Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, 2006, rated 9/10I graduated in 1987 and haven't been back on campus more than a few times since then. Not for several years now. A lot has changed, and traffic seems to have doubled or tripled. I checked into the Red Roof Inn, wondering how in the world I'd ever be able to turn left onto the six-lane street to get to the event that night. I'll probably post more about her talk later, but for now I'll share this thought about darkness:
Altar in the World: Geography of Faith, 2009, rated 8/10Anyone who has experienced doubts about his or her chosen vocation, or those drawn to worship God in a community but who have a hard time finding their place in church, will find a kindred spirit in Taylor.
She shows us how to discover altars everywhere we go and in nearly everything we do as we learn to live with purpose, pay attention, slow down, and revere the world we live in.Mixed Blessings, 1986, rev. ed. 1998, required reading in seminary
The topics of these sermons range from conversations with Abraham and Moses to our awareness of the communion of saints and how to recognize a miracle when one comes our way.
The extent of the darkness in her life — and ours — may be "reading a good book by a low-watt lightbulb." Maybe it's time for a walk in the dark.Trip to the vet
"Both at separate times walk into the same room. One comes out wagging his tail, while the other comes out growling. A woman watching this goes into the room to see what could possibly make one dog so happy and the other so mad. To her surprise, she finds a room filled with mirrors. The happy dog found a thousand happy dogs looking back at him, while the angry dog saw only angry dogs growling back at him. What you see in the world around you is a reflection of who you are."
Kiki
"What you see in the world around you is a reflection of who you are."The last sentence in the story adds a new thought. Mirrors reflect who we are, but so does the world. Now I must ask myself, what do I need to change to make my world a better place?
I have had a number of pets — turtles, puppies, fish, kitties, salamander, and a hamster named Herman, for example — but the ones I have bonded with have mostly been cats. Kiki Cat, who came to live with me in 2001, was the most loving pet I ever had. So I guess I'd call myself a "cat person" because I had a very special "person cat" until she died last year.2. Who were the pets of your childhood, and what were they like?
3. What pets do you have now?When I was nine years old, a neighborhood boy and I were splashing in rainy puddles when a bedraggled kitten found us. My mother said it looked like a drowned rat (well, mouse — the kitten was very small), and Micky's mother wouldn't let him bring it into their house. After due consideration, Mother decided to let me keep the kitten. I named her Duchess, and she slipped right into our family like she had always belonged there and grew to be very regal indeed, a beautiful soft gray cat with white paws and a white spot below her chin that seemed to swing back and forth like a dog's tag when she walked. Duchess had her first litter of kittens in the drawer on top of my socks and underwear — it must have been the softest place available to her at the time. When I was in high school, we rode the regular city buses to school and home again in the afternoon, yet Duchess was always at the bus stop to meet me. How did she know which of the buses that ran every 20-30 minutes all day would be the one I rode? I don't know, but her internal clock was set and there she was, waiting to walk home with me. She was a special cat.
Because my roommate's cat Sammy will turn 18 tomorrow, I have not brought another cat into our home. I'm afraid it would bother her too much, even though she pined for Kiki when she died last summer. Sammy is skittish and doesn't like being petted unless she rubs against my leg first, and then I'm allowed only a short touch before she runs away. She has become friendlier since Kiki died, however, and now comes to tell me "meow" when she wants food or somebody to clean her litter box. That's real progress for a cat who was tossed out in a parking lot where my roommate worked — Sammy didn't even know how to eat yet. Donna had to mother her by giving her a bottle and later teaching her how to eat solid foods.4. Have you ever had any unusual pets in your household or visit your home?
It's been too long for me to remember the details about how and why we got a golden hamster, but I do remember Herman. He wiggled and squirmed and turned in our hands so much that one of my children said, "Herman, the Squirmin' German!" All three roared with laughter, and that strange moniker became his name. Since I was the one who spent the most time with him — feeding him, cleaning his cage, giving him water, and trying to find him when he escaped — he became plain ole Herman to me. Herman had a small wire cage with a rattling metal wheel that he would run in, frantically, rapidly, daily, hourly it seemed. The bottom of his cage was covered with cedar shavings, under which a hamster could sleep all covered and snug.
