About this blog

FIDO, which is a Latin word for faithful, or something close enough, is a name we rightly associate with dogs. Of course, so is ROVER, but that’s for another blog. Anyway, I have just written a book called And Thereby Hangs A Tale: Finally, It Was My Dogs Who Taught Me To Stop and Smell, Well, Everything! It is a book about the devoted life. It is about authenticity and selfhood, about worship, about love, and the divinity hidden among the ordinary. Ultimately it is a book about faith. Outside of Christ himself, nature has given us no better image of these things than the dog. They entertain us, that is true, but they have a mystical side as well, one we too often overlook.

Excerpts from the book will be featured often, but not always. As you have probably guessed by now, this is not a personal blog. And yet, because I have invested so much of myself in this book, I guess it is as personal as you can get. So, until the book is released, have fun with this. Tell your dog stories. Share your thoughts. Make us laugh, make us cry, or just turn around three times and lie down.

—David Teems

Note: Blog is about community, exchange. We enjoy the traffic of thought. There has been concern from a few readers on how to leave a comment under a particular post of interest. It can be confusing, particularly to a new blogger, but it is actually quite simple. This is what you do: just below the title of the post you wish to comment on, you will see the word comments. It may or may not have a number before it. It might even say no comments [which means that no comments have been posted as yet—you would be the first]. Select comments. A window will open, and you can write what you want. That’s it. If you just want to read what others are saying without leaving your own post, again, select comments, and all the comments appear.

Quotes from the book

AND THEREBY HANGS A TALE

If they couldn’t sniff it, chase it, eat it, play with it, chew on it, growl at it, lick, love, or bury it, they had little use for it.
—David Teems

Always adventurous, love approaches the heart of its beloved as if it were the last remaining frontier.
—David Teems

Love’s whole idea is union, the lightness of true possession.
—David Teems

But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you; Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you; And the fish of the sea will explain to you.
— Job 12:7-8 NKJV [book epigraph]

Love for God is ecstatic, making us go out from ourselves: it does not allow the lover to belong any more to himself, but He belongs only to the Beloved.
—Saint Dionysius the Areopagite

It shows the certainty by which God is joined to me, like a tincture of color in a glass of water. God disperses himself in me. A unity that cannot be called back.
—David Teems

May life be stick-your-head-out-of-the-car-window-let-the-wind-blow-in-your-face kind of good!
—David Teems

If you want to know God, enjoy the company of lovers.
—Rumi

Dogs register no need to theorize about love (or about anything else, for that matter) they just show it.
—Jeffrey Masson

The load they bear is lighter,
Than the one we bear, ‘tis true.
They have four legs to carry theirs;
We have only two.
—David Teems

Next to a good marriage, a dog is the best thing on four legs.
—David Teems

The dog is the only being that loves you more than you love yourself.
—Fritz von Unruh

It has been said that dogs have no souls. Maybe it does or doesn’t matter. It’s not an argument I care to make. But my question would be, how could any creature love so purely without one? It is difficult to imagine a heaven without their kind.
—David Teems

Dog love is love.
—Marjorie Garber

. . . they are perfectly content to be who they are, without torturing themselves with alternatives: They love being dogs.
—Jeffrey masson

By inspiration, love gives the plainest of speech a touch of miracle. The simplest of words, in the simplest of constructions sing with an undeniable poetry. There is no finer lyric than, “I love you.” Or the great opera of a kiss.
—David Teems

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character.
—Thomas Merton

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.
—Milan Kundera

Nothing a dog does is arbitrary, or frivolous, even in play. Every moment counts because the moment is all there is. She is able to love like there’s no tomorrow, because she has no tomorrow. It is not a cliché to the dog.
—David Teems

With gentle command, love looks into the hidden places of the heart, as if looking for home. It is a threat to my isolation.
—David Teems

I prithee, sweet wag!
—William Shakespeare

And once intimacy and inspiration meet and agree together, paradise has come again.
—David Teems

He possessed each moment fully, squeezing out of each of them a kind of nectar, a sweetness that nature provides for those who really pay attention.
—David Teems

I have understanding, which is better than information. I have true wisdom, which is better than knowledge. I have peace, which is better than the mere absence of struggle. I have love, which is above all things.
—David Teems

All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in the dog.
—Franz Kafka

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