Six years ago today, after a great deal of resistance, I finally followed the advice of several people whose opinions I respect and beganย this blog. I moved it to the Patheos platform a year and a half ago.
Over a half million visits from 180+ countries later, writing here regularly has provided me with more joy and opportunities for growth than I could have possibly imagined. My latest book, published last year, was entirely a product of several years of blogging, as my next book (which I am currently writing), due to be published in Fall 2019, will also be. Thanks so much to my regular and occasional readersโyour support and comments keep me going!ย
For my first blog post six years ago, I chose an essay that I had written at a writerโs conference several years earlier. At that time, I was at the very beginning of a long process in which I have gradually learned over time to move away from the academic writing that I had been producing and publishing for twenty years to a much more intimate and personal (and shorter) style.
On the last evening of that writerโs conference, each of us was required to read something publicly (to around 100 people) that we had written that week. Not surprisingly, I chose to write about someone whom I love and who is close to my heart, undoubtedly the second most important female in my life over the past dozen years. Here is โHail Frieda, Full of Grace,โ followed by a few updates at the end.
I have unexpectedly fallen in love with a real bitch. Sheโs cute, with dark brown eyes and medium brown hair. Although I generally prefer long hair on a female, she wears her hair extremely short and it works. She tends to bite me when she gets overexcited while weโre playing, but I still find her pearly white teeth very attractive. Although sheโs willing to allow aย mรฉnage ร troisย when my wife is home, she prefers it being just the two of us in bed. Her name is Frieda.
This is a new experience for me. No one has ever looked at me with a gaze that says โyou were put on earth just for me.โ No female has ever marked me as a love interest and dared me not to love her back. This is the first time Iโve been chosen before I knew I was even being considered. And itโs not as if Frieda doesnโt have lots of options for love interests. Everybody loves Friedaโsheโs extroverted and assertive, yet can be warm, demure, and submissive. She can take over a room just by walking into it, yet is happy to spend hours being quiet doing whatever youโre doing. She is fluent in both English and German. Her profile would be a killer onย eharmony.com.
I never thought Iโd fall in love with a dog. Iโve always been a cat person; thereโs been at least one cat in my life consistently ever since I was ten years old. A cat is a perfect pet for an introvert; they clearly would prefer to be left alone most of the time and will only socialize when it is their idea. Thereโs something edgy about even the most domesticated of cats, as if it just crossed the line from its wild ancestors and might cross back at a momentโs notice. It takes time and effort to get to know a catโtime and effort on the humanโs part, that is. The cat couldnโt care less. Self-reliance, independence, confidence, a sense of mystery and aloofnessโI find much to admire in a cat.
Dogs are a different story; not so much to admire. Dogs are so obsequious, as if canine completeness requires human approval.. But Frieda didnโt and doesnโtย needย meโsheย choseย me, out of the blue. Frieda is part of the four animal menagerie who arrived when my son and daughter-in-law moved in, joining the two geriatric animals already in the house; she decided early on that I was going to be hers. Iโve seen animals attach themselves to a single human before (usually my wife, a dog person). Not to me, though. So the โclick click clickโ of toenails behind me everywhere I go, an enthusiasm when I come home so over the top that I worry about her health, having a canine jammed in next to me everywhere I sit, a 10 ยฝ pound dachshund trying to spoon with me in bedโthese are new and sometimes disconcerting experiences.
I once saw a bumper sticker that said โI want to be the person that my dog thinks I am.โ Not meโthatโs too much pressure. No human being could possibly deserve the rapturous upside-down look Frieda occasionally gives me when sheโs laying next to me or on my lap, just making sure that Iโm still there.ย Of course such reverence is easy for Friedaโshe doesnโt know about all the ways in which I am unworthy of unconditional love. Thatโs one of my great fearsโwhat if they (my wife, my sons, my friends, my studentsโanybody) knew the truth about me? Frieda doesnโt know the truth about me, and thatโs why sheโs attached to me at the hip. She doesnโt know any better.
I learned as a kid in Sunday School that grace is โunmerited favor.โ Divine grace is something I donโt deserve, a gift I cannot earn, bestowed simply โbecause.โ Over the years, grace has evolved for me into โGod knows that youโre a shit and a loser, but chooses to forgive you and to love you anyway.โ Today Iโm thinking that grace is more like Frieda. The miracle of grace is not that โyou are unworthy but I choose to treat you as if you are worthy,โ but โyou are worthy.โ Not โI love you in spite of,โ or โI love you because of,โ but โI love you.โ If there is, somewhere in the universe, a transcendent grace and love like that, I am in awe.ย Thatโs something worth believing and having faith in. Thatโs a thread of possibility that should be followed in order to see where it leads. Of course, Friedaโs just a simple dog and doesnโtย realize that her standards are ridiculously low. But as Leonard Bernstein wrote inย Mass, โSing like you like to sing/God loves all simple things/For God is the simplest of all.โ
Frieda is still with us; she just turned fourteen this month and is still going strong (although she is racking up some serious vet bills). Sheโs closer to thirteen pounds than-ten-and-a-half and would probably weigh twice that if allowed to eat as much and as often as she would like. For my sixtieth birthday two years ago, my tattoo-artist son Caleb permanently inscribed Frieda on my left arm, so now she REALLY goes wherever I go.ย
Iโve learned a good deal about grace, about self-worth, and (I think) about God since I first wrote this essay eleven years ago, but Iโm still in awe of the multiple and unexpected ways in which the divine breaks through on a daily basis. Frieda has been, and continues to be, a vehicle of that grace on a regular basis.