Dog Theology, part 7: Dirty Love

The next installment in the series titled Dog Theology.

Recently, my wife and I went camping. 5 days of outside, showering only once, bugs and dirt. Our dogs' favorite part...the dirt. Everytime we take them camping they come home dirty, filthy, nasty, dust in their fur, mongrels. Upon coming home, our entire family got bathed. The result, clean puppies, clean people and a drain clogged with coarse black dog hair.

If you can't tell, I really love my dogs. Whether dirty or clean, I love'em. When their dirty, I rub on'em and get dirty myself and enjoy every minute of it. They're my filthy four-legged angels. When they're clean, I enjoy their clean-ness, their soft fur, and rub on'em and enjoy every minute of it.

When this is happening the puppies get the 'Nathan voice:' I voice a use only to address my dogs. You know, it's that baby, infantilizing, high pitched, excited to see them voice. It's their very own voice.

I wonder if God looks at us the same way. We quickly condemn the 'dirty' ones in society and relegate them to a category unworthy of divine love and favor. But really, I see such a person as just-as-loved by God as anyone else. God rubs on us and gets dirt on God's hands. When we do something wrong or shameful we also tend to condemn ourselves as unworthy of divine love or love from anyone else for that matter.

I think that if we could only see through our own self-condemnation and self-judgment and abasement, we'd see a God who is smiling at us, excited to see us, and speaking to us in our very own (puppy) voice from God.

Just like I'm not afraid to give my dirty dog a belly rub, even though I'll get dirty, I have this image of a God who's not afraid to show love and grace toward people considered 'dirty.'

Humans draw lines in the sand between one another claiming, "this group is not in God's favor," or "these people are different, wrong, bad," or "these people are holy and clean while those people are defiled and dirty and condemned." How sad would it be if we had a God who did the same thing. What if God, no matter how screwed up we get, actually loved us all: you, me, your middle school bully, illegal immigrants, homosexual people, prisoners, members of the Taliban. I sure hope that, no matter how much we may hate, despise or loath certain people, God is able to love them.

No matter how dirty we may think we get, I sure do believe that God is in the business of dirty love.

{The picture above is the dirtiest Lola has ever gotten. It's also the happiest.}