I don't have any photos of Herman, but this one from Wikipedia looks a lot like him. He was a smart little fellow who knew if he tried long enough and hard enough, he could open the door of his cage. He would wiggle and squirm and chew and bite: ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chunk, ch-ch-ch-ch-chatter, ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chuck-chunk. And POP after awhile that door would open! He especially liked the corner behind the four-drawer file cabinet, though I can't imagine how he knew it was heavy and hard to move. Poke along the side with a broom handle, and he'd run behind. Poke behind the file cabinet, and he'd run to the side. Poke and prod long enough and Herman would make a mad dash to the sofa and climb inside from underneath. He had probably made the hole in the cloth as his escape hatch. Sometimes we could see him moving along inside the material, safe from us humans who really did NOT want to cut up the sofa and make him run for the other end. Eventually he would emerge, hours or days later, and someone would grab him. Sometimes he would choose to run around the cushions, and all it would take to catch him was a still hand waiting along his path. Soon he would dash right into the hand and be caught. And poor ole Herman went back to work: ch-ch-ch-ch-chuck-chunk, ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chu-chuck, ch-ch-chat-ch-ch-ch-thunk-ch-ch.
We had Herman during the time I was deciding whether I really wanted a divorce, a time when I often felt frustrated and overwhelmed. There came a day when I was sitting in the kitchen floor, leaned back against the cabinets, with one of the children saying something like, "It'll be okay, Mom." I was thinking about a husband, not a hamster, but I heard a suspicious sound: scritch-scratch-skitch. I shushed my child and said, "Listen!" Scratch-skritch-scrunch-scratch. Slowly, quietly, I leaned toward the corner cabinets and the sound was even plainer. Scritch-scratch. Uh-huh, in case you were wondering, Herman had been AWOL from his cage for several days. Scritchity-scritch-scratch.
I felt under the edge of the cabinet doors. A hole! There was an unseen opening in the corner where the cabinet makers had not entirely made everything fit together; after all, who would ever know, right? Who is likely to get down in the corner under a three- to four-inch toe-inset to check? A six-inch hamster, that's who! Slowly I opened the corner cabinet and reached around to discover a space between the dishwasher and the cabinet shelves. And there was Herman, who had happily settled in by bringing shreds of this and that to furnish his new home.
For an animal I never bonded with, Herman and I have a lot of history together. One night I was sitting in the den after everyone else had gone to bed. As usual Herman was fighting his cage door: ch-ch-chuck-ch-ch-ch-chunk-thunk. I was about as down as I'd been that summer, knowing that I had to leave that marriage, and there's that hamster, chewing like crazy on his cage door. Finally, I said softly to him, "What's your problem, Herman? We feed you, we exercise you, we give you plenty of water and sawdust and everything else you need. Why are you fighting so hard to get out?"
He kept trying to escape, ch-ch-chewing, ch-ch-ch-ch-chucking. And suddenly it hit me. Yes, it sounds like a cliche, but I was struck by the thought: We are just alike! I, too, have food and clothes and everything I need. I, too, am unhappy in my cage. Herman, I understand. I took him out of his cage and held him, though he still wanted to get away to some place nice, like that little cubbyhole in the kitchen.
Herman didn't have the option of divorcing me or leaving town or leaving his cage, for that matter. But I got him a big glass aquarium filled with cedar chips and more space to run. Umm, it didn't have a door, and the top had to be covered, but Herman had more room. And he never, ever (as far as I know) experienced anything like this:
BONUS: Pictures or anything else related to animals you love.I've learned they are a lot like people. My Kiki cat could be quite adept at lying for a good cause, but sometimes we had to laugh at her. When my roommate Donna would come home from work, Kiki would tell her she had not had her afternoon treats yet ... and Donna’s cat Sammy would come running to sit on the piano hoping Kiki could convince the human that they were poor, pitiful, starving kitties who never got their treats on time. The only trouble with their scheme was that I was usually right there in the room. Donna would look at me and say to Kiki, "But you already HAD your treats." Kiki, the more talkative of the two, said plaintively, "Maiow mew mew." Donna said, "Yes, you did." Kiki replied, "Meow miahow mew!" Donna says again, "Yes, you DID." Kiki, "Meow miaow MEOW, myou." They never seemed to notice that humans communicate with each other as well as with them. Finally, Kiki would give up and plop in the floor with her back to Donna, and Sammy would sigh.
I think this post probably has enough photos along with that video to count as a bonus.
"It's quite simple — use the first lines of each month on your blog, to give an overview of your blogging year, albeit one which is amusing rather than very useful!"It sounded interesting enough for me to decide to give it a try. I discovered that I sometimes begin with a book's title or quote something. Unless the whole post was a quote, I picked the first lines I actually wrote. Here's what I found:
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| Sammy |
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| Kiki |
2. Last book boughtToday's "book report" will be a report on whatever happened to these three books.
I rarely buy one book at a time, so this is like trying to remember the last potato chip I bought. Hmm, let me see, The Assault on Reason by Al Gore was among the last books I bought.
3. Last book read
This is a little easier because, even though I have several books going at any one time, I finish them one at a time. The most recent two books I completed were Merle's Door by Kerasote and I Never Saw Paris by Harry I. Freund. I'll have both books reviewed by tomorrow evening.
#2. Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog ~ by Ted Kerasote, 2007, memoirAll it took to find this book was a glance to the right of where I'm sitting as I compose this blog post, and there's the book, on the bottom of a stack of 20-some books. The dustjacket — yes, I bought it new, in hardback — says it analyzes "how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degradation of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason." Yep, and it has only gotten worse in the last five years. I need to read this book, plus another book in the same stack: Al Gore's 1992 Earth in the Balance.
#3. I Never Saw Paris: A Novel of the Afterlife ~ by Harry I. Freund, 2007, fictionI actually got this reviewed. While on a camping trip, Ted met a Labrador mix dog living in the wild. When they became attached to each other, Ted name the dog Merle and brought him home. When he realized Merle’s native intelligence would be diminished by living exclusively in the human world, Ted put a dog door in his house so Merle could live both outside and inside, thus "Merle's door." I recognized some of the issues that both animals and humans face when living together, but I was fascinated when the author showed how dogs might live if they were allowed to make more of their own decisions. This is a very touching story, and I very much wanted to know all about Merle. Rated: 9/10, an excellent book.
I knew exactly where to locate this book, too, and I have started re-reading it. I remember really liking it the first time, and I'd like to get a review posted TODAY since I'm almost afraid to say "by tomorrow evening." And that, dear friends, is why I'm re-reading this book.On his way to a department store in Manhattan, 64-year-old businessman, Irving Caldman, is waiting at the intersection of Park Avenue with three other pedestrians, when a driver jumps the curb and runs them all over. The next thing Irving knows, he is no longer preparing for a trip to Paris with his wife. Instead, he is watching four faces as they ascend to heaven, on their way to be greeted by the angel Malakh. Accompanying Irving are an attractive personal shopper in her early fifties; a grandmother who works as a housemaid nearby; a twenty-something man who is an interior decorator; and the driver, a candy store owner and widower. Bound together for a week with Malakh, before their souls will be allowed to move on for judgment, Irving and his fellow victims must all tell the group their life stories, in order to evaluate and justify their earthly existence. As their insecurities and deepest secrets are exposed, they argue at length, and yet come to a strange peace, in this unexpected parable.
Do you have any pet that has a name inspired by your readings?I'm using only the basic question today, because my answer will already be divided into several parts: Jack, Pippa, Dickens and Junie B.
When my twin daughters were five and my son was two, they found under the tree on Christmas twin kittens, one male and one female. I have never been able to tell one sex from the other until cats grow up, but we told our children which we THOUGHT was which. We were, of course, wrong. Before we learned we had mislabeled the kittens, the children had chosen names from among their favorite stories, and the furry babies became Jack and Jill. Or Jill and Jack. Within a few months one darted under the wheels of a car and "Jill" lived on ... until the day it was undeniably clear that "she" was Jack. I'm sure Jack was totally confused when he received his sister's name, after having been Jill up until then. But it was clear that he knew the word meant HIM ... whenever he heard "Jack," even in the middle of a sentence spoken between humans, he would twitch his ear in our direction even if we thought he was asleep across the room.(2) Pippa, of "Pippa Passes"
Jack was an outdoor cat who loved to chase squirrels. When he spied one in the dogwood tree, up he would go after the critter, who simply hopped to a branch of a nearby oak tree and chattered heatedly at Jack, who sat dejectedly in the dogwood tree like an oversized gray-and-white Persian blossom. Lest you believe Jack was not a hunter, however, let me assure you he brought in his share of "gifts" to the family.
One Sunday morning I left my children at home getting ready for church (my mother lived downstairs) and dashed off to the office to make copies for a Monday morning business trip. When I got home, I saw my 10- or 11-year-old son coming across the back yard from the woods. He was dressed for church, crying, and dragging the double-bladed axe. My heart stopped! Until I heard the story. Jack had brought a twitching rabbit onto the patio, and my young son told me he knew if I'd been there, I would have put the dying animal out of its misery. "But Mom, I knew you'd kill he if I used the 22-rifle," he said. Darn tootin! Instead, my kind-hearted child used the axe ... almost, but not quite, as bad as the rifle. And he managed NOT to get blood on his Sunday suit. I was so proud of him for doing what had to be done, something that he knew was the right thing, even though his little heart was breaking when he did it. I never saw the rabbit because my little boy took care of the problem.
Jack the Gentleman Cat probably wondered about his humans ... didn't they recognize what a gift he had shared? Usually what Jack shared was laundry time. When I would come to the basement laundry room, Jack would follow me and sit on a window sill or the dryer to talk to me while I stuffed the washer with dirty clothes.
Since he spent a lot of time roaming the neighborhood, he himself would sometimes be the one who came home bloodied and scarred. One evening about dusk I got a call from a neighbor, telling me my cat had knocked over a large $100 vase on her front porch. By the time my husband got on the phone with her, the vase was worth $200. I got the car keys to go find Jack, went to the basement garage, and found Jack sound asleep on top of the car ... and the garage door was firmly closed. Not. My. Cat! Oh, you can't imagine how happily I called the woman back to inform her the naughty cat was someone else's! Jack, my sleeping fur person, was totally exonerated!
(3) Dickens, named for the famous author Charles DickensPippa got her name from Robert Browning's famous poem "Pippa Passes," published in 1841. Perhaps the most famous passage is sung by a little Italian girl named Pippa:
The year's at the spring,Each of my three children memorized these lines and could recite them to me. (Okay, I bribed them to do it for a quarter apiece, which really was worth a little bit of something in the late 1960s.) Pippa was a regular-sized collie with a very sweet and loving personality. I have a photo of her romping with David when my son couldn't have been more than five or six years old (he'll be 49 next month). They were in the lower part of the yard, down near the stream that ran through our back yard, near my children's earliest treehouse which was built beside a large tree and had a sandbox under it.
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven —
All's right with the world!
That's one of the good memories, but the bad memory almost obliterates the good. On December 12, 1977, we arrived home after dark to discover Pippa lying dead in the upper part of the back yard. She had been shot and killed, we learned later, by someone who said to my daughter at school, "I know who killed your dog." It was apparently a boy she refused to date, a boy who must have come around the end of our house and shot Pippa with a 22-rifle as she stared toward the back road, away from the shooter. A beloved pet was killed by a boy who wanted my daughter to suffer because she wouldn't go out with him. And I am so glad she never did! I was fearful for the longest time, however, that the next time it would be one of my children.
(4) Junie B., of the beloved Junie B. children's booksThis cute-as-the-dickens kitten was hiding from the rain under my roommate's car when she went out on a Sunday morning. Needing to get to church to teach a children's Sunday school class, she brought him to me. What could I do? I left a cellphone message that I'd miss church with family, but would meet them for lunch afterwards. In the meantime, this little dickens was exploring his new digs (interesting word) and thus totally annoying the two elderly cats, Sammy, who was 13, and Kiki, who was 8 years old. Much deep-throat growling and spitting occurred. Sammy hid under Donna's bed, snarling whenever the little fuzzball appeared on her radar, but Kiki defended her turf, actively growling her "ERRRRMMM-mmmmm" whenever the hyperactive youngster cavorted too near the corner where she had retreated.
