis-oriented.
As I sat on her bed one day in her first hospital stay, I asked what she wanted most now. Her answer surprised me a little, but I could feel the wisdomWisdom encompasses the qualities of experience, knowledge, and good judgment. The Old Testament book of Proverbs, which sometimes invokes a Woman as the personification of Wisdom, is a collection of aphorisms and moral teachings. Along with other biblical passages, it teaches, "The fear of the... More in it. She asked for a dog. After five years without a canine companion, she knew she’d need that kind of comfort. As soon as she got out of the second hospital stay, we drove north to look at an older dog who needed a home and might make this adjustment. We bonded with a dog at a kennel on a dirt road in New Hampshire, a dog old enough to be calm, and young enough to be fun.
We brought him home and we all started a new routine. Pretty quickly, he brought a fresh focus to our days. With a calm temperament he settled in and brought us joy. We assumed things were going pretty well when two weeks after he arrived, on one of our walks, he made a break for it. He ran with such determination I could only imagine he was probably hoping to return to the country and reunite with his people. Taking off like a shot, he led us on a chase that traveled blocks and blocks.
As I trailed this dog, losing sight of him, I thought: things could hardly get worse. But that morning, to my surprise, in an odd way, I felt completely held. Neighbors who’d seen the dog pointed me in the right direction. Commuters slowed to give help. Strangers offered to ride scooters and bikes through the side streets looking for a dog they’d never seen as a favor to a worried stranger they had just met. My kids were in town for their summer visit, many of them pastors on vacation. They led the chase as our whole family mobilized on foot and in cars to try to locate this new pet, whose plight had united us.
Finally, I found the dog standing on a sidewalk next to a busy intersection across from Roxbury Crossing in Boston. From a distance I could see a woman held his leash. When I approached, breathless, she told me he had only survived a run through the traffic by the graceGrace is the unmerited gift of God's love and acceptance. In Martin Luther's favorite expression from the Apostle Paul, we are saved by grace through faith, which means that God showers grace upon us even though we do not deserve it. More of God. With her Caribbean accent and firm faith, she repeatedly told me that God has been guiding this dog.
Faith. What a familiar notion, and yet in two hospital stays, we heard a lotNephew of Abraham and Sarah. More about medicine and not much about God. In a family of religious professionals, it took a stranger to remind us that God was ever-present, and watchful.
Relieved, I hugged her as she held enough faith for all of us—speaking with conviction about God. Suddenly, I felt as though I had been lost and was newly found too. That morning as I ran through the city, hoping to find this dog, I found something I needed even more this summer: faith. Here we were a house full of vacationing pastors, dealing with cancer and shifting sands and changing plans, when a runaway dog led us to a stranger who spoke of God watching over all of us.
Matthew’s gospel ends with Christ’s promise, but I confess I cannot hear it enough. It’s a slippery piece of news when life gets muddied by uncertainty and change: “Remember, I am with you always” (MatthewA tax collector who became one of Jesus' 12 disciples. More 28:20)
The dog needed stitches on his leg but he is healing well, and bonding with us. My wife has started chemotherapy. As we make our way through this summer with its paths not taken, and its unanticipated journeys we are aware that as retired pastors, we used to be the ones pointing to faith for others, but now a stranger has returned the favor for us. And I am grateful. For I was lost and now I have been found, at least for now.
