Celebrating Pets and Community at Harvest Pawfest

In this episode, we sit down with Father Justin Briggle of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church to uncover the heartwarming story behind Harvest PawFest, a unique festival celebrating the deep bond between pets and their families. Originally an Oktoberfest event, Harvest PawFest has evolved into a community-wide gathering that includes the cherished tradition of blessing pets in honor of St. Francis of Assisi.

Father Justin shares touching stories of past pet blessings, from baby goats to hedgehogs, and explains the spiritual significance of these moments. We also get a behind-the-scenes look at the logistics of planning such an event and the joy it brings to the community.

This episode is filled with heartwarming examples of how pets embody love, forgiveness, and companionship, making Harvest PawFest more than just a celebration—it's a reminder of how pets enrich our lives and connect us as a community. Don’t miss this engaging conversation that’s bound to leave you smiling, and maybe even looking at your own pets in a new light.

Learn more about Harvest Pawfest at: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558646661397

 Big changes are coming soon to Starlight Pet Talk! 🚀 We’re excited to share that we're evolving to bring you even more engaging content and fresh perspectives. Stay tuned for new features and exciting updates that will enhance your listening experience. We can’t wait to reveal what’s next—keep an eye out for more details! 

Chapters

• 0:00 Harvest Paw Fest
• 10:13 Pet Blessings and Community Connection
• 18:10 Blessing Pets and Harvest Festivities

Transcript

Amy Castro: 0:00

In today's special episode of Starlight Pet Talk, I sit down with Father Justin Briggle of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Friendswood, texas, to talk about this year's Harvest Paw Fest. For the very first time, my rescue organization, starlight Outreach and Rescue, is partnering with the church to combine our reach and resources, aiming to make this the best event ever for our community. In our conversation, we'll delve into the history and purpose of Paw Fest, explore the tradition of pet blessings and share stories that highlight the powerful connections between humans and pets. Whether you're a pet parent or someone who cherishes community spirit, this special episode provides insights into how we're working together to celebrate and support our pets and each other. Join us as we uncover what makes Harvest Paw Fest a uniquely impactful event. Stay tuned.

Amy Castro: 0:45

You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets. Welcome to this bonus episode of Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, amy Castro, and today we have a special guest, father Justin Briggle, who has been the rector at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Friendswood, texas, for more than two years, with a rich background in ministry spanning more than eight years, father Justin brings a unique perspective to his role, having transitioned from an eight-year tenure as a chemistry professor before answering the call to the priesthood. On a more personal note, father Justin is a family man who's married with two teenage boys. When he's not engaged in his pastoral duties or spending time with his family, he enjoys watching and playing cricket and brewing beer. Father Justin, welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. Thank you so much for being here.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 1:42

Thank you, Amy, for having me. I appreciate this. Thank you.

Amy Castro: 1:46

Sure, sure, and I know Harvest Paw Fest is a pretty new thing to me and we're going to talk about the history of it, but I first got involved as part of Starlight Outreach and Rescue and we were a vendor at the event last year. I was super impressed by all of the volunteers that you had and how well run the event was, so that was really nice, because we go to a lot of events and they're not always as well organized as yours is. But that was kind of my first introduction to it. So could you tell us a little bit about Harvest Paw Fest and how it came about and its history?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 2:20

Sure, yeah, first I want to say we have such a great group of volunteers at the church that are willing to support the mission and ministry and this is just one of those outreaches and so it's really been a fun thing to be a part of and so we're really excited to be offering this for the second year in a row. So before Harvest Paw Fest, prior to the pandemic really, we would celebrate a Harvest Fest. Prior to that, we had an Oktoberfest that was more of an in-house thing for our members and families, but then it was reimagined to involve the community more and the pandemic got us to rethink. Things took a few years off and the governing board here reimagined that and was able to associate or really look at the associations with fall and the Feast of St Francis and our pet blessing and try to reimagine what Harvest Fest is and how we can invite the community to be more of a part of the things that are going on with the church but with pet blessings just to yeah, I just re-imagined this event.

