Hazel and Praying Naked

One of the things that Laura and I have always wanted our home to be is hospitable.  Currently, due to size of house and age of kids, we just aren’t able to have houseguests as much as we would like.  So, of course, when some friends said they had a family member who needed a place to stay for a few days, we jumped at the chance. 

Her name was Hazel. 

At mealtime she got so annoying that we asked her to go in another room. 

The first time we did this she cried.

We felt terrible.

She also had the habit of bursting into the bathroom when I was in the shower or on the commode.

She wouldn’t leave. 

She’d just stare.

However the most humorous/troubling part (depending on how you look at it) was that she took an instant liking to me. 

She began to look for ways to undermine Laura’s position in the family. 

Have I mentioned that Hazel is a dog?

No really. 

I’m not being ugly.

She’s really a dog.

She’ a  “golden doodle”, to be exact.

Goldendoodle.com says that female doodles tend to pick favorites in a family.

Apparently, since I was the official walker and pooper scooper, that favorite was me.

That or my raw attractiveness transcends species.

I think I’ll go with goldendoodle.com on this one.

Anyway, I wasn’t kidding about her trying to take Laura’s place. 

If we went somewhere in the car, Hazel would leap over the kids and get into the front passenger seat of the car.

Then she’d stare Laura down with puppy-dog eyes as if to say, “what? You’re coming?  I had NO idea!”

I got her out and put her back into the rear of the car.

At night, she would try to wiggle in between Laura and me. 

I made her go to her doggie bed. 

It was all mildly amusing because, though she’s a dog, there seemed to be such intent there.  

It was puppy love.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day.

And speaking of Valentine’s Day, this weekend I lead worship at a marriage retreat….on Valentine’s Day…..without my wife.

**Note from the desk of Laura Moritz:  “I was OK with it….for real.”**

And one of the things they said was this: 

“Intimacy means ‘in-to-me-see’”

At first I thought it was one of those silly sayings people use at retreats.

But then I thought about it.

Plus they explained it.

True intimacy is an invitation to see into our hearts. 

It’s a place of vulnerability and it’s what we should have with God, with our spouses, and to a certain degree, with our close and trusted friends. 

It’s saying to God, “Search me and know my heart” like David wrote in the Psalms.

It’s allowing people to see us bare and honest.

Of course, the key to this being a healthy situation is that it’s requited. 

Unrequited intimacy isn’t intimacy at all. 

That’s why Hazel’s puppy love is cute but not real.

I’m totally unknowable to her and she is totally unknowable to me. 

Plus she has a hairy face.

But all this got me thinking about the incarnation and God’s self revelation.

The Bible, said Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel, is not a story of man’s search for God, but of God’s search for man. 

It’s an invitation to intimacy with God.

It’s God saying, “Come see into me.”

So the challenge for us…for me…is how we respond to God “putting Himself out there”. 

Do we invite Him, in kind, to see into our hearts and have intimacy with us?

Do we (again a retreat saying) pray naked?  

Honestly, and bare before God?

It’s an invitation to life and love everlasting.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a houseguest, with a tennis ball in her mouth, staring me down.