The Supplicant

It was a brief Kampala scene, a tableau played out in thirty seconds as our van rolled by a Ugandan woman on the other side of the street walking in the opposite direction. Following her was the supplicant, a short haired tawny dog about the size of a Golden Retriever; ears down, slinking, even cowering, its head raised in silent pleading, “Please. Please. Please.” The woman was annoyed, perhaps by the expression on her face, a little frightened. She momentarily broke stride, looked quickly back at the supplicant and spat out a sharp rejection. The supplicant slunk a little closer to the ground. “Please. Please. Please.” Then the tableau was swallowed up in the morning traffic.

I know that there are some cultural differences between Ugandans and Americans in relation to dogs. Among other things some Ugandans seem to allow dogs in the yard, while many Americans keep their dogs in the house. This particular dog, the supplicant, appeared to be looking for a human to whom he could belong. Of all the animals in the Animal Kingdom only dogs surrender to that bond of affection and relationship with eagerness. There is in the relationship between dog and man that natural power of love known as storgé, affection. It is an ordinary love, a bread and butter love, it is love in the mundane. It is a love offered and received by the one or the other in an imperfect world. Like all other loves on Middle Earth between heaven and hell it can suffer abuse and failure. In that, like agapé, the love of all loves, it mirrors the redemptive love of Him who also suffered abuse and failure to ransom love from Hell on Middle Earth and lift it up to Heaven. All creation groans in travail, even our dogs, waiting for the unveiling of the sons of God.

There is often a manifestation of this storgé, affection, at the end of a journey, whether the journey is long or short. Dog’s don’t seem to have much sense of the passage time; the joyous greeting is always the same whether we have been gone for a day, a week, or a month. Let me not hesitate to draw the analogy. There will be joyous greetings, laughing and leaping among the saints and angels when our Manhood is taken up to God and we enter the gates of heaven.

Let me push the analogy further; we ourselves are the supplicants, and the Father Himself waits eagerly at the gate of heaven for our arrival, for He has seen us afar off and yearns to embrace us and put on us the best robe and lead us to the banqueting table. In return our eyes look to Him with love and yearning for we seek to be with Him who loves us.