Israel
BANNED
Well, sorry, didn't mean to suck you in. His cat has something to do with quantum physics about which all I know is the correct spelling.
But if I titled it Pauline's cat, I wouldn't sound smart.
But, Pauline does have some cats. They were once those called ferals...passing through, enticed to hang out with regular feedings. Now they are Ferrels...still outside cats, semi reasonable, but way funnier than their name's sake.
And they are as loved and doted upon as the two kittens she rescued early from a ditch to bring inside...and the one "extra" gray ghost of a big boy that she assured me must have once been a house cat...dumped. He's bi-racial...a true inside/outside cat, now.
Once an exclusive dog guy, I thought at best I'd only barely tolerate them. God always knows better.
And they queue up regularly just after sunrise on the back porch, milling about as though waiting for Shoney's doors to open for the breakfast buffet. "Katz, party of six your booth is ready"
Their numbers since the start have always been in a sort of flux. We left food when made aware any were hanging around. Tommy and a cohort showed up first, the cohort disappeared. Then pregnant momma who had her 4 kittens under the porch, who then left briefly with them when our dogs began to bark through the floor boards finally sensing their presence.
This was when my wife expressed she wished she could speak cat. To assure. To calm fears. To make plain...you will be safer here, and your safety will always be my concern. I know what a hard life of always being "on guard" is.
But Momma grabbed Timmy, Bobby, Jimmy, and Sammy by their scuff and carried them to an abandoned barn next door...1/4 mile down the road. Pauline was heartbroken at her (Momma's) motherhood skills and diligence to protect...finding herself (Pauline) all at a loss to convince she would never let the dogs out or near if the kittens were exposed. Then Tommy split too, with them; my wife fairly convinced Tommy was "one of hers" from a previous litter. The elder brother to the kittens.
We knew where they now were, could see them as we drove by, and dare not make any moves that would drive them farther away. My wife deeply felt for her and the kits as she would try to provide. Pauline knew the life of a feral in coyote country is not easy.
They were enticed back. Many cans of Fancy Feast were offered to the endeavor. A gate on the back porch that led to the lower decks was put up...so the dogs would absolutely be limited access to the rest of the yard unless "all clear". Somehow a detente was reached, the cats sensing safe zones, and the dogs paying less and less attention over time...even to an eventual oblivity. (I thought I was making that word up, but evidently it's in an urban dictionary...it sounded so much better than obliviousness...so I go with it) Tommy also came back. We watched the kittens grow.
Smokey showed up (the gray ghost) and hung out under the ramp of a back shed. His dinners were served there. Meowing constantly. And also a wild Dr Seuss looking cat, half tail, built like Don Rickles (were he a cat) and whom my wife was convinced was "Big Daddy" of the clan, and probably of many others...as so many of the local kittens are half tailed or bobbed (like Bobby and Sammy).
It was Smokey's constant meowing that convinced my wife he was a house cat dumped or lost...for she was learning about ferals...and that they rarely meow unless somewhat domesticated. Smokey was eventually caught and taught to have, or regain, inside "manners". He took to it with some effort.
Each and every one eventually caught and neutered. Along with a few who showed up "out front" for meals...never really accepted into the "back yard" troop. But if they showed up, they got a dish...front porch for transients, back porch and yard for the regulars. And my wife did it all. (Well except for building the cat house in back against the winter elements)
And two kittens meandering in a ditch at the bend in the road were trapped early enough to also learn their inside manners. All the sequence and months/years of these orders of events are kinda moot. I lose track...but my wife? My wife can probably tell you each month and years of their events. I know I built the cat house a few years ago 2? 3? more? I don't know. And I think the ditch kittens were domesticated before Smokey was brought in. They were the first "great" experiment.
There were some attempts with others, and failures. Anyone who showed up eventually got trapped and neutered...and had the obligatory "in home" recovery period. If they even showed any sign of being able to be domesticated...she tried. And my wife has always regretted not taking Sammy in, of Mommas under porch litter, a beautiful long hair bob tail endowed with too much good looks and personality. Fearless. Bold. With a few black dots under his nose that, in blending, made him look mustachioed. A sort of rakish looking bon vivant.
I am looking at them, even now in the early morning sunlight as they sit, sphinx-like on the porch rails. Waiting for my wife to wake up and their breakfasts.
