Samwise, the Service Dog in Training (and Trinity Sunday)
Ten years ago I started falling and having neurological symptoms that affected my balance and mobility, which eventually led to a movement disorder diagnosis that will be with me for the rest of my life. A few years after that I learned of an organization that trained great danes to be mobility service dogs for veterans, helping to steady and support them. Since then I have dreamed, wished, hoped, prayed, learned, and looked for just the right great dane at just the right time, a dog I could train to be my mobility service dog.
Last week, Samwise (or just "Sam") made that a reality for me. In the four short days he and I have been together, the adventures have been unending. I am learning how to communicate with him and how to understand his communication with me. I am learning to see the world as he sees it, as he often catches small noises or movements that I would have missed. I have watched him gently introduce himself to my kittens and excitedly introduce himself to the people and dogs he comes across. I can already sense the richness and possibility present in this relationship.
This Sunday is Trinity Sunday in the church year, in which we usually look at the handful of scriptures that have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mentioned in the same passage, most notably the Great Commission. The creation story also comes up here, with the Spirit showing up as a wind sent from God, and with God saying of humans "let us make them in our image," indicating a plurality within God.
Much ink has been spilled trying to explain the doctrine of the Trinity, but us Church of the Brethren folks have more interest in what it means for our faith walk than in how it works theologically. For early Anabaptists (and even some present day Anabaptists), it was not unusual for all three persons of the trinity to be spoken of interchangeably -- a prayer that starts out to God, for instance, can easily switch to address the Spirit or Christ and back again fluidly, because we feel the oneness in the three-ness, and the three-ness in the oneness.
In the Iona Community, the last line of every morning's worship was this: "in the name of the Trinity of Love, God in community, Holy and One." I like this phrasing of it. God is community in essence. Our God of Love is a Trinity because the pattern of love is a flowing mutuality, giving and receiving in dynamic relationship.
So often our relationships in human reality are transactional, even when we don't intend them to be. We have a hard time staying in God's pattern of love -- mutuality that gives and receives without counting or measuring, without withholding or judging. We tend to love those who offer us something (tangible or intangible) more easily than we love those who have nothing to give us.
I'm learning a Godly kind of love from Samwise. He seems to always have more love to give, and he gives it indiscriminately and abundantly, no matter what he receives in return. For him it seems that the point of life is to love and that love is its own reward. I am also learning that in order to have as full a relationship with him as possible, I need to allow myself to enter into a kind of union with him, of giving and receiving mutually. The simplicity and profoundness of this kind of loving communion is the delightful relationship the Trinity of Love, God in community, invites us into. "Let us make them in our image!" God says, inviting us into the middle of this flowing, dynamic relationship.
May we find spaces of true communion with God, with nature, with each other in this season.
Blessings,
Laura
**PS, You'll likely meet Samwise. Thank you for your grace as he and I are learning. He'll wear "service dog in training" harnesses. If the labels say "do not pet", just ignore him (even if he really wants to say hi). If they say "service dog in training," it's okay to interact with him. He just always has to be polite! And if you are concerned about having him around for any reason, please let me know. We'll work at it together.