Sunday, October 4, 2009

Even though I preached at three Services....

....the highlight of my day was blessing the animals at 2:00 p.m this afternoon.

It was cold-ish and overcast (but not raining) this afternoon as we assembled out on the front lawn; 50-odd people (some Lutherans, some not), and their assorted animals (dogs of all sizes, more cats than usual, and --- a koi-fish, a hamster and a GOAT). We sang, we read scripture, we prayed, and then we marched down the hall to the chapel to do the actually individual blessing.

I like that we don't make them stay out on the lawn. We let them in. They are God's creatures and they don't have to stay out on the lawn. They can come into the holy place. (Well, the lawn is holy too, but you know what I mean.)


It was quite a kick to hear the goat bleating! And one little dog, a pomeranian, I think, totally freaked out when he met the goat. (The goat's owner said that next year, there might be a chicken!) Right before the service started, I saw one of the cats sort of slink by me as if it was trying to escape. Later, during the fellowship, the same cat sat curled in the corner of the room, keeping his own safe space.


Scout did not get to come this year. My husband had another service at the same exact time at his church. He had to play there. HOW DARE THEY?


For a brief homily, I shared a bit about Francesca and Martin from the story The Blessing of the Beasts. In case you didn't know, Francesca is a cockroach, and Martin is a skunk. Francesca, you see, would love to attend a Blessing service, but her whole family warns against it. "That's only for the cute, cuddly animals," they say....


Did I say before (I think I did) that I love that we have the animals come into the chapel? At first people were worried that the animals would somehow be a problem -- they would be messy and smelly and unclean. But you know what? We haven't had a problem.


So far, I do not have pictures. But I'll be sure to post some -- especially if I have one of the goat.


8 comments:

ROBERTA said...

Diane,
I'm so excited to hear about the book - i checked it out on Amazon - it looks delightful...

I wasn't able to make it to our animal blessing this afternoon but during this morning's service a father walked in, halfway thru the service, with 3 little girls and a hamster in a cage. (They thought the animals were being blessed during the service.) Our rector blessed Luna the hamster right after the service. It was defintely the best part of my day :)

Fran said...

What a great post to read first thing on Monday morning!!!

We went to two blessings - one at work parish and the other at worship parish, both were great!

DogBlogger said...

I wish we'd been able to take Angus and Tuesday somewhere for a blessing, but we were on our way back from visiting Zorra and The Scientist, which made for a great weekend. Will keep an eye out for belated blessing opportunities (the one time I took Cub to a blessing, it was in November).

Lori said...

Would love to see the picture of the goat!

How wonderful.

Barbara B. said...

Cool! I am looking forward to pictures!

Lindy said...

I'm so glad you had this great day. And I'm glad the animals got to come inside too. How speciest to think that we are the only ones who should worship inside, in the special places.

Diane Vogel Ferri said...

This sounds so beautiful. I' have never witnessed such a thing!

Crimson Rambler said...

We had about 20 dogs and one cat wearing a very why-me expression -- and Wonder Curate did his part most nobly despite not being entirely sure he's comfortable with either dogs or cats.