Notes for the Week St. Francis of Assisi October 6 2019

Dear friends,

This Sunday we will gather to celebrate the ones who share our lives, bring us joy and laughter, frustration and chaos, and endless unconditional love. Yes, we always celebrate our children, but there are others for whom we give great thanks. They often come with fin and fur, tooth and claw, and never outgrow this year’s clothes. Just like our children sometimes they fly and sing, sometimes they swim and like to peer at us as we approach with food. Sometimes they bound around our patience and sometimes they’re the only ones who can manage to pull us out of our doldrums and on to our feet to help us keep on keeping on.

They are sometimes easier to understand than human children, and they try their best to determine how to please us. They speak to us in the best way they know how, and we in turn, find our words are only somewhat helpful. It is our body language, our tone and our demeanor that conveys that sense of comfort they seek. Just like us, they want safety, comfort and love, with fresh water to drink and food fit to eat. They require little else other than an understanding of true acceptance and respect for who they are and what God created them to be and to do.

We give thanks to God for creating all kinds, all shapes and sizes of companions for all kinds, shapes and sizes of God’s people. We seem to find each other, or maybe the Spirit works to ensure our paths cross. No matter. If we are holding to our promise to God to be stewards of all God’s creation, we can only reap the rewards of that stewardship. It comes to us on wings, with fins or fur, and most usually on four paws.

We journey together,
Mother Esme+
And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. (Genesis 1:2)4