the lighter load on the journey...

For the last week I have walked 5 miles a day. We had a dog behavioralist come over last Friday. 3 hours for $65! The dogs are the best I have ever had...in only a few days. He is like the "Dog Whisperer." He said 90% of training is walking (not peeing & pooping or exploring, but just straight walking.) It works!!!! And I have lost 4+ lbs! I walk Winston and Maggie 3 miles in the morning and 2 miles in the evening. Clearly the training was more of Martha and I so we could then be in charge of our dogs and not just their human buddies.

I find that I am more relaxed with the dogs and during my day. As I walk them all three of us relax together. I get stopped often complimenting me on our well behaved dogs. When I tell them we just started last Friday they can't believe it. BTW, Winston (our year old Lab/Boxer/Shar Pei we got from the pound in March just a little while before he was to be put to sleep also works out on our treadmill for up to 20 minutes at a time!). I took both dogs to the vet on Tues when in the past I had trouble just handling one dog in and of itself at the vet's. Winston has gone from 39 lbs when we got him to 56 lbs and it is clearly a lot of muscle!

I can understand St. Francis much more now. The time with the dogs is very centering for me. I now follow it with reading Eugene Peterson's "Living the Message: Daily Help for Living the God-Centered Life" daily devotional and Oswald Chambers "My Utmost for His Highest"daily devotional. The discipline is about God. Not about me. The dogs are clearly a gift to help me let go of my self and be with God.

I am troubled by much in the world and at our church. God's purpose is not for me to stay stuck in that troublesome place. It is to move on and listen to God and to be obedient to God's will in the here and now. I have been seeking a Christian community where that could happen. I have found it 5 miles a day with my dogs. I pray that I will find it with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

David Loar, Akron, Ohio, United Church of Christ, dogs, Christian spirituality