TGIF
Every morning and every evening I set out little bowls of cat food, one in the front yard and one in the backyard.
There are strays in the neighborhood who depend on my doing so, for they have no one else to feed them.
There is a large, timid, tabby cat, a terribly thin black cat, and a little cat with a wound that won’t let me get close enough to help.
There may be others who are too stealthy for me to have discovered.
They skulk and sneak into the yards and gulp down some food, then run away to wherever they spend the rest of their cat lives.
Miss Kitty used to be one of them…but she now calls the property home.
Her bowl is inside the house and she chooses her meals from a buffet assortment of fine feline dishes, turning up her nose at what is offered until the proper one is served.
When finished, she strolls not to the brush outside, but to my bed which she now is gracious enough to share with me.
She’s been given a very good life.
She also had me worried for a while…she would come in, eat her meal as if she hadn’t eaten in days, then promptly deposit that meal (with sound effects) in a hot pile on my floor.
This went on morning and evening for a couple of days and I was getting ready to take her to the vet…until I found out what her problem was.
It turned out that as I would put out the morning and evening meals for the neighborhood strays she would follow behind me and eat them all.
Then, she would  lay in front of the fence and guard the property against the strays, whacking them soundly and loudly when they came to find food.
By the time she ate her own food she was so stuffed she couldn’t keep anything down.
My cat, raised in a good, Christian home, was a selfish, violent, glutton.
Oh, the shame.
She did not have her fathers heart for those less fortunate…she feared that doing so would take away from what she had.
She despised their fleas and their wounds and their need didn’t move her.
She was safe and full and wanted to stay that way.
She doesn’t trust that I will always provide enough for everyone.
She’s forgotten where she came from.
She’s forgotten that everything she has, she’s been freely given.
She doesn’t think I’ll move her dish…outside.
Make your own application…
Cats!!!!!
Wow. Nailed it again.
Michael, it was good to read that you are feeling better – this TGIF moves me deeply as I “make my own applications”
thank you
(this week I am taking care of two cats and I think I know a bit how God feels – but one of them is gradually attempting to do things my way and so maybe I do know a hint of how God feels)
Em -it has been so good seeing you around the last few days!
Thank you, Em…good to see your name here.
You are missed when you’re gone…
http://youtu.be/bG5fFI3eorg
LOL!
Michael, Food for thought. 🙂 I am much more involved with physical health rather than spiritual health, but my perspective is that we have a serious problem here in America due to overweight lifestyles. While work got easier in the USA, food became more prevalent and mostly less healthy. There’s one person at work that some call “double meat, double cheese” because that’s her typical meal. Such a burger has a day’s calories in one serving. And she does eat more than one meal a day.
Not picking on anyone. It is a simple fact of life here in the US. I wonder if the problem is that we just have too much riches, and that includes at the supper table. Notice how the “greatest generation” lived through the great depression and how that affected their lifestyles. Are Americans today just too rich to notice the important things in life? And that includes physical as well as spiritual. When we thank the Lord for our daily bread, do we really mean daily bread and meat and cheese?
Is our epidemic of obesity also an epidemic spiritually? When I see those grossly overweight people here at the hospital with a wealth of health problems mostly caused by their weight, I just wonder about our society. Is there too much of a good thing? I think so. When we thank God for our blessings, perhaps the list is so long we forget about many of them. That is what your post got me thinking about. Now pass the salad.
The Gospel according to Miss Kitty….. love it. Thanks for being a cat guy.
Miss Kitty is doing what cats do best.Being spoiled and territorial.
Michael, you crack me up! You post an article that stirs up a multitude of raging controversies, with a kajillion hits and comments, then follow it up with a Miss Kitty post. Anyone who thinks you are just after hits and attention has to be nuts!
Excellent Michael!
As I drive in my car with my full belly of food and comment to my wife about all the bum homeless people we are passing; I will remember your Miss Kitty…LOL
***
I had to put a small cat door in my big lift up garage door for the strays around my home.
My five domesticated cats come in at night and I close the other house cat door to keep them in.
We have coyotes, owls and other predators here at night.
One time I wanted to see who I was feeding in the garage and I put a time lapse camera pointed at the food bowl and water dish.
I found out that not only was I feeding some strays, but also one skunk and a raccoon.
What amazed me was that everyone got along and seemed to understand that the food was there for all of them to enjoy.
Although that raccoon likes to bath in the water bowl sometimes and makes it muddy when he is finished.
Here is a slowmo video of one night in my garage…
I got to give Dr. White who held a debate in a Mosque in South Africa. I may not agree with much but I do admire his outreach to this community and from what I have read from people of the muslim faith he is very gracious to them.
You know Michael I have been sort of a parasite on this faith community at times, I am sorry about that I hope to do better. You have been good to me and I am thankful.
davidsurfer51,
That was really cool…those are happy cats and a full coon. 🙂
Dave,
I’m not the master of marketing at this point. 🙂
brian,
You’re loved and always welcome here.
Fleas and wounds are why people have given up trying to gain entrance into the kingdom, and instead chosen to stand against it. The church has become so anti-christ that the “elect” can only enter if they are already clean.
The fishers of men expect to catch only clean fish. If they are gay, mentally ill, addicted, depressed, divorced, homeless, jobless, they are not clean. Something is wrong with them. They are unfit.
Some fishers will go so far as to fix that problem. But when it does not find resolution, the church simply kicks you out
Paul begged God to deliver him from some unknown problem. The thorn in the flesh, he called it.
Grace is not sufficient.
Very good insights Reuben–although I have no doubt that they won’t be appreciated here.
Reuben,
Honest feelings, honest observations.
Thanks for being courageous and sharing.
I would beg to differ with you,Misty. Reuben is loved here and appreciated. