More lessons from Puppy Duty!

Having a large, energetic puppy in the house brings a number of challenges. If Clare (the St. Bernard/Lab mix puppy) is not sleeping, then she is chewing on something. Some item must be in her big mouth every waking moment of her life. The challenge is to make sure that only her toys end up in her mouth, and not the furniture, laundry, shoes, barbie dolls, car keys, tea bags, electric cords, kitchen towels, books, etc. I guess that everything looks tasty to a young puppy like Clare!

Clare with the toy doughnut in mouth!

In order to survive the months of this chewing fixation with minimal damage to our household goods, we frequently ask our children to help with watching Clare. They find this difficult to do, because she moves around the house quite a bit, or tries to escape from the backyard. How can they watch YouTube videos and watch Clare at the same time? 

Recently, I explained to Angus (our 16 y.o. son) that he did not actually have to watch her all the time with his eyes, but that he had only to maintain continual awareness of Clare's presence. To know what she was doing and where she was without actually looking. 

Wow! I thought, what a great spiritual lesson! This works in the same way as our relationship with God! The goal of our spiritual lives is to reach the point where we   maintain continual awareness of God's presence while we continue to live our ordinary lives. 

The skill required here is splitting consciousness into two different areas of focus without becoming bi-polar. Doing the task before you with complete attention, while at the same time maintaining a deeper, underlying awareness of the Holy Spirit. 

This is tuning the radio of the heart to the Spirit's frequency and listening in the background while we continue to function in life at a high level. Just like having the baby monitor on in the background while the mother is working. She is doing both things - listening carefully AND being productive (hopefully). 

When we reach spiritual maturity ("to the measure of the full stature of Christ" Eph. 4:13), then we are able to maintain this continual awareness which is central to living "in Christ" while also being 100% engaged in the tasks of ordinary life - even more engaged than we could ever be otherwise. 

Here is another of the ironic oxymorons of the spiritual life: learning to listen at all times with our interior consciousness to God enables us to become better listeners at all times to the people around us. 

This, I know, is where the Holy Spirit is leading me. I look forward to this journey! Thanks be to God.