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<\/p>\nTen years ago this summer, I attended a writers conference for the first time in my life\u2013I signed up at Jeanne\u2019s urging\u00a0(and against my better judgment). My workshop was \u201cLiterary Essay\u201d; each of the fifteen members wrote daily 500 word essays, which were submitted to colleagues for critique and (hopefully) helpful evaluation. My essays tended to praise the virtues of my dog and the Boston Red Sox,\u00a0while frequently expressing struggles with faith, God, religion, and my own very human inadequacies. Little did I know that this first foray into short essay writing was the beginning of a multi-faceted process that would change my life.<\/p>\n
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On the final day of the ten-day workshop, each participant capped her or his experience with a two-minute public reading of something they had written during the workshop. It was a bit intimidating\u2013I was used to speaking in front of large groups of people (200+ in this instance), but had never brought such a personal, intimate piece of writing to the attention of so many without lots of editing. Here\u2019s what I shared with the group:<\/p>\n
I have unexpectedly fallen in love with a real bitch. She\u2019s 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 we\u2019re playing, but I still find her pearly white teeth very attractive. Although she\u2019s willing to allow a\u00a0m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois<\/em>\u00a0when my wife is home, she prefers it being just the two of us in bed. Her name is Frieda.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a new experience for me. No one has ever looked at me with a gaze that says \u201cyou were put on earth just for me.\u201d No female has ever marked me as a love interest and dared me not to love her back. This is the first time I\u2019ve been chosen before I knew I was even being considered. And it\u2019s not as if Frieda doesn\u2019t have lots of options for love interests. Everybody loves Frieda\u2014she\u2019s 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 you\u2019re doing. She is fluent in both English and German. Her profile would be a killer on eharmony.com.<\/strong><\/p>\n I never thought I\u2019d fall in love with a dog. I\u2019ve always been a cat person; there\u2019s 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. There\u2019s 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 moment\u2019s notice. It takes time and effort to get to know a cat\u2014time and effort on the human\u2019s part, that is. The cat couldn\u2019t care less. Self-reliance, independence, confidence, a sense of mystery and aloofness\u2014I find much to admire in a cat.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dogs are a different story; not so much to admire. Dogs are so obsequious, as if canine completeness requires human approval.. But Frieda didn\u2019t and doesn\u2019t\u00a0need\u00a0me\u2014she\u00a0chose\u00a0me, 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. I\u2019ve seen animals attach themselves to a single human before (usually my wife, a dog person). Not to me, though. So the \u201cclick click click\u201d 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 \u00bd pound dachshund trying to spoon with me in bed\u2014these are new and sometimes disconcerting experiences.<\/strong><\/p>\n I once saw a bumper sticker that said \u201cI want to be the person that my dog thinks I am.\u201d Not me\u2014that\u2019s too much pressure. No human being could possibly deserve the rapturous upside-down look Frieda occasionally gives me when she\u2019s laying next to me or on my lap, just making sure that I\u2019m still there.\u00a0Of course such reverence is easy for Frieda\u2014she doesn\u2019t know about all the ways in which I am unworthy of unconditional love. That\u2019s one of my great fears\u2014what if they (my wife, my sons, my friends, my students\u2014anybody) knew the truth about me? Frieda doesn\u2019t know the truth about me, and that\u2019s why she\u2019s attached to me at the hip. She doesn\u2019t know any better.<\/strong><\/p>\n I learned as a kid in Sunday School that grace is \u201cunmerited favor.\u201d Divine grace is something I don\u2019t deserve, a gift I cannot earn, bestowed simply \u201cbecause.\u201d Over the years, grace has evolved for me into \u201cGod knows that you\u2019re a shit and a loser, but chooses to forgive you and to love you anyway.\u201d Today I\u2019m thinking that grace is more like Frieda. The miracle of grace is not that \u201cyou are unworthy but I choose to treat you as if you are worthy,\u201d but \u201cyou are worthy.\u201d Not \u201cI love you in spite of,\u201d or \u201cI love you because of,\u201d but \u201cI love you.\u201d If there is, somewhere in the universe, a transcendent grace and love like that, I am in awe.\u00a0 That\u2019s something worth believing and having faith in.\u00a0That\u2019s a thread of possibility that should be followed in order to see where it leads. Of course, Frieda\u2019s just a simple dog and doesn\u2019t\u00a0realize that her standards are ridiculously low. But as Leonard Bernstein wrote in\u00a0Mass<\/em>, \u201cSing like you like to sing\/God loves all simple things\/For God is the simplest of all.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The editor of a small magazine heard my essay and approached me later that day, asking if I would be willing to let her publish it\u2013it\u00a0became my first non-academic publication ever. Two years after the workshop I experienced a life-transforming sabbatical where I began writing exploratory essays in the mode of my first forays at the workshop. Five years later, exactly five years ago today, \u201cHail Frieda, Full of Grace\u201d was the first of now more than 800 posts as I ventured into the strange and wonderful world of blogging.<\/p>\n I have written about a number of interconnected themes on \u201cFreelance Christianity\u201d over the past half-decade, none of them more important than the one I first shared ten years ago with my fellow workshop participants. Is there somewhere in the universe a transcendent grace and love that welcomes me with open arms and asks only for my response?\u00a0<\/strong>My continuing answer is \u201cYes\u201d\u2013but the details are still something I\u2019m working on.<\/p>\n Frieda and I are both ten years older\u2013she carries her now thirteen-year-old self with the same\u00a0extroversion, personality, and grace that I celebrated in my original essay. She\u2019s 13 rather than 10.5 pounds. She has almost as much white hair as I do. She\u2019s still my muse, my constant companion, and I still hope that she outlives me (since I don\u2019t want to deal with what I\u2019ll be like if she doesn\u2019t).<\/p>\n Ten years on, I realize that I am a very different person than I was at that workshop, different in ways I could never have predicted. I\u2019m grateful for the essays, for Frieda, for Jeanne, for change, and especially for my increasingly stronger conviction that there\u2019s a lot more going on in me and around me than I could ever imagine. I thank those who have shared this journey with me in many different ways, and invite you to join me going forward.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ten years ago this summer, I attended a writers conference for the first time in my life\u2013I signed up at Jeanne\u2019s urging\u00a0(and against my better judgment). My workshop was \u201cLiterary Essay\u201d; each of the fifteen members wrote daily 500 word essays, which were submitted to colleagues for critique and (hopefully) helpful evaluation. My essays tended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2938,"featured_media":10699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,20,21,26,35,36,40,41,48,56,63,73,80,94,104],"tags":[169,221,222,242,287,383,403,501],"class_list":["post-10697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cats","category-change","category-christianity","category-dogs","category-faith","category-family","category-god","category-grace","category-human-nature","category-jeanne","category-love","category-philosophy","category-religion-2","category-teaching","category-writing","tag-christianity","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-god","tag-jeanne","tag-philosophy","tag-religion","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"IMG_9677\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/766\/2017\/08\/IMG_9677.jpg\")
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