My sister and I recently got a dog. Well, to be quite honest, we did not so much get a dog as \u201cborrow\u201d our parent\u2019s Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy at the beginning of quarantine. We thought Copper Penny would offer temporary therapy\u2014just as we thought quarantine would be temporary. But here we are in January, 10 months into pandemic living and 10 months into dog ownership. I don\u2019t think either is leaving any time soon.<\/p>\n
The gift that Copper offers\u2014the main reason my parents don\u2019t mind his permanent stay\u2014is the joy he brings. That dog is the reason my sister\/roommate and I still talk to each other after months in seclusion. There\u2019s something healing in how he sleeps with his toes over his nose, how he serenely watches butterflies, how he will drop anything to cuddle with you in his favorite couch spot, how he bounces around at the dog park.<\/p>\n
Copper reminds me that God is good, and God is present in this world. In the face of a pandemic, unparalleled natural disasters, an election cycle full of fearmongering and coded language, the seemingly endless fight for racial justice, the continued violence against people of color, and an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, I need that. I need to know, to feel that God is here in the suffering, that God meets me in my material body through the ordinary made extraordinary.<\/p>\n
We learn different names for this goodness in seminary: realized eschatology, the transcendent, a sacrament, the transfiguration. While naming something does give it power, it can also relativize it. As a result, it becomes easy to box up God\u2019s eternal presence entering time into an academic idea and to slide it onto the theological shelves of our brains. The transcendent can feel abstract, especially as we are facing a world frothing in chaos.<\/p>\n
As theologically trained helpers, we see someone hurting and we want to fix it. We know that faithful, sacrificial action is needed in the world. And we believe it is the call of Jesus, as he reminds us in Matthew 25, to offer care to those whom society designates as the \u201cleast of these.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, I am constantly learning that there is a difference between acting because I am needed to fix the problem and acting with an eye out for the transcendent\u2014for how God is already at work. Because it\u2019s the divine mystery of God entering time that gives the people of God hope and sets us apart in our action.<\/p>\n
As Emmanuel Y. Lartey writes in his book In Living Color: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling, <\/em>recognizing the transcendental in life is essential in \u201c[distinguishing] a pastoral caregiver from other careers.\u201d Pastoral caregiving necessitates keeping our eyes open for the transcendent. Or, as Lartey would say, \u201cThe pastoral healer listens deeply to the sighs and groans of humans in distress . . . and is sensitive and open to the transcendent in whatever form or shape, knowing that the transcendent mediates love, support, and help.\u201d<\/p>\n