Feeling numinous Now that the Pope has announced that dogs go to heaven, nearly twenty-five years to the day since Hollywood announced it, the question for dog owners everywhere is whether their dogs are spiritually fit enough to pass through the Pearly Gates? The answer, in my case, is a resounding "I don't know," as befits my status as an agnostic amateur theologian.
First off, this is Catholic heaven, a place I was made aware of at an early age. Even as the nuns told me about it, they assured me I was unlikely to get into it, and people to this day who have boned up on the admissions requirements are certain I haven't fulfilled them. But there is no higher authority on your spiritual SAT's than the Pope, and when he allowed atheists in, I figured he was giving agnostics a pass, too, since we are their less angry, less proselytizing, less litigious cousins.
And Catholic heaven is the best, as anyone who has studied afterlife realms knows. It's better than Protestant heaven, where they're not allowed to drink, Muslim heaven, which is crawling with surly, unfulfilled virgins, Jewish heaven, which is chorus after chorus of bickering rabbis and Buddhist heaven, which is basically a recycling plant, but hopefully without all the attendant smells and truck traffic. In Catholic heaven, we start the heavenly day with a hosanna or two, then we knock off early and start drinking. It's the same thing as a regular Catholic Sunday, only it lasts for all eternity.
I am haunted, however, by the suspicion that my dog is more spiritually precocious than I am, which wouldn't take much. Commandment by commandment we come out pretty evenly, though. I use the Lord's name in vain far more expertly than he does, but I don't use it when our neighbor is stacking paint cans in his garage, which sends the dog into a prodigious, pointless barking fit that is no doubt the canine equivalent of a string of obscenities. I don't worship much, but my dog engages in the much more heretical (and dubious) practice of worshiping me, especially if I am bringing in freshly barbecued meat from the grill.
My feelings towards my neighbors aren't hostile, but they don't amount to love in any spiritual (or erotic) sense. I don't try to bite them, however, which he does, occasionally. Fortunately, he is a Chihuahua, so no legal problems have resulted so far. We are both killers; me of fish, him of lizards that infiltrate the condo's tiny back yard. We both sleep with our woman without benefit of matrimony.
Neither of us has any plans for spiritual advancement. Offers come our way very occasionally, in the form of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon missionaries knocking on our door. I dismiss them with wisecracks like, "You're both named Elder? What a coincidence!" or questions "Don't you see the little Jew-thing by the door?" I can never remember the name of that thing under pressure--it's a mezuzah--which makes my defensive attempt to claim the mantle of Judaism less than completely convincing. Meantime, the pooch gets busy chewing on their pants legs.
We don't need to. We're in. Ask the Pope, in his capacity as God's doorman. And if I am already sitting in the Great Beyond when my beast breathes his doggy last (which is actuarially unlikely but hey, you never know) I'm sure I'll be the first one to hear him scratch, scratch, scratching on Heaven's screen door. And I'll let him in. Watch him around the hems on your robes is my advice.
For more spiritual balm by me, consult Heaven for Dortguller or Mistake
First off, this is Catholic heaven, a place I was made aware of at an early age. Even as the nuns told me about it, they assured me I was unlikely to get into it, and people to this day who have boned up on the admissions requirements are certain I haven't fulfilled them. But there is no higher authority on your spiritual SAT's than the Pope, and when he allowed atheists in, I figured he was giving agnostics a pass, too, since we are their less angry, less proselytizing, less litigious cousins.
And Catholic heaven is the best, as anyone who has studied afterlife realms knows. It's better than Protestant heaven, where they're not allowed to drink, Muslim heaven, which is crawling with surly, unfulfilled virgins, Jewish heaven, which is chorus after chorus of bickering rabbis and Buddhist heaven, which is basically a recycling plant, but hopefully without all the attendant smells and truck traffic. In Catholic heaven, we start the heavenly day with a hosanna or two, then we knock off early and start drinking. It's the same thing as a regular Catholic Sunday, only it lasts for all eternity.
I am haunted, however, by the suspicion that my dog is more spiritually precocious than I am, which wouldn't take much. Commandment by commandment we come out pretty evenly, though. I use the Lord's name in vain far more expertly than he does, but I don't use it when our neighbor is stacking paint cans in his garage, which sends the dog into a prodigious, pointless barking fit that is no doubt the canine equivalent of a string of obscenities. I don't worship much, but my dog engages in the much more heretical (and dubious) practice of worshiping me, especially if I am bringing in freshly barbecued meat from the grill.
My feelings towards my neighbors aren't hostile, but they don't amount to love in any spiritual (or erotic) sense. I don't try to bite them, however, which he does, occasionally. Fortunately, he is a Chihuahua, so no legal problems have resulted so far. We are both killers; me of fish, him of lizards that infiltrate the condo's tiny back yard. We both sleep with our woman without benefit of matrimony.
Neither of us has any plans for spiritual advancement. Offers come our way very occasionally, in the form of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon missionaries knocking on our door. I dismiss them with wisecracks like, "You're both named Elder? What a coincidence!" or questions "Don't you see the little Jew-thing by the door?" I can never remember the name of that thing under pressure--it's a mezuzah--which makes my defensive attempt to claim the mantle of Judaism less than completely convincing. Meantime, the pooch gets busy chewing on their pants legs.
We don't need to. We're in. Ask the Pope, in his capacity as God's doorman. And if I am already sitting in the Great Beyond when my beast breathes his doggy last (which is actuarially unlikely but hey, you never know) I'm sure I'll be the first one to hear him scratch, scratch, scratching on Heaven's screen door. And I'll let him in. Watch him around the hems on your robes is my advice.
For more spiritual balm by me, consult Heaven for Dortguller or Mistake
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