Surprisingly, this tiny fellow wasn't taking any guff from the big cats and would hiss right back at them. Once, having run from Kiki's hissey fit of snarling and spitting, he jumped into the litter box in the laundry room and said what I can only translate as "nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-NYAH-nyah ... hisssss!" Then he pooped, covered it with sandy litter, and pranced right back into the living room where Kiki sat, quivering with righteous indignation that we humans had allowed this ... this ... strutting white ball of fluff into HER home.
I left the kitten closed up in the bathroom with a bowl of water and went out for lunch and an afternoon of swimming. When I returned late in the day, Sammy was still under the bed and Kiki looked frazzled from listening to hours of meowing emanating from the other side of that door. When I released the captive kitty, I found that everything on the counter had been knocked aside and dusty paw prints decorated the sink. (Had he first conquered any dust bunnies hiding behind the toilet bowl?) It was an interesting 24 hours. I was awakened at 7:30 the next morning by the kitten, who was ardently waging a battle against my elbow with his needle-sharp claws and teeth.
Dickens is now Junie B. Kiki, Sammy, and I decided the little dickens who moved in on the previous Sunday could be described as "tiresome" or maybe "more energy than a dynamo" or even "make it stop"! The non-stop kitten drained us of our energy. Donna, who missed about nine hours a day of "fun with kitty" by going to work every day, was off on Wednesday and finally realized we really could not keep such an active kitten who took a walk in my oatmeal and liked to tackle the tails of elderly cats. So she departed with kitty on a journey to the brand-spanking-new animal adoption place nearby. Kiki was so relieved that she came and sat in my lap for close to 45 minutes, sighing and content. When Donna returned in about an hour, all three of us ... Kiki, Sammy, and I ... stared in disbelief as the kitty bounced out of Donna's arms and back into our lives! What happened? The new place takes only 30 adoptions a day, with the next possible date being next month, and asked Donna to "foster" the little one a few more weeks.
We did learn something, however. I had thought, upon examination, that the kitten was a girl; Donna was sure she saw a couple of things I had missed and said it was a boy. The adoption center confirmed he's a she. So the little dickens needed a new name. We were going for literary and tried every female name possible ... until Donna thought of Junie B. Unless you have youngsters in your life, you may not know about the Junie B. Jones books by Barbara Park, which even little boys enjoy. Junie B. is always into something, like in this "Sneaky Peeky Spy" story. Aha, just like our little dickens! And the amazing part is that the kitten likes "Junie B." and totally ignored "Dickens" when we said it. Maybe she was trying to tell us something.
This cute-as-the-dickens kitten was hiding from the rain under my roommate's car when she went out yesterday morning. Needing to get to church to teach a children's Sunday school class, she brought him to me. What could I do? I left a cellphone message that I'd miss church with family, but would meet them for lunch afterwards. In the meantime, this little dickens was exploring his new digs (interesting word) and thus totally annoying the two elderly cats who live here: Sammy, who is 13, and Kiki, who is 8 years old. You should have heard the deep-throat growling and spitting that went on! Sammy hid under Donna's bed, snarling whenever the little fuzzball appeared on her radar, but Kiki defended her turf, actively growling her "ERRRRMMM-mmmmm" whenever the hyperactive youngster cavorted too near the corner where she had retreated.
I left the kitten closed up in the bathroom with a bowl of water and went out for lunch and an afternoon of swimming with my daughters and Cady and her mom's friend Laura. When I returned late in the day, Sammy was still under the bed and Kiki looked frazzled from listening to hours of "mew-mew-meow" emanating from the other side of that door. When I released the captive kitty, I found that everything on the counter had been knocked aside and dusty paw prints decorated the sink. (Had he first conquered any dust bunnies hiding behind the toilet bowl?)
