In 2015, Pope Francis addressed a landmark letter (an encyclical) to basically everyone on earth. It outlined his doctrine on humans’ relationship to nature. You know the media is usually all over whatever the pope says—it’s pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. However, there was one jaw-dropping, life-changing headline which came from this letter: Pope Francis says dogs can go to Heaven:

The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things. Human beings, endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by the fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures back to their Creator.

Jesus says: “I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.

Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ on care for our common home

Puppy Love

Cassie with her arms wrapped tight around Sassy

As non-Catholics, Cassie and I felt a bit conflicted about accepting the Pope’s words as definitive doctrine. But that doesn’t mean Cassie disagreed with him here. She liked to believe that she would be able to find the dog she grew up with, Sassy, in heaven. And she liked to believe our own dog, Julep, will have a doggy mansion prepared for her in heaven too.

Any dog-owner will tell you that the animals have emotions, memories, dreams, and desires. I don’t think it particularly matters whether you think that means dogs have souls. But you have to admit, if dogs can fit into this broken world with all their unique abilities, then a New Earth could very well use those dog-specific roles too!

Why am I rambling about dogs going to heaven? Because I believe that Cassie’s thoughts on the matter influenced her dreams regarding our dog. It helped her see Julep as an intentional creation with the capacity to help fulfill God’s purposes in the world. So, Cassie wanted to make sure that we treated our dog with love and respect. She wanted to include Julep in as many adventures as possible. (Cassie was always pretty bitter that infants, which cry and mess themselves without any self-control, are allowed every place dogs aren’t.)

An actual item on Cassie’s “bucket-list” was to live with a dog for its entire life. I don’t have enough patience to wait to write about that one. (I also don’t know if I would have the emotional stamina to write about it!) Yet there was another item on her list which I could definitely get to: take Julep to the beach.

Beach Day

Taking Julep to see the ocean was something I didn’t need to go too far out of my way to do. In fact, I’m surprised I didn’t do it sooner! I guess it was just another one of those things I never seemed to find time for. Plus, Cassie loved the beach far more than I ever have (as I wrote about before). Without her, I never seem to make it out to the waves nearly as often.

It was a beautiful day as I was driving down the highway to get to the shore… until I got to the shore. Somehow I picked the least sunny of days to go to the beach. For whatever reason, the clouds had decided to descend upon the beach and cover everything in a fog so thick I could hardly see anything more than 50 yards away. But (also like I wrote about before) that just made it even better—like me and Julep had the beach to ourselves.

But Julep still loved it!!! And the fog thinned out a good bit by the time we left.

Doggy Heaven

I’m not sure if there was a lesson to be learned in this adventure. Creation is cool? Dogs are awesome too? We should make it more of our job to take care of those things?

I don’t know. Not everything is supposed to teach us something new. Some things are supposed to remind us of what we already know. So, I’ll tell you what I already know, what Cassie believed, [and if you need more of an authority on the matter, what Steve Irwin believed]: animals deserve love and respect. All our environment deserves love and respect.

They say we’re supposed to be “good stewards” of creation. As a Christian, I will always believe that is supposed to be a central part of being human. And I believe it could very well be a central part of the eternal life we hope in.

If heaven is, as Pope Francis says, “a shared experience of awe,” then I can’t help but hope that Cassie is rejoicing with Sassy. And I can’t help but hope that I’ll rejoice there with them and Julep too some day.


P.S.

The title for this post comes from an Avett Brothers song. The Avett Brothers were arguably Cassie’s favorite band (at least in the top 3). It seemed fitting to name this post after a song she loved, especially considering the two actual Avett brothers have a video of them practicing this song with a bunch of dogs running around them: