MONDAY DIARY: OBLIGATION TO BEAUTY

There just isn’t enough time for cartoons today (which I usually do on Sunday afternoons but I met with my family and then had a Chesterton meeting in the evening.)
I have mixed reactions about dogs in rectories though I am partial to Sebastian. When I am on vacation I probably wonder about him more than anything else. One of the best things about him for me is that he is a lot like a prayer. He makes me stop a couple of times during the day and get away from work. Usually, unless we happen to run into some of his friends, I say my daily rosary as we walk about. How often I get my batteries recharged by God’s beauty because I had to get up and walk the dog before things started cooking at the rectory; the local park covered in morning mist or the first fluffy snowfalls where nobody has yet walked. You can face an awful lot after a morning like that.

Sometimes it affords time to think about a homily, time that so often gets interrupted in the rectory by a phone call or some such thing. Something that seems like such a big problem before a walk vanishes after praying and contemplating while airing out the dog.

At night, just before Night Prayer and going to bed, we take one last turn around the property, sometimes in the company of Fr. P and we talk about the day, or with other priests who happen to be here for the evening, or alone. It is then that we can spot lights left on in the buildings, pick up the last of the trash left over from the school day, and maybe play with Sebastian on the playground under cover of darkness (he likes the slides.) There has been a number of beautiful moons that I would have otherwise missed, deer that I would have never seen, some graffiti artists that would not have been chased away, and some recollection of priesthood that might have been edged out by reading if it were not for the dog.

All these beautiful things happen to me because an animal has to rid himself of dinner. God’s ways are mysterious.

All this could be missed I suppose. It is not all easy. Sometimes the snow is deep, sometimes the rain heavy and icy, sometimes time is cruched, but it is what you make of it. All things when entrusted to God can bring about some beauty.