We've buried a few. Jimmy didn't show up for several meals and my wife went searching. Found him dead, drenched in a ditch, carried him "home" on a shovel and interred him. Who knows? Rattler? Copperhead? They seem wise enough to get off the roads well before we even see a car coming round the bend. He had some scratches but didn't seem mangled.
A little pretty who showed up out front "Ellie" (whom the pack harrassed if they knew she was around) but whom my wife loved...(If I could only speak cat and get them to accept her!) Who failed at house training after her spaying...but nevertheless later allowed my wife to sit on the porch with her while she visited and ate. She too was carried tearfully home on a shovel after her noted absence. In the world of our ferals and their battles for survival my wife is very devoted to: "no cat left behind."
She is also devoted in her knowing that she can do, and would do, nothing to further inhibit their wildness and free ranging (though she often hates it). The garage door is always left at the 8 inch open if they need to escape a marauding dog found loose with mischief on his mind. The larger cat house is light heated in winter, and several other little houses with pressure sensitive heating pads dot the porch and decks. But they are in all, as free as as they are to come and go...but they are mostly in the staying around mode.
It's all so silly, almost.
About a week and half ago she asked "have you seen Sammy?", "he missed breakfast and supper today...which is not like him" Nope. "We can pray" was all I had to offer. Next day, same. "We can pray". As days stretched out to about 5, it was plain my "we can pray" and my prayers as she sat stoic, were obviously becoming painful to her. She knew too much of them and their habits, she knew too much of experiences and shovels. She drove up and down, searching ditches. Nothing.
I sensed the few words I offered to the Lord when reminded, were becoming like a lash to her. It seemed it was easier (better?) to have what she thought she knew had to be true...than be pressed by the mumblings of a fool to any vain hope. And I prayed outside her presence in that place where my own mind was all lost to its reason...for I too knew something of their habits...and the significance of any long absence. I had helped dig holes. And I thought of Sammy's dear face.
Shrodingers cat. Dead and alive at once. Suspended. And what my own mind was pressing me to frame...spare my wife this lack of closure, let her find or know...let me find or know...so we could "get on", accept if and what had to be accepted...all I can say is about all I have ever know when so pressed...I have no idea at all what faith should "feel like" there.
I want it to be some great upswelling of confidence in gratitude as I find on sunny days when I look at the sky and all my and mine are surveyed to my perceptions ...safe. Not this wonder of how silly I even look to myself saying "but you are the God of all life...and even death, and even if a cat be dead...it is of no matter, you can raise the dead...my thinking a thing makes nothing so..."
Oh, how I want (or think I do) to "please God" with my faith...knowing it is identifiable as an offering...but to me...how plain it is...I have nothing! I identify nothing there as anything but need. My prayer seems to me naught but the vainest of mumblings in sight of Jesus Christ's "forgive them Father, they know not what they do". He saves in His extremis!
I have only flailing words of my own needs. And words that seem to hurt others...not even help...prolonging, as it were their hanging. Their suspension. Their suffering.
But...
Someone rudely rapped upon my foot the other morning to awaken me. "Guess who's back! Guess who's here!!!"
I leapt too. Sammy was my first and only word. Sammy. I ran. I ran in joy and wonder to look. Scruffy, a bit thinner. But as she fed him my wife felt his flanks, stroked his body (as he lets her) and found nothing of alarm.
And God knows as I tell of this what was my substance toward Him and what is truth well beyond my wife's saying "I shouldn't have resisted hope...you were right and I was not"...how that before God He knew and knows what my offering of hope looks like to me, how that it is too small when seemingly most sorely needed to even be seen of me, and even when offered...between He and I looks to me no more than smoke and mirrors.
And how, on a turn of phrase, how in proper sentence structures of subjects and objects that so far exceeds any presumptions of why in understandings the great line is drawn between "My prayers were answered"...and the only knowing that I have that "God answered...my whatevers..." to such joy as I dare not trade upon anything I may even think I have offered.
You...was it you praying for one like me? Or you? You? That broken sister on the other side of the world that didn't have to know or care for whom or why she was praying...she just did. That brother?
You?
Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ...who is all I do not know in such unutterable goodness...even while I may think I do. Yes, Lord...it was you...is you who prayed...and still does...that a joy may be seen far greater than just right or wrong...
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.
Consider the sparrows...
How hard it was to look upon my wife in her knowing of such love that was breaking her heart. How I had to look elsewhere...and would...and how I cannot explain she is as Christ Himself as gift to me, never wrong...by being torn by so terrible a love as she cannot bear. And made to hang there by it.
