Never Lost

from A Service of Thanksgiving for the Lives of our Pets, Calvary Episcopal Church, Lombard,
hosted by the Lombard Veterinary Hospital, 
October 2, 2010

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I don’t know what animals believe about God, or about death.

I can’t get my cat to tell me.

But I am quite sure that pets know some things about life and about God that you and I might learn from scripture.

There is a time for everything. 
A time to be born, and a time to die.
A time to eat, and a time to run. A time to hide your toys, and a time to insist on play,
A time to sleep, and a time to make sure that no one in the house is sleeping.

We learn these, and other things from our pets.
We learn patience.  And joy.  We learn that we are not as in charge as we think we are.
We learn about trust, because our pets trust us. And we learn about how God means for us to live with all God’s creatures when we live up to that trust.

We learn much about love, when we love our pets, and we are here today because of that love.
Because we love a pet, or love someone who loves a pet,
we grieve when a pet dies.
We grieve the very real loss of a companion in life, a living, breathing gift of God our creator.

We remember, with laughter or tears, the favorite games and places.  We remember the people our pet connected us to, and the gift of touch. 
We give thanks for the memories.
We cry for our helplessness when the injury or illness or simple age of our pet was too much to heal,
and we cry when we have to choose to let them go.  Because, sometimes, that is the gift we can give them. 

I don’t know for sure what pets believe about God, or what happens when we die. But I know what I believe.

From the beginning of Creation, God made spiders and fish, birds and lizards, cats and elephants and dogs and horses and rabbits, and rejoiced that they were good.
From the very beginning, God told us to live together in harmony with animals and taught us to care for all creation with God’s own care.

And most of all I know,
that from forever to forever, not one single one of God’s creatures, ants or lions or gerbils or snakes,
not one can ever be lost to God.

Every one of God’s creatures is welcome in God’s home.  We heard that in the psalm that began our service today.
The story of the Rainbow Bridge, that we heard today, is one way of imagining that truth: that not one of the pets we have loved, nor you or I, not one is ever lost to God.
And scripture tells us that in the kingdom of God, every one of God’s creatures will find shelter, and safety, and peace.

There is a time for everything under heaven:
A time to cry,
a time to remember,
and a time to turn to God for comfort, knowing that God’s love is big enough for us in our joy and grief, big enough for our pets, and for all God’s creatures,
all welcome and at peace in God’s home,
and never, ever lost.