Let me begin this letter with a big thank you for the warm welcome you have given to our new family member. I know that the British love their pets, but your interest in I Harvey, our re-homed Springer Spaniel, has been outstanding.

This tendency to shower affection on domestic animals is an indication of the love we all have to spare, but which in its human form often becomes complicated and distorted.

Love, ‘true’ love, has to be unconditional, accepting and most of all forgiving.

Our well loved pets love us with unconditional love and the calming supportive interaction between dogs and cats as well as budgies and snakes is love at its best.

That’s why the recent statement by the RSPA highlighting the rise in violence towards dogs in particular is a further indication, if we needed one, that the pressures of life are taking their toll, not just on the human members of our families, but the joke about ‘going out and kicking the cat’ is no longer a joke but a reality.

The idea of loving, with no motives of self interest, only as an expression of the joy of being alive is an almost alien concept and ‘true’ loving as I’ve said is rather hard to find. At best we muddle along, making do, while all the time at the back of our minds, just out of our grasp, is the feeling that ‘things’ could he better if we could make a fresh start, getting in touch with the idea of, for believers, Christ-like acceptance, for those without a

living faith, a higher way of being that is available to us in the shining example we all accept at very different levels as being what Jesus and Church is all about. Jesus perfected love, we are to move through our lives growing more like him each day.

The pity is we end up seeing such love and devotion in a Spaniel’s eyes and become content with such ‘safe love’ because it is safe and warm and unchallenging. True loving is never safe and often not always accepted and very challenging. After all, rejection was all part of Jesus’ experience and is often ours too, but the next time you feel the rosy glow of canine love sweep over you, just stop and remember this warm feeling is only the tip of the mountain of love available, waiting to be expressed once we learn to handle pure love and accept one another and then and only then can we learn to put other people’s needs first.

Sadly, having Harvey is not all sweetness and light. My environmental policy on giving up plastic bags has had to be abandoned and my unconditional love stretched by the serious lack of red bins around the villages, so sadly even with Harvey to share lovingly with - life is NOT perfect, but our circle of friends and neighbours has certainly grown and that is Good News I hope for us all.

Lorna