TGIF
You can only pet her in one place…the very top of her little head.
You can only do so one way…very gently.
The rest of Mommacat’s frame is terribly sensitive and sore from the ravages of age, arthritis, and constant seizures.
Should you accidentally… absentmindedly… pet her as you would another cat, the reaction is swift and severe.
She bites hard and claws the hand that hurt her, no matter how unintentionally.
Even at her advanced age, she can do real damage.
The sad part is that she really doesn’t mean to hurt anyone, but she has lived too long protecting herself from being hurt.
She doesn’t think about it before she attacks, she just responds to the pain.
As a result, most people don’t try to pet her at all.
The sad part is that she loves people, loves to be around people, and she is overjoyed when someone remembers that she does have this one little spot on top of her head that doesn’t hurt when you touch it.
Her little frame vibrates with a gravelly purr from head to tail when when she gets attention that doesn’t touch those sensitive places.
This old cat reminds me of some of you…and of myself as well.
Some of us have been hurt so much in so many places that we make sure nobody is going to hurt us there again.
We have a continual guard up and should someone “touch” us in those places we attack them without thought.
It can get vicious and we do real damage.
We don’t want to do damage, but we can’t sustain more damage ourselves.
After a while people stop trying to touch you at all…save the few who figure out the one or two ways to do so without getting clawed into a bloody mess.
We want to share in the best of human experiences, but we’ve learned the worst is more than we can handle.
We are alone for the most part, even when accompanied by friends and family, safe in our moving prisons of misery.
Last night Mommacat had a seizure while we were sleeping.
On my head.
I forgot about her boundaries and tried to steady her lest she fall off the bed (or scalp me)…and quickly realized I was toast.
Except I wasn’t.
She started to react..then stopped.
I petted the top of her head and the purring commenced.
She’s trying to get better.
Lord, make me more like my cat…
Make your own application…
Your TGIF articles are always great, Michael. You’ve definitely found a niche for yourself in ministry. It’s worthy of a large audience; it’s their loss for not having found you, or choosing to not take advantage of what’s there.
I have so many guards up I’ve become comfortable in them…and I can’t tell from my compound whether or not I’m killing myself emotionally and spiritually…
BrianD,
Thank you…it means a lot to me that you’re still here and find some value in what I do…and I hear you on the isolation…
I’m around but I’m on the periphery…I’ve told enough people enough things off blog that I don’t want it rehashed here if I say or do something they may not like.
There is a saying, men live lives of quiet desperation. I never heard that inside the church…and I certainly haven’t heard any answer to that saying within the church walls besides the usual. I’m not saying Jesus isn’t ultimately the answer…only that the answers given that they say are Jesus or from Jesus usually are everything but and involve submitting yourself to the Great Pastor and the Church…
BrianD,
I don’t give a damn if people like it or not.
You have an ownership here earned from years of work.
I know many of us are at varying levels of desperation…the pop church doesn’t deal with it well…
Michael,
The pop church is a fantastic place to go if you want to be yelled at, told you need to give and give and tithe and tithe, to hear from a particular political perspective, and you know the rest.
For what it’s worth, you’re doing an excellent job. The history of Christianity is full of people who are marginalized and ignored and insulted while doing the right thing; we don’t have many examples of the pop church only because the society it rose up in has existed for just a few decades. If ancient Rome and Judea had megachurches and the internet and reality TV and all that, you’d have read about those hypothetical James MacDonald/Mark Driscoll types by now in the history books.
You’re faithful where it counts, and if there is a God He will most certainly recognize that.
It is raining cats and dogs up here and there’s an old horse out in the paddock still in her heavy winter coat soaking wet and looking miserable. She is 20 feet from her shelter…. must be a spiritual application in there somewhere…. ? ?
BrianD – if the pop church has you down, go to a small uncool church like I do.
Come to a place that makes the pastor wear a dress to keep him humble and the only thing he asks from us is that we stand, sit, bow and kneel at the right time. 🙂