But if I titled it Pauline's cat, I wouldn't sound smart.
But, Pauline does have some cats. They were once those called ferals...passing through, enticed to hang out with regular feedings. Now they are Ferrels...still outside cats, semi reasonable, but way funnier than their name's sake.
And they are as loved and doted upon as the two kittens she rescued early from a ditch to bring inside...and the one "extra" gray ghost of a big boy that she assured me must have once been a house cat...dumped. He's bi-racial...a true inside/outside cat, now.
Once an exclusive dog guy, I thought at best I'd only barely tolerate them. God always knows better.
And they queue up regularly just after sunrise on the back porch, milling about as though waiting for Shoney's doors to open for the breakfast buffet. "Katz, party of six your booth is ready"
Their numbers since the start have always been in a sort of flux. We left food when made aware any were hanging around. Tommy and a cohort showed up first, the cohort disappeared. Then pregnant momma who had her 4 kittens under the porch, who then left briefly with them when our dogs began to bark through the floor boards finally sensing their presence.
This was when my wife expressed she wished she could speak cat. To assure. To calm fears. To make plain...you will be safer here, and your safety will always be my concern. I know what a hard life of always being "on guard" is.
But Momma grabbed Timmy, Bobby, Jimmy, and Sammy by their scuff and carried them to an abandoned barn next door...1/4 mile down the road. Pauline was heartbroken at her (Momma's) motherhood skills and diligence to protect...finding herself (Pauline) all at a loss to convince she would never let the dogs out or near if the kittens were exposed. Then Tommy split too, with them; my wife fairly convinced Tommy was "one of hers" from a previous litter. The elder brother to the kittens.
We knew where they now were, could see them as we drove by, and dare not make any moves that would drive them farther away. My wife deeply felt for her and the kits as she would try to provide. Pauline knew the life of a feral in coyote country is not easy.
They were enticed back. Many cans of Fancy Feast were offered to the endeavor. A gate on the back porch that led to the lower decks was put up...so the dogs would absolutely be limited access to the rest of the yard unless "all clear". Somehow a detente was reached, the cats sensing safe zones, and the dogs paying less and less attention over time...even to an eventual oblivity. (I thought I was making that word up, but evidently it's in an urban dictionary...it sounded so much better than obliviousness...so I go with it) Tommy also came back. We watched the kittens grow.
Smokey showed up (the gray ghost) and hung out under the ramp of a back shed. His dinners were served there. Meowing constantly. And also a wild Dr Seuss looking cat, half tail, built like Don Rickles (were he a cat) and whom my wife was convinced was "Big Daddy" of the clan, and probably of many others...as so many of the local kittens are half tailed or bobbed (like Bobby and Sammy).
It was Smokey's constant meowing that convinced my wife he was a house cat dumped or lost...for she was learning about ferals...and that they rarely meow unless somewhat domesticated. Smokey was eventually caught and taught to have, or regain, inside "manners". He took to it with some effort.
Each and every one eventually caught and neutered. Along with a few who showed up "out front" for meals...never really accepted into the "back yard" troop. But if they showed up, they got a dish...front porch for transients, back porch and yard for the regulars. And my wife did it all. (Well except for building the cat house in back against the winter elements)
And two kittens meandering in a ditch at the bend in the road were trapped early enough to also learn their inside manners. All the sequence and months/years of these orders of events are kinda moot. I lose track...but my wife? My wife can probably tell you each month and years of their events. I know I built the cat house a few years ago 2? 3? more? I don't know. And I think the ditch kittens were domesticated before Smokey was brought in. They were the first "great" experiment.
There were some attempts with others, and failures. Anyone who showed up eventually got trapped and neutered...and had the obligatory "in home" recovery period. If they even showed any sign of being able to be domesticated...she tried. And my wife has always regretted not taking Sammy in, of Mommas under porch litter, a beautiful long hair bob tail endowed with too much good looks and personality. Fearless. Bold. With a few black dots under his nose that, in blending, made him look mustachioed. A sort of rakish looking bon vivant.
I am looking at them, even now in the early morning sunlight as they sit, sphinx-like on the porch rails. Waiting for my wife to wake up and their breakfasts.
We've buried a few. Jimmy didn't show up for several meals and my wife went searching. Found him dead, drenched in a ditch, carried him "home" on a shovel and interred him. Who knows? Rattler? Copperhead? They seem wise enough to get off the roads well before we even see a car coming round the bend. He had some scratches but didn't seem mangled.
