184. Thank God for Our Animals – Nadia Bolz-Weber
Henri Rousseau, The Dream (1910)
To those with new pets, I celebrate with you and hope that house training comes quickly. To those having more time at home with your animal companions, I share in your gratitude. For those who are grieving the loss of a beloved pet, I see you. Even this grief is holy.
One morning, while sitting in the parking lot of an animal hospital, I tweeted, “Veterinary emergency rooms should have chaplains.” The replies were heartbreaking. The love we feel for our pets is real, and therefore the grief we feel from losing them is also real. It is also a grief that is uncomplicated by the ambiguity that accompanies the loss of humans.
Growing up, I had a Siamese cat named Susan who was two years my senior and who consistently sided with me in any family conflict. She was unbothered by my mood, ill health, or anger. Every couple of years may have brought another move to yet another town, but the familiarity of my cat—her smell, her fur, her affection—remained constant. I was eighteen when Susan died, taking with her an understanding of who I am that no human could have shared.
I never had a dog—or knew I could ever love a dog—until Zacchaeus, a 160-pound gentle giant of a Great Dane, came into my family’s life in 2010. For six years, that gorgeous house pony was my primary source of affection.
He lived with my son at the end, and the morning he died, I wept for my kid, who had to say goodbye to our sweet boy without me there. I wept with gratitude for getting to love such a great dog. And I wept for myself, knowing how lonely I was in the years he companioned me.
Our pets love us in a way humans never can. In turn we love our pets in a way we can never love other humans. So maybe the grief we feel when we lose a pet touches the grief we feel for not being loved in the way we need to by the humans in our lives.
(I once looked at Zacchaeus and said, “You know what my favorite thing about you is? That you will never ask me to write the forward to your book.”)
I got a French Bulldog in March 2020 named Gertrude Stein. I wrote that tweet about chaplains while she was in the hospital, being treated for pneumonia (from which she recovered!). But at the time, my heart was in my hands. I couldn’t believe how much I loved that silly little dog, and at the same time I could believe it.
Here’s a Psalm—
I love that the praise of God comes forth from flying things, creeping things, mountains, cattle—and only then do we get to human beings.
Maybe animals have something to teach us about praise. Creeping things of the Earth praise the creator by simply being creatures. Their being is praise of the source of their being. Sea creatures aren’t looking to the Dow Jones or their Body Mass Index to know their value. Their value rests in their createdness.
How beautiful is that? And what if the same is true for us? Your being is in itself an act of praise toward the source of your being. Maybe it is this uncomplicated love and acceptance we glimpse in our sweet little animals.
To those with new pets, I celebrate with you and hope that house training comes quickly. To those having more time at home with your animal companions, I share in your gratitude. For those who are grieving the loss of a beloved pet, I see you. Even this grief is holy.
– Nadia Bolz-Weber
