Spirituality With A Dog In Your Lap

Photo by Taylor Kopel on Unsplash

It is quite easy to idealize a spiritual life. 

For much of my life, I’ve read the lives of spiritual “masters.” People who are recognized as great teachers, examples of wisdom and practice, and yet these masters were men and women who would reject the title of “Master” just as easily as we reject an incoming spam call.

I have learned a great deal from Thomas Merton, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Julian of Norwich, and Buddhist teachers like Thich Nhat Hahn and Pema Chodron. I extend the invitation to you as well to explore the ancient masters. 

But, the great mistake is to idealize the spiritual life. 

To say my spiritual practices went through a change or alteration during the thick months of COVID-19 lockdown would be a vast understatement. From the shifting schedule of my daughter who has been learning virtually since last year at this time, to the “office at home hours” my wife and I have cultivated for much the same period, the rhythm of our family life is challenging. 

And then there’s the dog. 

Winston has grown in wisdom and stature with us since September, but he still runs on that irascible puppy energy. Early in the morning, after a trip outside, Winston is ready to inhale a treat and then play some fetch. 

Early morning fetch does not work in a house that clings to the last few hours of sleep. 

My morning practices shifted in light of Winston’s pre-dawn jitters. I may read a bit, perhaps write in my journal if there’s time. Beyond that, I had to find a way to bring calm to the dog and also enter into the practices that help me enter the day balanced and listening to Spirit. 

As I said, the great mistake is to idealize a spiritual life. 

One morning, Winston carried a toy to my chair in the living room and dropped it with a soft thump on the carpet. No translation needed there. 

“Okay, buddy, okay,” I whispered. 

I slid off the recliner and sat on the floor in what yoga teachers often call “easy seat” and a new generation calls “criss-cross-applesauce.” I placed the toy on my right knee and invited Winston into my lap. Though I suppose it isn’t really a lap, more like a seat filled with horizontal seams formed by bone and muscle. 

He accepted and curled his small body to match the vacuum of my posture. 

“Now what,” I muttered. Winston chewed happily. Reading, journaling, even prayer (so I thought) in that position posed challenges that aren’t worth mentioning. 

So I turned my mind to meditation. 

The lovely and well-spoken spiritual teacher James Finley, a student of Thomas Merton at the Abbey of Gethsemani, says meditation is 

“…this transformative process of shifting from surface, matter-of-fact levels of consciousness to more interior, meditative levels of awareness of the spiritual dimensions of our lives.” (5) 

With a dog in my lap, anchored to my spot on the carpet, it seemed like a good time to shift to the more interior, meditative levels of awareness. I took the situation as it was, and found within an invitation from Spirit to listen. To learn. To calm the churning anxieties and self-critique that wail like banshees throughout the course of my day.  

Here’s what I’m learning: many of us are being invited to an ideal-free spiritual life with a dog in our laps. 

We’ve been waiting to find the right piece of knowledge, the right book or teacher or spiritual practice, and thus we’ve put off the initial steps into a journey of seeing what lies beneath the surface of our souls. A guided tour, with Spirit in front, is prepared and ready but we dally at the entryway waiting for…something. 

There will always be excuses for us to dig beneath the crust of our carefully crafted selves. Some well-reasoned, some anxious, but all of them fear the same thing – reality. What might we find if we began turning over the stones in our souls? 

If we pressed into our own lives with compassion and honesty, would we find spaces for transformation that are at the same time blissful and petrifying? 

Is the key to our love for God, self, and others mired in a story we’ve been telling ourselves about God, self, and others that simply isn’t accurate? Isn’t loving? Isn’t generative?

Ah yes, we all have an opportunity to move further up and further in to grace, Spirit, and life. 

But you see, we protest, there is this “dog in my lap.”  

Surely I should wait until my circumstances change.  

For much of the creative and courageous goodness we may do there is always a competitive “reason not to.” 

I don’t have the permission.

The recognition.

I’m afraid of what I might find.

I’m afraid to fail. 

I’m afraid to change. 

There is too much at stake – too much risk. 

Shifting beliefs about the God-mystery bring fear that we might lose our tribe of people. The “dog in our lap” in this case isn’t that we hold tight to our tribe’s particular belief about heaven, hell, the Bible, gender roles in church, on and on. 

The “dog in our lap” is the fact that we’ve already changed our inward stance on those ideas, but we know the tribe we love will turn their back on us if we acknowledge that change publicly.

A creative project emerges from the deepest Divine place within us. The “dog in our lap” is that it might fail, and we may spend hours of our life doing something that produces nothing. Or does it? 

Spiritual practices, creative work, theological shifting, even asking someone out on a date or embracing the limitations of our aging bodies all offer us the same opportunity:

We can embrace their various “dogs on laps” and move forward anyway, or we can let the dozing pup be an obstacle. 

A “reason why not.” 

But what is the harm in that? 

Indeed, what is the harm in that to the Spirit and life cavorting around within us?

I stroked the back of Winston’s neck – the place where his dense coat is thickest. I focused on my breathing and try to listen to the things deep down. 

In a day’s time we accumulate all sorts of items – some rubbish, some gems, some tools of great usefulness. They are all part of me, part of that day and this day. Everything we accumulate and love is open to examination and honest critique with Spirit. 

It has always been this way. 

We’ve simply been too busy fixating on the dog in our lap.