Amy Castro: 3:27

I would imagine that having an event that involves pets, I would think would be a big draw for the community.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 3:33

Yeah Well, so the Episcopal Church has a history of really honoring that relationship with pets as a part of God's creation in the pet blessing, and so it kind of made sense to take that aspect and then invite the community to be a part of it.

Amy Castro: 3:48

So you had mentioned St Francis and I did a little bit of homework beforehand, but I'm sure my knowledge level is not set the same as yours. I feel bad, looking back on it, that I didn't do more homework when we attended last year and I didn't realize until I got to the event and saw the blessing of the animals and then realized the tie to St Francis. But can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 4:13

Yeah, so the church historically celebrates St Francis on October 4th every year, and that's a date that we also share with churches like the Catholic Church, where they celebrate the Feast of St Francis and he has, basically, because of the stories that have been associated with him and his involvement with creation, in a way that is really unheard of, an involvement with part of creation, like the birds, like lambs, like grasshoppers, like the fish. There are stories where he is said to have preached to the animals. The famous preaching to the birds is something that you might see. There's a very famous painting that depicts this preaching to the birds.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 4:58

And so as a young man he was a bit frivolous. His father was wealthy, but he sort of had a conversion event and in this conversion event felt called to preach, and one of the aspects of his preaching was to part of God's creation, and he would often refer to the birds as sisters or brothers. And so there was a sense that animals shared some kind of origin with people through our creation, and so there was a sense of honoring all of creation, including the pets, not just us as human beings. And so that link formed and in these stories we hear, they all invariably end with St Francis blessing those animals before, for instance, the birds fly away. So they always involve this kind of blessing.

Amy Castro: 5:52

Yeah, and that's probably why I know that. You know, it seems like anytime you see somebody has a statue or maybe a medallion or something of St Francis, there's always a bird, always a bird in the depiction. So that makes a lot of sense.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 6:06

Not only did St Francis see animals as a beloved part of creation, but he saw animals and creatures all creatures as praising God, the creator, with the way they carried about their normal lives, if you will Birds singing was a part of the birds praising God, and so Francis saw animals as going about their sort of normal thing, doing their normal thing as a way of praising God, and so he wrote this hymn or song that's quite famous, and he said praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures. So there was a sense that not only people praised God, but that the animals praised God too, and so that was really important, I think, to St Francis, and especially as I looked more about St Francis and his connections with animals, that came up as a constant theme.

Amy Castro: 7:08

So as far as the relationship between people and their pets, I know one of the things that we always stress on this show and we stress in the animal rescue is that when it comes to having a relationship with pets, everybody's relationship is going to be a little bit different. But I always think of myself as a pet guardian. You know, it's like there's a lot of terminology out there. Some people call themselves pet owners, some people call themselves pet parents, but you know, to me I think of myself as a pet guardian, whatever animal it is that I've taken on responsibility for, whether it's through the rescue or whether it's my own personal pets it doesn't matter if it was a hamster, a bunny rabbit to a pony who we just found a home for. She actually went on her way today is that we have a real responsibility to look out for that? Do you feel like that kind of stems from some of those lessons from St Francis?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 8:01

Yeah, absolutely. St Francis is sometimes seen as the patron saint of the environment. Even so, the idea that St Francis sort of perpetuates us being good stewards of all of creation and that creation obviously includes God's beloved creatures. So it makes sense what you're saying being a pet parent or guardian versus an owner. Right, it's not about having any kind of dominance or dominion over no, it's about living in harmony in creation, with animals and our pets as a beloved part of creation.

