Black, Ooey, Gooey Mud on My Beautiful, Golden Dogs

These are what used to be fluffy, golden, beautiful, charming dogs.

I had gone outside late that afternoon, leaving behind the never-finished indoor work, to take the dogs for a walk and get some sunshine and outdoor exercise.

The indoor work will always be there when I get back--meals to cook, dishes to wash, cupboards to clean, laundry to sort, lessons to check, office work to do, mail to sort, basement to clean, stairs to vacuum--everything that stares me in the face on a daily basis.

With the heat of summer on its last legs, I had to go enjoy "October's Bright Blue Weather," and get a change of pace and fresh air.

And I took Puff and Lark with me.

Puff is my dog, and Lark is Crystal's. They are part English Cream Golden Retrievers.

They love going up the trail with me.

It's the trail where I sometimes take prayer walks. 

Not that, with dogs along, I get all that much praying done, but I never walk that trail without talking to Jesus.

 "Certain thoughts are prayers. These are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees," wrote Victor Hugo.

These are some quotes I found in a little book called Lifting You in Prayer.

 "We ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity,

speaking to Him frankly and plainly,

and imploring His assistance in our affairs, just as they happen."--Brother Lawrence
 

"The fewer the words

the better the prayer." --Martin Luther
I have been finding that. When I bring a request to the Lord, it just seems that a simple prayer is enough.
Because He is enough--without my belaboring a point.
And so I walk the path, reveling in the song of the nearby meadowlark, singing its heart out in these final warm days of early fall.
It's another reason to give thanks to the Lord. 

"Spirituality...is, quite simply, a way of life that reveals an awareness of the sacred and a relationship with the Holy One

in the midst of human frailty, brokenness, and limitations." -Edward C. Sellner
And so I walk the path--with the dogs who dipped in black, stinky mud up at the top of the trail.

They have no sense of propriety or decency.
Just dip in the mud, then fly up close to their mistress and promptly shake that mud all over her skirt!
Gotta love them, though! Back home, I took them to our nice, clean pond, and threw sticks and a ball far into the water for them to swim to fetch, to get them cleaned off.

They were very happy. And so was I. 

Nothing quite like throwing sticks for two or three energetic dogs who just love attention at the end of their mistress's walk--chock full of very simple prayers.

"It is the nature of grace always to fill spaces that have been left empty." Goethe
Jesus, whether I walk in my house or on the trail,
my heart and my prayer is always turning unto You.