Kiki, Sammy, and I decided the little dickens who moved in on Sunday could be described as "tiresome" or maybe "more energy than a dynamo" or even "make it stop"! The non-stop kitten drained us of our energy. Donna, who missed about nine hours a day of "fun with kitty" when she went to work, was off on Wednesday and finally realized we really cannot keep such an active kitten who took a walk in my oatmeal and likes to tackle the tails of elderly cats. So she departed with kitty on a journey to the brand-spanking-new animal adoption place nearby. Kiki was so relieved that she came and sat in my lap for close to 45 minutes, sighing and content. When Donna returned in about an hour, all three of us ... Kiki, Sammy, and I ... stared in disbelief as the kitty bounced out of Donna's arms and back into our lives! What happened? The new place takes only 30 adoptions a day, with the next possible date being August 5th, and asked Donna to "foster" the little one a few more weeks.
We did learn something, however. I had thought, upon examination, that the kitten was a girl; Donna was sure she saw a couple of things I had missed and said it was a boy. The adoption center confirmed he's a she. So the little dickens needed a new name. We were going for literary and tried every female name possible ... until Donna thought of Junie B. Unless you have youngsters in your life, you may not know about the Junie B. Jones books by Barbara Park, which even little boys enjoy. Junie B. is always into something, like in this "Sneaky Peeky Spy" story. Aha, just like our little dickens! And the amazing part is that the kitten likes "Junie B." and totally ignored "Dickens" when we said it. Maybe she was trying to tell us something.
Hello neighbors,Aha! Frankly, I (Bonnie) think Junie B. Dickens is having fun with all the commotion around her/him. Speaking of which, the neighbor did say "he-his-him." Maybe Donna was right in the first place. I wonder what that neighbor named him.
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions on how to get our cat down from the tree. Sadly, he's still in the tree, but now about 65 feet up (the absolute top). The fire department is not insured to get cats out of trees, that's only a thing in the movies and really tiny towns.
Last night we had a climber 50 feet up in the tree and we tried shaking food, wet and dry, spraying him with the water bottle, bursting water balloons above him. And just shaking the tree. There's currently a 5-gallon bucket hanging about 10 feet below him with food in it, but he hasn't come down to it. I called some tree services with no response and I have heard from the arborist I called yesterday.
His meowing's getting weaker and I called the vet and they said after 5 days without water we need to worry about dehydration. This will be his 5th night in the tree.
Here's the tree and the cat in it. There's a big pine next to it that might be of use, but it's not close enough just to reach, I think you'd have to swing.
As frustrated as I am at the stupid cat, I still don't want him to die. Any more ideas?
"We've actually had him for 4 years. He does look a lot like the kitty on your blog. We got Optimus Prime and his sister Megatron (a black kitten) as a set about 4 years ago and they were maybe 6 inches long. He's just recently become an outside cat in the past two months, but he got spooked by a dog and then turned out to be afraid of heights. The good news is that an arborist went up and got him today (75 feet up) and when he came down he started purring and then wolfed down some food. So he'll be fine."
Here are the first boxes I hauled into my new bedroom -- well, it's mine and Kiki's, and she's already voiced her annoyance that there's no cat food in sight. Living with Donna's 16-year-old female cat, Sammy, is working out well, since each cat has her own food in her own room with her own litter box in her own bathroom. They have learned they can peer into the room belonging to the other cat, but are not allowed to enter. The two cats spend a surprising amount of time staring at each other, whether in the same room or from the door into the other's room. I think they are actually happy to see each other, though Kiki probably won't admit it.
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| Scene of the crime |
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| Kiki |
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| Sammy |
Donna would glance at me and say to Kiki, "But you already HAD your treats."The cats never seemed to notice that humans communicate with each other as well as with them. Finally, Kiki would give up and plop on the floor with her back to Donna, and Sammy would sigh.
Kiki meowed plaintively, "Maiow, mew, mew."
Donna would say, "Yes, you did."
Kiki replied, "Meow miahow mew!"
Donna would say again, "Yes, you did."
Kiki got more assertive, saying, "Meow miaow MEOW."