Amy Castro: 8:38

So in hosting and I do want to talk about some of the events that are associated with Harvest Paw Fest, because there's a lot that's going to be going on I'm really excited about attending again this year, but you've got a lot of people that are involved in pulling off this event and I know it takes a tremendous amount of work. What are people hoping that people get from Harvest Paw Fest and how you know, as far as the impact on the community, the impact on animals, our compassion towards, whatever it is, another human, another creature what's the goal from that perspective?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 9:11

Wow, that's a really good question. I wish I had some of the leaders who were involved with Harvest Paw Fest here to answer that, but what I can say is to be able to use our facility and invite the community in. I think compassion is a good word, whether it be compassion towards our neighbor as other humans or compassion towards our neighbor as pets and animals, and part of God's creation Just having an atmosphere where we're all coming together, we're sharing our time and enjoying our time together and growing closer as a community. I think that that's really important. I think there are a lot of things in this world that aren't very helpful in bringing us together as a community, and anything we can do to bring together people as a community, I think is important. I think it's part of being a good steward of creation.

Amy Castro: 10:04

I think is important. I think it's part of being a good steward of creation. Yeah, and certainly needed in these times and, you know, I'm sure in lots of times in our history as well. You know we've done several different episodes about the impact of the human and animal bond and what animals can do for people. And one of the things is connection and social connection.

Amy Castro: 10:23

And several experts have come on the show and said things like you know, somebody that is not particularly outgoing or maybe somebody wouldn't approach. I had a friend of mine, donna Mack, came on the show and she is blind and she said previously, if she was just walking down the sidewalk with her cane, nobody stopped to talk to her, nobody stopped and asked her how her day was, you know, just like she was invisible. But once she got her guide dog and there was that connection of the dog, people connected with her. You know they'd ask about Wella and what kind of dog she is and how long you've had her and it's really for her. She said it really helped with that social connection and is that one of the reasons you think why, or maybe I shouldn't put words in your mouth? No-transcript.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 11:40

Yeah, that's a great illustration of how relationships can grow stronger, maybe through pets.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 11:52

I think that it just it made sense to have some form of a harvest fest, like we had done prior with the community, but to involve this facet of showing the value that we have for God's creation in the form of people's pets right, or animals that they're their guardians for, and so it just made sense.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 12:13

One of the aspects of blessing animals and pets is it usually appeals to a much larger audience than something like a church service right, than something like a church service right, because there's something universal about people's pets and the love that they have for their pet and the love that they feel from their pet. We talk a lot in the church about the call to love our neighbor as ourselves and the challenge to love one another, and I think we know something about the love of God in the love we experience from a pet, because you could almost say that's close to a very unconditional kind of love, which I think is what we as human beings are really called to, and so I think pets can help to demonstrate a kind of love that is even hard for us.

Amy Castro: 13:03

Yeah, and something that's sometimes missing in our human relationships is that you know that unconditional love and you know your dog doesn't care if you've had a bad day.

Amy Castro: 13:12

Your dog doesn't care if you made a mistake your cat sometimes might, but just kidding, but you know it's like, yeah, they just they're going to love you anyway, as long as you show up and you come home, at the end of the day they're happy to see you regardless. And and how forgiving I think animals are too. I mean, we've seen so many animals in rescue that have been tremendously. And this is just my little rescue, you know. I'm not even talking about the things we see on television, the horrors that animals sometimes experience, that animals sometimes experience, but just in my small world, how an animal that has been so let down by humans will still give them a second chance. It's the level of forgiveness that they have. I think that's sometimes amazing to me that an animal would trust and put their trust back in a human being after what they've been through, and I think people see that in their pets.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 14:05

Yeah, it sounds like there are lessons for us to learn from pets, right About being loving and being able to offer forgiveness. So, yeah, those are really good points.

