The front door pushes open with a dramatic swoosh.  We all stop what we are doing and look up; even those in a distant room, will lift their heads, pause and listen....the house smiles.

 Enter Hank.  Enter the cold winter air which rushes ahead of him, and follows in behind him….sticking to his black winter coat along with happiness.  I run my fingers along his  crisp cold back, feeling winter and happiness ...such happiness that starts at the head and moves down the spine to the tail which swings back and forth.

Hank knows how to open every door in the house.  He can push a lever handle as well as roll a door knob with his paw.  He can go out and in.  He bounds through doors, wondering if he has missed anything, begging to be real.  Not one look of reproach at his muddy feet, will dampen his characteristically authentic zeal, coming from within, and we fall under his spell.

There comes a distinct moment when a person begins to live as a Christian...


  At this moment, the identifying marks of the Christian life appear in the person. The Christian life is marked by zeal. It is a life of constant communion with God, a life of actively doing God’s holy will…At first, this communion is hidden from others and also ourselves. The visible and tangible witness that we are living the Christian life is our zeal to please God alone. In our ardour, we sacrifice ourselves and hate everything that opposes God’s will.

And so when our ardent zeal begins, we know that our Christian life has begun; and when zeal is constantly at work in our lives, we know that we are living the Christian life.

                                                                                                  St. Theophane the Recluse

It is a strain sometimes to live the life of an ardent zealous Christian, living two lives; our inner life  filling our minds while hidden from view, like treasure stored away.  It is our hidden specialness, our hidden mark of who we really are. We almost forget how to tell the story, forgetting the words, worrying if they will like them, and feeling guilty for all this.  Oh if it were as simple as bursting through the door that they might really know us. We become stuck in this hiddeness and it threatens to destroy us, because we are meant to give ourselves away...


“In speaking of this far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name…” 
                                                              The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis




So we fall back, organize our days around Him. We wear the private habit of prayer and study, feasting, and fasting along with community, trying to smooth out the days -eventually falling into rhythm with reading  the ancient words that suggest and spark our imaginations and despite our verbal awkwardness, new words fill our mouths. The ancient words breathe...and we talk. We talk of an inner knowing and understanding in the midst of our hearts. We cannot translate what we do not yet understand.(Lewis)  




    words from David...


...then I said, Behold I come
I willed to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law in the midst of my heart.
                                                                Psalm 39:9



Hank's bubbled up joy, spilling out over the mud, into the entrances, over the cats, people and out into the corners of the house,  has worn us out. I tell him, it is time for bed and point.  He hangs his head and gives me one last questioning look before heading up the stairs. We listen for the clicking of his feet across the bedroom floor and then all is quiet as he falls into bed.