My Hound From Heaven

My Hound From Heaven

It’s been years since Francis Thompson’s epic poem, “The Hound of Heaven” crossed my path. It is a Victorian poem.  Whereas it’s language is outdated to our modern ear, it is still as endearing as the day it was penned as it centers on the pursuit of a sinner by a loving God. It’s a poem about Grace. Raw Grace. Unbridled and unfettered Grace.  Grace that reaches beyond the surface facades into the grit of life. It is this Grace for which I am most thankful as for without it I would not be standing today.

Not until a few months ago, when unable to sleep, did the poem show itself again – and in such an odd fashion.  God is like that you know – popping up at the most inopportune times when we are so busy trying to handle life on our own.

It was about two in the morning and I could not sleep. It’s almost as if I had been summoned to my easy chair to find the answer.  I crept out of the bedroom, tippy-toed over the dog’s gate trying not to wake them. I heard Jack stir, but left him behind -  which I hardly ever did as he had become somewhat of an appendage over the years.  You see, Jack was my German Shephard. He went everywhere with me.  Everywhere. To the bathroom. To the sink. We’d turn on the TV together and we pour ourselves a glass of water together.  We’d even walk the wet clothes from the washer over into the dryer. Like a two-year-old, that would never grow up. I love you Mom… forever. I had a 90 lb. hairy shadow that I learned to accept as a part of me. He is so devoted.  Never have I been so adored.  Never so hounded with affection except… Well, I’m getting to that in a minute. 

My spirit was so uneasy that early morning and yet I couldn’t identify the anxiety. The easy chair wrapped itself around me. I did an internal scan before I settled into my computer to find anxieties cause, or to distract it. My family ok? Luke? Jim,  Jenny? Yes – all felt well.  I was ok to the best of my knowledge – no major drama on the foreseeable horizon...which was unusual. Then I opened a Facebook Message – a friend was not ok. Ah – the cause of the midnight summons revealed. Her daughter’s metastatic breast cancer was back. ‘I’m scared…  Where is God?’ Her anxious words cried off the screen. The dog gate rattled down the hall. Jack was awake.

My friend was reaching out to me in the dead of night as she knew I too had once survived the Dark Night of the Soul. You see, I nearly lost my son in a car accident. For more than a week I watched a machine breath for him as the doctor told me his body was too crushed to survive.  In a time when we both could not breathe, the Holy Spirit did so for us, of that I am sure. My son’s life was spared by sheer Grace and Grace alone. I shed a quiet tear remembering the event and felt guilty as it looked as if a different fate awaited my friend’s child.  I heard Jack quietly whimper along with me…

We never know what life will bring us.  I used to want to know – have a crystal ball and all.  Thank heavens God doesn’t operate like that and kept that info from me as if I would have known,  I would have gone running to the nearest cave, screaming, never to be heard from again. Indeed, there were years when I swear Job had nothing on me.  Loss and heartache had become constant companions. Divorce, devastation, bankruptcy, loss of house and home. Blindsided. Amidst my son’s accident and 4 subsequent surgeries, l set up hospice 5 times in 4 years and lost them all including my parents and my best friend.  Once, after yet another apocalyptic phone call I took off my shoe and hurled it at the ceiling yelling at God: “STOP IT!”  Whoever said God would never give you more than you could bear… We were indeed on the precipice…  I heard Jack start to pace the floor reminding me he was awake…

Heartbreak, disasters, and diseases are humankind’s curse and price for sin. Poets, theologians, scholars, and simple minds like me have looked up to the night sky for millenniums desperately pleading for help – or at least some understanding of WHY. Some very good people have had to deal with some pretty nasty events and it never makes any sense. That night was no different.  

I couldn’t help but weep for my friend.  Yet there were no words to heal the blow she had just been dealt. I silently held her heart praying for Grace to hunt her down and comfort her as it once did me.

The morning always comes. Not sunshine all the time mind you, but the morning brings what is needed to make it through another day. God never promised his children a life without heartbreak and loss, only that He would be there in that pain with us. I had long given up the fantasy that God was Santa Claus and reward me for trying to be good. It was a relief actually. Rains falls on the good and evil without benefit of justification or rational explanations. Such is life – painful and unjust as it can be. Yet I pondered what the morning would bring my friend as I knew the only thing she wanted was to have her baby safe here in this lifetime – not in the world to come. I wept with her and tried to continue my prayer – which now was continually interrupted by a loud rattling of the gate down the hall.  Jack was letting me know in no uncertain terms that he was not happy being was separated from me.  Dang Hound.  

I finally sent a lame note of hopeful comfort and turned off the light.  There, in the dark, at the end of the hall was Jack, anxiously waiting for me to crawl in bed.  I thoroughly expected him to jump on the bed and settle in at the foot, on my feet, where he usually slept.  Instead, as my head hit the pillow, Jack leaped on top of me licking my face with great relief.  I was back!!  I was alive! He would never let me out of his sights again! My first instinct was to brush him off and chide him for his near suffocating kisses. Then it hit me. It was at that odd dog slobbered moment I remembered Thompson’s poem, The Hound of Heaven, and was reminded of God’s relentless loving persistent presence – and our resistance to Him: “I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him…”  Oh, we are all such prodigal sons and daughters of God, awaiting the Wedding Feast of Parables . . . Our great reward. To be in His presence.

As I drifted off to sleep, Jack snuggled close,  I was reminded that it was in the depth of Thompson’s deepest depression and addiction that he was he able to pen this immortal poem of God’s Great Love for Humankind. Oh, how God adores the sinner. How He loves me.  And as odd as this may sound, I am very thankful for my dark days and the constant reminders that God was forever down the hall. For it was in that very darkness that I could most clearly feel the presence of God’s great love for me; Chasing me, Hounding me. Holding me. Holding you. As Psalm 130 reminds us:

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.          

            

 Dedicated to my friend Robin and her new grandbaby Penelope