Amy Castro: 14:16

Yeah, definitely. So I know that you are relatively new to Good Shepherd, and so what are you hoping for as far as I mean not necessarily like attendance numbers per se, but what are you hoping for as far as the growth of this event for this year or even beyond?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 14:37

You know, I think we just want to be faithful in offering a space for people to form relationships and for pet lovers to find a place where they can also form relationships with other pet lovers and where vendors can offer services or things that can help other pet lovers. Really it's, I think it's just about giving people a space to form relationships around. You know, not only this theme of a harvest fest but over love of their pet Right and and also having sort of our part of of holding up the sort of sacred nature of creation and blessing a pet and saying you know, you are, in a way, beloved by God and you are an instrumental part of creation, and I think that's a great thing to offer for a community and I love that we're doing this.

Amy Castro: 15:31

One of the things that I've often thought about over the years is kind of the way that we live when I lived in. Well, now I live on a dead end dirt road and I'm on seven acres, so I'm sort of spread out from my neighbors. I do know who they are, but it's not like we necessarily hang out. But even when I live in a subdivision where my driveway basically touched my neighbor's yard, you know, I feel like sometimes the way that we live is we get in our air conditioner, get air conditioned car, we drive to work, we may or may not interact with our coworkers. It kind of depends on your job. You come home, you drive right back in your garage, you go in your house and people don't like a lot of houses, don't even have front porches to make that connection with other human beings, and so if you don only have a venue to put on an event like this because it is a tremendous opportunity, as somebody who has tried to look for venues to put on events for our, for our rescue, it's tricky. There's not, you know. There's not places that are big enough or that have the space or that have that. You know the amount of help and support that you're getting there, but just to give people someplace to go to make all of those different connections with other like-minded people. Because I feel like anybody who's there, even the vendors, even if they're not selling something that is pet related, they're generally there for that reason to connect with other people or they love pets or whatever it might be so there's a camaraderie.

Amy Castro: 17:01

I think that goes on. At least I felt like that last year. I mean, people would come by. They're trying to man their own table or their own vendor booth, but they come by to see the kittens we had at the Starlight table or something like that, or bought a t-shirt or whatever it might be. It's such a nice opportunity to have in our community. So let me ask you this as far as you were the one and I think I met you for the first time last year after the whole event was over and everybody was kind of packing up, but you were the one that actually did the blessings last year Are you going to be doing them again this year?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 17:35

Yes, so I was doing the blessings and I was sharing some of that responsibility with another priest who often attends here and helps here. He's a retired priest and so he and I will both be doing some of the pet blessings this year, like last year. In our faith tradition, blessing is usually something that a priest would do, and so, as a priest I have. One of the privileges I have is blessing, sometimes things or objects or, in this case, pets or people, but in this case pets. Or you know people but in this case pets, and so it's, it's a privilege.

Amy Castro: 18:10

Do you have time to interact with the people or interact with the pet at all, or is it? I hate to say it's an assembly line cause? That sounds awful, but is it like? I have to be quick because there's a line of 40 people standing in the sun waiting for their blessing?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 18:21

I'm just I'm curious the types of conversations that might have gone on as people are bringing their pets. Yeah, there's some time where people will share some stories or will come to know how this pet became a part of their family or things like that. So there's a little time, maybe not quite as an assembly line, so that's good. We had people come by and sign up so that we could have sort of blocks of people come through and so that we could manage our time better. So, no, it was good.

Amy Castro: 18:54

And I don't want to put you on the spot. So if this, if you can't answer this question, but it just popped into my head like are there any, any stories that people have told you about their pets that that stand out to you at all?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 19:06

Hmm, I don't know about stories. I do know last year, I think last year we had a baby goat come for the blessing, ok, and I seem to remember the same family had a baby hedgehog too, oh, wow. So I think they have some land and a farm and so they brought they brought a fair representation of their crowd from the farm, so that was pretty fun.

