National love your pet day – Aspirational Adventures

Clean Monday/World Social Justice/Love Your Pet Day

First published on Godspacelight.com on Tuesday 21st February 2023

Renly, my dog, and Max, my granddog, waiting for their breakfast. Photographed by myself December 2022

Due to Godspace’s format on having Christine’s Meditation Monday post on a Monday this has been published on Tuesday 21st February rather than Monday 20th February.

This year World Social Justice Day, National Love Your Pet Day and the Lenten tradition of Clean Monday all happen on the same day. So you can scrub your house clean in preparation for Lent, like spring cleaning but being able to give it a spiritual twist and not feel so fed up about doing it, as you love your pet and ponder social justice. Interesting too that World Social Justice day comes in Black History month. Is it possible to look at Black history without thinking about social justice? Interesting too that Christine suggested “Breaking Down Walls” as the theme for Lent. Perhaps it needs to start beforehand? In fact that isn’t a real question. Of course it should start beforehand. We shouldn’t wait until there is a designated day or month to think about social justice, Black history or even loving our pets.

With Love Your Pet and World Social Justice on the same day I wondered which one more people would focus on. I am suspecting it would be to love your pet. Why? Because that is easy. Our pets give us something back. They love on us too. But social justice? Well that’s a hard one. For a start, what does it mean? And will it give us anything in return? I think too often as human beings in our modern world we expect something in return. I remember when people would come round with a bucket collecting for some charity, but now when you do something for charity – whether a marathon at home, some many push ups, going up in a hot air balloon, walking the Great Wall of China, or whatever – you will get a reward for your efforts to raise that money. You will get something back.

I think of Tyre Nichols and other deaths that happen in the so-called civilized world. I wonder if those policemen love their pets. A bit of me thinks they probably do. Are they bad men? Well they did a bad thing, but if we are going to think about World Social Justice should we be looking at people like them too? Or is it easier to say they are evil and don’t deserve any justice? What would Jesus do?

I’m sure on this day if Jesus was walking in our world he would not have trouble choosing. But then I don’t think Jesus would need a specific day to think about Social Justice, loving a pet or even having stuff in his house that needed cleaning out.

Is the “Clean house” at the start of Lent more of a metaphor for something spiritual as well being a physical thing? I wonder if it is about cleaning out ourselves so that during the season of Lent we aren’t just going through the motions of reading devotions dedicated to the season, going to services, and fasting, but our “houses/hearts” are already cleaned so we can understand what Lent is all about and get close to God, and so when the Crucifixion and Resurrection come our hearts are in a place to fully receive all that is offered in both those amazing events.

If we took seriously the “clean house/heart” and stepped into this Lent season and the fullness of what Jesus has done for us then we would not need a specific day to think about World Social Justice because it would be at the forefront of not just our minds but our actions every single day.

And I do think maybe having a National Love Your Pet day is really unnecessary because most of us with pets love them each and every single day much more than we care about many other things.

Perhaps someone should do a “Love people not of your social group more than you love your pets” day?

So today as we have all these things to think about, where will your focus be? Social Justice and how you can be more involved with that? Spring cleaning your house? Spring cleaning your heart? Or loving on your dog, cat, bird, rabbit, etc? Will you pick the easy one or the hard one? Or is it possible to do them all?

National Love Your Pet Day – February 20, 2022

A myriad of picture of my dog, my cat and also one of my son and daughter-in-law’s dog

I am not sure why anyone would need a “National Love Your Pet Day”. For me loving my pets is what I do 24/7. They bring me such joy and laughter and such love. I am not sure who else I would go out the house for at 7.30am on a wet and blustery day apart from my dog who needs a walk, and is always keen to go round the park where he can beg treats from other dog owners.

My cat does yoga with me in the mornings but also loves to come under the covers at night and sleep with her cold nose on my leg. Sometimes with claws extended.

We tease my son that he only married the person he did because she had a dog who took to him. She does have many other lovely qualities but I’m sure the dog drew him in first of all. I have adopted her dog as one of my own when they come to visit.

I was brought up with an eclectic collection of pets and, after leaving home whenever I could I would get some animal or other. Once my children came along we had various pets and we also would dog sit for other people when we lived in rented accommodation that said “No dogs”. We worked on the principle that the dogs were only visiting not staying permanently. I’m hoping that my old landlords are not reading this now 🙂

In fact when I married my husband the children and I worked on how to get him to have pets. Believe it or not he had never ever owned a pet. Then he got us and soon we got him to allow us to carry on with the dog sitting job we used to do. Then my son started work experience at the local pet rescue centre and we got the cat. That was 12 years ago. Then came chickens, a rabbit and then 10 years ago the dog. We are down to just the cat and dog now.

Pets give such pleasure and such joy. I can “hide” behind my dog when I go somewhere new. A lot of the times when I start on a new project or have to network with someone new I will bring the dog with me. He is cute and a real icebreaker. He’s small enough to fit anywhere, well behaved and very responsive to other people.

Just last week I took him on a 4 hour train journey to visit my daughter. He was amazing. You couldn’t do that with a cat or with a hamster. Though when we moved up here we did have cat on our laps in the car because she screams when put in a cat basket. So she was bought a velvet harness, the lead of which was looped round the passenger seat belt and she rode the whole of the six hour journey on the lap of whoever was not driving. At times she would look backward to the dog on the back seat squashed around boxes and give him one of those looks to say “just look at me”. Cats believe they are superior to any other creature.

I told the tale in Day of the Dead, of how Renly helped us laugh through our grief. In fact I’ve got a few pieces I’ve written about my dog. He does crop up quite often.

I am writing a short story in which I have just had to edit out the fact that she had a dog because it didn’t quite work, but it was very hard to then write about someone walking without a dog. My dog very much features in the centre of my life.

I believe God lets us have pets to encourage us to love one and other and to experience unconditional love in such an unexpected way. Dogs very much unconditional, cats maybe not so much! But also gives us something to love, to care for, and to experience loss with. The worst thing about pets is that we will out live them. I think pets help us learn the transient nature of life and also of how to seize the moment, enjoy the moment, live in the moment. For pets they do live in the NOW. It is good for us to learn that too.

So maybe for National Love Your Pet day I will learn more to live in the moment and accept that life is short, relationships transient, and to enjoy it as it comes.