I adopted Tank in a Walmart parking lot on the far side of Dallas. It was June of 2020, just two weeks before I was ordained a priest. She was small, shaking with fear, uncertain about the strange, excited lady in the mask and baseball cap. The rescue had found her in a junkyard, in a litter of dying puppies. She has seen a lot about which I will never know. Our first night together, she cowered in the corner of my apartment for hours. When it was finally time to go to bed, I slept on the couch in the living room so that she would not have be alone. In the middle of the night, I felt her climb, so very slowly, up onto the couch and fall asleep on my feet. In that moment, I knew we would be alright.
Loving rescue dogs has taught me more about my vocation as a priest than I ever could have anticipated. Tank taught me to slow down, to practice patience, to meet her where she is, to be grateful for every little success we find together. But to do this, I had to prove to her that I am a safe person, that I am worthy of her trust. Trust is not a given, it is earned slowly and spent so quickly.
At almost every point in the Church’s two-thousand-year history, we have not proven ourselves to be an institution worthy of people’s trust. From the Crusades to the “Prosperity Gospel,” we have exploited our power and manipulated our people. In short, we have been human.
But if the Church lived and died because of human sin, it would have collapsed in the dust hundreds of years ago. A priest I love once told me that the best evidence for the existence of God is the continued life of the Church. There but for the grace of God go we…
We believe that the Church is a mysterious, divine institution. Because it is the Body of the God who rose from the grave, it will never truly die. We have all the time we need to learn to walk in love.
Most of the pain caused by the Church happens in the gap between who we are called to be and who we actually are. Folks walk through the doors of any parish hoping to find grace and kindness and forgiveness, only to be heartbroken by the very sins from which they sought refuge.
In the midst of our own sinfulness, how do we, the Church, earn the trust of those whom the Church has hurt? How do we show the world that we are a safe place? Most simply, we love them. We love them with the same grace and kindness and patience with which we love a rescue dog, earning their trust little by little, day by day.
Tank learned to love her life with every walk, every Ritz cracker, every afternoon nap in the sun. It happened in little, ordinary moments – so small, you could miss them if you aren’t watching. Perhaps that is how folks come to love church, too – in the little ordinary moments of our life together.
We will never know what our newcomers might have seen before they walked through our doors. We will never understand the particular scars in their hearts. But we can listen to them, without an agenda. We can love them with a warm cup of coffee and a beautiful mass and a chance to serve together.
It’s been six years since I adopted Tank. About a year ago, I knew that she was ready for a dog of her own. And now she is teaching Obie what I taught her – how to rest in the knowledge that he is loved and safe without condition. It’s funny how love begets love.