Amy Castro: 19:33

Yeah, that's interesting and it's interesting too. I know that I was at a committee meeting for the event the other day and people were talking about you could tell that obviously the event, the church, their involvement in the church was very important to them. But their pets were obviously very important to them. So they were talking about, like I'm going to come, I'm going to do this, I'm going to help set up that, I'm going to leave, I'm going to go back, I'm going to get my dogs. It's like it was very important to them that they had that opportunity to have their have their pets blessed and and, like you said, like to try to bring a goat and a hedgehog. Like that's two different balls of wax.

Amy Castro: 20:06

As far as transportation goes, you know it's one thing to bring a dog and another dog, but I think it shows the importance of having that done for the people that are doing it. What are your thoughts on that? I mean is that people will go to that, because it would be just as easy not to bring your pets right. Just come to the event, eat some great food from the food trucks, participate in some of the activities and go home. But now I got to bring my dog or my hedgehog, walking around with a hedgehog all day.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 20:36

Yeah, well, I mean, I think it says something about the love that they have for their pet to say, yeah, I'm going to attend this event, but I'm also going to go out of my way and do everything I can to make sure that I'm bringing my pet here for for this blessing and maybe for the costume contest and other aspects. Yeah, I just think it speaks to that relationship that we're valuing by putting on an event like Harvest Paw Fest All right, and what about?

Amy Castro: 21:05

and I don't, you know, I don't want to get too too, too, too deep, and I don't, you know, I don't want to get too too, too, too deep, but you know the fact that somebody would bring a hedgehog to be blessed. What? What is? What is it that it does for an animal or for a human being to be blessed, or an object to be blessed Like? What is the implication of that?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 21:24

Well, so so I, you know I was thinking about this, right, I was thinking through what is, what is the theology of blessing our pets? Why do we do this? Why is this important? And I think you know one of the big things, one of the reasons St Francis is associated with, is because he he understood that animals in general were a beloved part of creation and he valued that. And and pets are companions that we love and we receive love from, and we bless pets and animals because we're trying to acknowledge them as the gifts that they are to us and to all of creation. So it's a way of acknowledging the importance that they are for us, sort of setting that relationship apart, as this is important and you are a beloved part of God's creation, especially for that, for that pet family, right, yeah, I mean there's. There's this aspect I'm sorry, there's this aspect too of of you know, wanting to bless a pet and ask for God's protection. So sure, that's a part of it as well.

Amy Castro: 22:34

Yeah, and I would think, you know, obviously, to me it shows another level of care for that pet that that person is thinking about that pet beyond. You know, I gave it food, I gave it water. Isn't that enough kind of thing? You know, this concept of taking good care of your pet is so relative in people's minds. There are people that I have met who feel like they're taking pretty good care of their pets. When they've got it, you know, tied out to a tree all day, it's got. You know it's got shade, it's got water, you know I feed it once a day, but it's not getting any human interaction, it's not getting interaction with other animals.

Amy Castro: 23:05

And so I think there is in this world, amongst humans, a very wide range of belief about what it means to take quote unquote good care of their pet. But somebody that thinks, thinks about it to the point where they would get their pet blessed. To me that's like a whole nother level, and I, as I've admitted to you in our previous conversation, I am not a religious person, but I respect somebody who cares enough to go to that level for sure. Let's talk about the event itself and then if there's anything else we want to close up with. So, as far as activities go, I know there's a lot going on, but can you give us just kind of a quick overview for those who are listening to this, who will, you know, have the opportunity to come out and attend PAW Fest? What are they going to see and do while they're there?

Fr. Justin Briggle: 23:49

opportunity to come out and attend PAW Fest. What are they going to see and do while they're there? Sure, so yeah, we've got a lot more this year than we did last year. So those that came out last year will notice that the event is bigger. There are more vendors, more activities, more things going on. So and of course, you know we're here talking to you, amy, because we're partnering. We're partnering with you this year, starling Right, and so we're happy to do that, and I think that's helped us to branch out and to do more. And so this year we're going to have some new entertainment. We're going to have the Monsters Dog Show.