A little pretty who showed up out front "Ellie" (whom the pack harrassed if they knew she was around) but whom my wife loved...(If I could only speak cat and get them to accept her!) Who failed at house training after her spaying...but nevertheless later allowed my wife to sit on the porch with her while she visited and ate. She too was carried tearfully home on a shovel after her noted absence. In the world of our ferals and their battles for survival my wife is very devoted to: "no cat left behind."
She is also devoted in her knowing that she can do, and would do, nothing to further inhibit their wildness and free ranging (though she often hates it). The garage door is always left at the 8 inch open if they need to escape a marauding dog found loose with mischief on his mind. The larger cat house is light heated in winter, and several other little houses with pressure sensitive heating pads dot the porch and decks. But they are in all, as free as as they are to come and go...but they are mostly in the staying around mode.
It's all so silly, almost.
About a week and half ago she asked "have you seen Sammy?", "he missed breakfast and supper today...which is not like him" Nope. "We can pray" was all I had to offer. Next day, same. "We can pray". As days stretched out to about 5, it was plain my "we can pray" and my prayers as she sat stoic, were obviously becoming painful to her. She knew too much of them and their habits, she knew too much of experiences and shovels. She drove up and down, searching ditches. Nothing.
I sensed the few words I offered to the Lord when reminded, were becoming like a lash to her. It seemed it was easier (better?) to have what she thought she knew had to be true...than be pressed by the mumblings of a fool to any vain hope. And I prayed outside her presence in that place where my own mind was all lost to its reason...for I too knew something of their habits...and the significance of any long absence. I had helped dig holes. And I thought of Sammy's dear face.
Shrodingers cat. Dead and alive at once. Suspended. And what my own mind was pressing me to frame...spare my wife this lack of closure, let her find or know...let me find or know...so we could "get on", accept if and what had to be accepted...all I can say is about all I have ever know when so pressed...I have no idea at all what faith should "feel like" there.
I want it to be some great upswelling of confidence in gratitude as I find on sunny days when I look at the sky and all my and mine are surveyed to my perceptions ...safe. Not this wonder of how silly I even look to myself saying "but you are the God of all life...and even death, and even if a cat be dead...it is of no matter, you can raise the dead...my thinking a thing makes nothing so..."
Oh, how I want (or think I do) to "please God" with my faith...knowing it is identifiable as an offering...but to me...how plain it is...I have nothing! I identify nothing there as anything but need. My prayer seems to me naught but the vainest of mumblings in sight of Jesus Christ's "forgive them Father, they know not what they do". He saves in His extremis!
I have only flailing words of my own needs. And words that seem to hurt others...not even help...prolonging, as it were their hanging. Their suspension. Their suffering.
But...
Someone rudely rapped upon my foot the other morning to awaken me. "Guess who's back! Guess who's here!!!"
I leapt too. Sammy was my first and only word. Sammy. I ran. I ran in joy and wonder to look. Scruffy, a bit thinner. But as she fed him my wife felt his flanks, stroked his body (as he lets her) and found nothing of alarm.
And God knows as I tell of this what was my substance toward Him and what is truth well beyond my wife's saying "I shouldn't have resisted hope...you were right and I was not"...how that before God He knew and knows what my offering of hope looks like to me, how that it is too small when seemingly most sorely needed to even be seen of me, and even when offered...between He and I looks to me no more than smoke and mirrors.
And how, on a turn of phrase, how in proper sentence structures of subjects and objects that so far exceeds any presumptions of why in understandings the great line is drawn between "My prayers were answered"...and the only knowing that I have that "God answered...my whatevers..." to such joy as I dare not trade upon anything I may even think I have offered.
You...was it you praying for one like me? Or you? You? That broken sister on the other side of the world that didn't have to know or care for whom or why she was praying...she just did. That brother?
You?
Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ...who is all I do not know in such unutterable goodness...even while I may think I do. Yes, Lord...it was you...is you who prayed...and still does...that a joy may be seen far greater than just right or wrong...
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.
Consider the sparrows...
How hard it was to look upon my wife in her knowing of such love that was breaking her heart. How I had to look elsewhere...and would...and how I cannot explain she is as Christ Himself as gift to me, never wrong...by being torn by so terrible a love as she cannot bear. And made to hang there by it.
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