Okay, I'm a little slow these days, but not stupid. I may be so caught up in the chaos of mommyness that I miss the thousands of nuances that proclaim God in the ordinary.
But I am not so stupid or busy that I missed the blinking neon sign that is Gracie. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do with this nippy, barky, jumpy mess of a blinking neon sign.
Huh? You're saying, what is this woman talking about?
Okay, here's the deal.
On Friday, October 19th I received a book of poems in the mail--Soul Food: Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds. One of the poems jumped out at me almost as soon as I opened the book, the poem by Denise Levertov I put on my blog about grief. I'll post it again so you can immediately get the glaring obviousness of what I'm about to point out:
Talking to Grief
Ah, grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on
your own water dish.
You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house as your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
And 2 days later, walking along the Silver Comet Trail, Gracie makes her dramatic leap into our lives. A homeless dog. Into our lives. Just before winter.
I am NOT a dog person. I am a cat person. Cats are cuddly and self-contained and purr when you pet them and do not need endless bouts of walking/playing/housetraining/etc. like dogs do. Cats require a soft place to sleep, a litter box, and daily food and water. Other than that, they're good. Low maintenance. Dogs, on the other hand, are like kids--one constant need.
We have been trying and trying to find Gracie a home, but nothing comes of it. I am not a big believer in coincidence, since I am such a believer in God. So here it is, smacking me in the face: a house full of the ghosts of those we have so recently lost (Moon's mom and dad, 2 pregnancies we lost, my grandfather and grandmother), a poem about grief, and a dog named Gracie.
Okay, God, I get it. There's a message here. A story. Now--what is it, exactly?
Any chance I could learn it quickly and Gracie could find another place to live? Because this dog is seriously getting on my nerves. She is inconvenient, and smelly, and makes messes in my house at the most inconvenient times. She will not be ignored, or put off. She needs to be fed, walked, petted, watched. She insists we get up at the crack of dawn and take her for walks, and that she be the last thing we tend to before bed.
With 2 children under 4, I have no time for Gracie. But I have to make time, whether I want to or not. She will whine, whimper, wake the house up with her caterwauling if we don't. She'll make big smelly messes on my floor, and--as she has proved in the past--has no problem stripping the wallpaper from my walls and chewing on the walls if ignored.
And yes, I have been feeling my losses gnawing at the walls of my heart, too, and I have been angered that I feel it after spending so much time in the pit of despair this year, watching Mary die. I am sick of living with the pain of loss. I want it buried, deep, so it cannot rise again. But it comes, and I hear it calling for me, demanding my attention, nipping at my ankles. I get the glaring symbolism. I just don't want to.
And thus, the problem of Gracie. The problem of grief. Once they have entered your home, neither will be ignored.
Grace, according to my handy-dandy American Heritage dictionary, is "1. Seemingly effortless beauty or charm of movement, form or proportion. 2. A characteristic or quality pleasing for its charm or refinement. 3. A sense of fitness or propriety. 4. A disposition to be generous or helpful; goodwill. 5. A favor rendered by one who does not need to do so. 5. Mercy; clemency. 6. Divine love and protection bestowed freely on people {and dogs}." Grace, then, is a packed word.
We picked the name Gracie because we figured Someone had to be looking out for this poor creature if she sustained no injuries from her perilous journey down the ravine where we found her. She definitely is not an example of "effortless beauty or charm" with her clumsy, bowlegged gait and goofy antics. Definitely not refined, no sense of propriety whatsoever. But she is brimming with goodwill, and perhaps she is a favor, even if I don't usually see her that way. A gift from God, a reminder that there comes a time when grief requires us to invite it in, need and all, and take care of it, nurture it, give it a proper home. The writer of Ecclesiastes said "for everything there is a season...a time to weep, and a time to laugh/a time to mourn and a time to dance." Maybe God knew Moon and I were so caught up in the craziness of parenting small children and living in this suburban rat race that we needed a seriously blantant visual aid.
In her book Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris writes in her chapter on grace that God
loves to look at us, and loves it when we will look back at him. Even when we try to run away from our troubles...God will find us, and bless us, even when we feel most alone, unsure if we'll survive the night. God will find a way to let us know that he is with us in this place, wherever we are.
The problem with grace is it, like the hope that lives at the bottom of Pandora's Box, requires darkness in order for it to come to light, and we humans hate that dark night of the soul. But should I curse the light simply because it shines best in the darkness, or view it as a blessing, a gift in the darkness?
I still don't know if we'll wind up keeping Gracie forever, or if this is just our season of Gracie. I can't even tell you that at the end of all this musing and moralizing I've come to some grand revelation, although I think I've garnered some comfort. What I can say is only this: I see it, God. I got the message. I'm listening. Not always happy with what I'm hearing, but I am listening. And I hope that is enough...
...oh, and if it's at all possible, could you get your blessing housetrained and sleeping through the night ASAP? I'd really appreciate it.
