Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote that "Christ plays in ten thousand places/Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his/To the father through the features of men's faces." This blog is my record of some of the places I go and people I meet, and a hope that I (and my readers) might see Christ playing somewhere in their midst.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Canine companionship
Well, I just mailed off the adoption contract for this little darling. She is a lab mix, born the first week of April. Her mom and her litter were rescued from a high-kill shelter in Tennessee and she'll be transported to New England on July 14th. On my facebook space, I'm running a conversation about what to name her. I've been thinking about names with some sort of an interesting connection to saints, theology, philosophy, and literature (esp Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Harry Potter).
Right now, I think the frontrunners are Lily and Iris Murdawg. Iris Murdawg would be for the philosopher Iris Murdoch, who exerts a certain amount of influence over my thinking about moral matters. Her insight that "choices are something you make when ethics has already failed" looms large.
The name Lily is a bit more complex and of course less obvious. I was looking a bit at various titles of Mary and found that she is known, because of an apparition to St. Gertrude, as the White Lily of the Trinity. This has do to in some particular ways with the way Mary, through God's grace, embodies the virtues of the Trinity in her life. I like that. Plus, Lily is the name of Harry Potter's mom, who also embodies many virtues, not least of which is the willingness to lay down her life for her son.
I know some of my loyal readership has engaged this conversation on Facebook, but I'd welcome your insights here. That's of course especially true for those of you who don't do Facebook.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Cameron the Brave, aka Cammie, spent a few minutes gazing at the puppy. We recommend naming her something you like and that sounds good yelled across the dog park.
I'm liking the idea of Iris Murdawg... Though either way you're going to have a dog named after a flower. Maybe she'll smell nicer? :)
Post a Comment