Interpreting the Moment
This morning, my St. Bernards taught me an import lesson about interpreting the moment.
The pups start off their day by going outside. It’s been warm since we moved into our rental a few months ago, so we’ve only been using the screen door which has a doggy door built in. While they’re way too big for it, the dogs have figured out a way to squirm through and typically take care of their business and let themselves in, quickly moving towards their food dishes where they wait for breakfast.
Since the weather here in Denver has recently taken on a fall/winter tone, that means the doggy door is no longer available for their return from the cold and I’m the one who lets them back in.
Two days in a row I’ve opened the door and Duchie (the older one and the dominant of the two) bolts to her dish. Dozer, however, acts like he’s following her but stops at the top of the stairs, turns around, and waits for some loving. With a face like his, how could I not oblige?
Then it struck me, Dozer was interpreting the moment. He was making a distinction between what seemed urgent (getting breakfast) and what was important (embracing an opportunity to connect).
As I rubbed his soft face I thought of two important applications. The first ties into recovery and the second how we read sacred texts, both of which deeply intertwine with my own story.
The recovery lesson focuses on awareness and living in the moment. One of my greatest challenges in daily life is that I live out of the past. As Larry Bilotta say, “Our childhood memories aren’t in the past, they’re an instruction manual to live in the present.” Unfortunately, the person you’re talking to now isn’t the person who hurt you years ago. Similarly, the coping mechanism that helped you get by for so long is now destroying your life. When we don’t operate from a place of awareness, we allow our past to interpret our present.
The sacred text lesson focuses on the interpretive lens we use when reading a book like the Bible. I grew up in a tradition that rooted its understanding of humanity in depravity. As a result, the Bible was all about the goodness of God and the miserableness of people. It’s a view that nurtured shame and ultimately a shame coping (and fueling) addiction.
Then a few years ago my eyes opened to a different interpretive lens. One that focuses on the relentless love of God. Suddenly the Bible didn’t feed shame but resolved it. Granted, I still struggle to read it this way sometimes because I still struggle with awareness and hear sermons from the past instead of reading the text in front of me today, but over time, it’s slowly changing everything.
Would you like to know more? I have an ebook coming out soon. It’s titled, “How to Read the Bible (Without Losing Your Heart, Mind, or Soul).” I’m also working on a piece titled, “Six Tools to Cultivate Your Life” which focuses on uprooting bad habits, coping mechanisms, and even addictions. To the latest on their release and hear more from my story, I invite you to join my email list: https://pages.convertkit.com/c3d5f4b36b/d79f867c13
