Dear Friends of Second Church,

A couple of weeks ago, I think I mentioned the inconvenience of having the Parsonage dishwasher break.  

Well, we fixed that.  

Then the refrigerator broke. 

And then one of the dogs did.    

O.k., the dog didn’t really “break.”  He has a hot spot on his tail, which in the grand scheme of things is not all that bad for a dog, and especially not for this one, who has long track record of things that have gone wrong (although he’s still a wonderful dog, and less of a worry than his little sister, who runs off if you’re not looking). 

Nevertheless. 

I am sick of things breaking.  

Whenever they do, whether it’s the dishwasher or the refrigerator or the dog, I am reminded both of just how much I depend on them, and of how quickly I seem  to take them for granted.  

In the case of appliances, that’s probably obvious enough.  But admitting that it’s also true of my relationship with a fellow creature is more embarrassing.  

I’ll never love our refrigerator (although I sure do miss it) — but I sure do love that dog.   

And yet, there’s no question that I am watching and noticing him more right now, worrying about his comfort, sensing that he’s suspicious of me whenever I try to get close to that tail to see how the healing is going.  

Narrowly, this is part of the great humanizing power of pets.  They can’t tell you how they’re doing or call from the other room when they need something.  If you’re going to care, you need to initiate, and you need to push yourself to notice much more deliberately than usual. 

It’s humanizing because it demands openness and sensitivity from us.  It is also humbling to realize how easily we can be distracted from the high calling of all care.  

In Mark 9, there is an account of one the most powerful healings in the gospels.  Jesus meets a man with a gravely ill child who begs for his help.  Jesus says to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”  

“Lord, I believe,” the man replies. “Help thou my unbelief.”  

I think we don’t do this moment justice if we treat the “belief” it refers to as a set of specific doctrine or as some sort of well-intentioned power play by Jesus.  

Instead, I think it points to the experience of finding ourselves opened and made vulnerable by our love for another — and humbled by how helpless this can manage to make us feel.  

The profound humanity of such a realization is, surprisingly, what makes so much healing possible — so sacred.  

We have every right to get sick of things breaking, or at least, I hope we do.  Yet the mending that follows can be a vision of how things are supposed to be.  

See you in church….