Issue 192 - Feline Friends
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February 2019
There are some 100 million pet cats in the United States.
[1] We own two of them. Or, to be more precise, two of then deign to live with us. In this issue we reflect on living with our pets, what they teach us about ourselves and about the God who created both us and them.
[1]
Abigail Tucker,
The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World
(New York, 2016), p. 3.
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One year ago this week, we adopted a new kitten. It did not begin well.
We got Mr. Smokey directly from a family with kittens to give away. When we brought him home, it was the first time he had been separated from his mother and siblings. He squalled. He yowled. He squealed. He wailed. Day and night. For three days straight! Late in the third day, he finally let me touch him for the first time. As I held that terrified, trembling kitten, a wave of compassion erased all my irritation. Love welled up within me, and swept over me. Call me a sentimental old man if you will, but the bond forged in that instant still remains.
“He’s just adorable!” I had taken the kitten to the vet for the first time. In the waiting room was little girl, maybe five or six years old, there with her father. She walked over, peered into the cat carrier, and made that pronouncement. We’ve been reminding Mr. Smokey ever since. (Like any cat, he takes all compliments as his due.)
He is, indeed, handsome: silky gray fur, with bluish highlights. (There may be some Russian Blue in his parentage). Despite his initial shyness, he has become very affectionate. And playful. As I began writing this piece, he was on my desk, trying to lick my knuckles as I typed.
So, why do I love this cat? In part, because I need affection – and I need to give affection. I need playfulness in my life. (Jan says Smokey makes her laugh every day.) I need to be taken beyond my own preoccupations. I need to learn to rejoice in simple things: a sunny spot on the rug, a dangled ribbon to play with.
--Bill
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Her name is “Empathy” not because of a Native American naming tradition, but because she, with her mother and baby siblings, were found in a duct-taped cardboard box by an apartment dumpster. Her rescuer named then all: her mother – Adora; and her siblings - Patience, Forgiveness, Humility, and Kindness. If Empathy were a Native American little girl, she would be expected to grow up with exemplar virtue. Well, she did.
Empathy comes to Bill and me oozing with affection when we are feeling disheartened or discouraged. She knows. And she lets us know how she feels – usually purring, placid, peaceful, and sometimes playful. Part Persian, she loves for her minky fur to be brushed with the Zoom Groom purple massager. She is frequently on the window sill poised as a
catloaf simply contemplating a blade of grass. Some say that is
psychopathic behavior. To Empathy, it’s perfectly normal. Doesn’t every blade of grass need an empathic onlooker?
Or maybe Empathy was praying. Do cats pray?
Do cats pray, while they sleep half-asleep in the sun? Poet Mary Oliver pondered this question long before I did today. Here is Mary Oliver, in her own voice, speaking her poem, ”
I Happened to be Standing.” If it’s a wren singing, or an empathic gaze, or a cat purring, isn’t it a prayer?
--Jan
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Abigail Tucker, author of
The Lion in the Living Room
, talks about cats.
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For cat humor, we love Henri,
Le Chat Noir
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Recent Issues
Issue 177 - Mr. Rogers
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Copyright (c) 2019 Soul Windows Ministries
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Sincerely,
Bill Howden and Jan Davis
Soul Windows Ministries
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