IT'S WAY OKAY TO SMILE AT DOGS

I was researching the word, "dominion" for a class I teach on Sunday. I probably went waaaay overboard, because I teach "newbies" and they are just NOT going to ask really deep, probing questions....my job is to give "milk before meat"...so I don't teach deep doctrine...just the basics...but because "I yam what I yam" I always research stuff a little more just on the outside chance that I meet someone like myself (heaven forbid) who asks something that requires me to say something like, "Hey, that's a great question! Why don't we speak after class so I can give that answer the time it deserves"-translation: Oh my gosh, let's hang out more!!!!

Anyway, we read in Genesis that man was given "dominion" over all the earth. So I was curious what, exactly, that meant. This led me to an article written by Hugh Nibley (it was a rather short, quick, sweet research) that was published in the New Era magazine, January...I think 1985 (forgive me)....but Nibley, who was a research wonk...and I say that with the highest respect...combined his knowledge of our sacred texts with that of ancient Hebrew texts and historical documents. This is what I found interesting....

"God’s rule is before all a rule of love: “I love my creatures far more than you ever could!” the Lord tells Esdras in a vision. 13 There is a tradition that Melchizedek, instructing Abraham in the things of the priesthood, explained to him that Noah earned his blessings by his charity to the animals, recalling how in the Ark, “We did not sleep because all night long we were setting food before this one and before that one.” Taking this lesson to heart, Abraham himself made a sort of Garden of Eden near Hebron, and there practiced charity toward all creatures that thus he might “become a possessor of heaven and earth.” 14 Adam, according to many accounts, was the great friend and companion of all the animals when they lived together in perfect peace and happiness, and they continued true to him even after the Fall. 15 Indeed, “Adam before he came to this earth was intimately acquainted with all the great spirits in heaven, and also with all the holy beasts,” so that he was peculiarly fitted in his priestly office to serve as mediator between the worlds as well as between higher and lower forms of life. 16"

I felt good when I read that. It resonated within me. I love the idea that great men of power and influence may have stopped what they were doing to pet a dog....or water their horse....or stroke the neck of a lamb...and it makes me feel okay with the fact that I smile at dogs....