Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 18th, 2011
God in Nature

Canine Candy Stripers. Dogs in hospitals are treating human patients with succor, creature comfort and unconditional love. The 65-year-old patient had not moved or opened her eyes in days. Her relatives, grim-faced, stood around the bed. They thought they had lost her. Then Kolya, a shaggy white Pyrenees was ushered in, who climbed up onto the woman’s bed and snuggled against her body. Then the woman’s hand moved slowly towards the dog. She began to stroke his soft, thick-coat. The woman smiled and murmured, ”So lovely...”   For half an hour she kept petting him and calling him ‘my friend.’ The nurse on duty, Betty Walsh, says: ”The whole time I watched the blood-pressure monitor go down, down, down.” Kolya,  the dog is not the only therapist making the rounds of the vast hospital complex at UCLA.   Rayshaunna  Davis, 19, is waiting for a heart transplant. Louie is her new best friend.

There are a lot of people in our country right now whose hearts are hurting, physically, emotionally, or spiritually; and at this special time of year we try to heal them through inanimate things. I looked up the meaning of ‘inanimate’ in the Webster dictionary and it reads "not endowed with life or spirit –lacking consciousness or power of motion,” Oh yes, the present is wrapped in beautiful, colored, festive paper, but many times, it only provides temporary relief.  I was blessed to attend a one-day retreat at the North Palm Beach monastery, and Fr. Phidelis, a  passionist  priest at the ripe old age of 90, gave us two great sessions. He  emphasized being "at home" in your own body — that’s what God created. But he also reminded us that for some, because of a poor a relationship with Dad or Mom, growing up, this negative experiences of God. Remember that spirituality is about experiencing God, whereas theology is talking about God. He further stated that happiness is being ‘involved with people’ and the crown of happiness is love, and that when we love, we are doing God’s work. So it’s sad that we do not fully appreciate the living, God-created gift that we are, and we settle so frequently for the life-less, inanimate things of the world.

Our world is fully of beauty, and we have lost touch with that God-created beauty, and settled for, and become enamored of
man-made things. We need from time to time to ‘stop the world,’ so to speak and refresh ourselves with God’s creation. “Open our eyes to see your  hand at work in the splendor of creation, in the beauty of human life. Touched by your hand, our world is holy. Help us to cherish the gifts that surround us, to share your blessings with our brothers and sisters, so as to experience the joy of your presence. We ask this, through Christ Our Lord, AMEN.