Amy Castro: 24:23

I'm looking forward to that. That's going to be cool.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 24:25

Yeah, I was looking at that online earlier. And then we've got the BB Barnyard Petting Zoo. So this is a converted bus, it's a petting zoo, so they'll be out there. There's going to be some other things that aren't necessarily related to pets, right, but we're going to have a car bash which is going to raise funds, silent auctions, a lot is going to be auctioned off and some really great raffle items. We've got a wine pool and, of course, we've got the pet costume contest and it's themed this year, so it's going to be an 80s.

Amy Castro: 24:57

I saw that that's right up my alley. That's my era. Now I'm dating myself, but OK.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 25:06

So then we've got some carnival style games too for kids. So we've got a lot for everybody. And we've got a lot of food trucks coming as well, so people can expect to come to buy stuff from vendors. They can be entertained with some of these pet shows, have their dog in a pet costume contest, a pet costume contest. We've got food trucks like A&K King's Wonder Waffle, jell-o, italian Ice, backdraft, lemonades, jack's Burgers, magnolia, cajun Comfort and Saloon Door Brewing, to name a few of the things that we have available.

Amy Castro: 25:43

That's nice to have that variety of options there. Great.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 25:48

Yeah, yeah. So you know, I have to say that, yes, it's geared for pet lovers, but I think there's so much going on there that, even if you yourself aren't a pet lover, this is still, in a way, a harvest fest and a gathering of the community, and so I think there's still a place for everybody there.

Amy Castro: 26:06

Yeah, definitely, and I know last year the weather was I'm a fall person and I know fall in Texas is not, you know, super cool. But it's probably one of the better times of year to have an outdoor event like that, because if we were doing this in July that would be a whole nother ball of wax pm at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Friendswood and we are going to put links to the event information in our show notes so that people can see that. But yes, and even last year there was a lot going on. I mean I didn't get a lot of chance to wander around because I was working our vendor booth, but it was quite a variety. But yes, your folks have really upped the ante and ramped it up this year. And the door, not door prizes, but the just went right out of my head the raffle.

Amy Castro: 26:56

The raffle items and the silent auction items. There's a boatload of them and there's a lot of good stuff that's going to be available for people there. So definitely need to come and check it out. And you're right, I mean it was perfectly fun to have your pet there, but it's also, you know, an event where there's so much to do that you don't have to have your pet there or you could bring your pet for a little while and take them home and then come back and do some other stuff. So you know there's plenty of time during that day to do that, all right. Well, father Justin, thank you so much for taking that time out of your busy day to talk to us here about Harvest Paw Fest and about the history and about St Francis. I know I learned a lot and I was already looking forward to the event, but now I hope that a lot of other people are listening and looking forward to it. So thank you so much for being here.

Fr. Justin Briggle: 27:40

Well, thank you, amy, for giving me this time to talk about Harvest Paw Fest. I really appreciate it and want to give a shout out to everyone that is making this possible. They have done tremendous work and we look forward to the day.

Amy Castro: 27:53

Yes, yeah, you've got a great group of people that are working really, really hard and been working on this for a while. I mean, my initial communication with partnering and helping with the event was probably a year or so ago, so that people were already in the planning mode for this. So we hope that everybody you know comes out to attend the event. Again, the date is October 5th 2024 at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Friendswood, texas, and for all of you who are inside the loop because I know inside the loop people you don't like to venture outside the loop this will be worth it. Come outside the loop, see what it's like down in Friendswood, check us out and, you know, hope for a beautiful day and beautiful weather.

Amy Castro: 28:37

And for everybody who's listening, thank you once again for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. We will see you next week. Thanks for listening to Starlight Pet Talk. Be sure to visit our website at wwwstarlightpettalkcom for more resources and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss a show. If you enjoyed and found value in today's episode, we'd appreciate a rating on Apple, or if you'd simply tell a friend about the show, that would be great too. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode of Starlight Pet Talk, and if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.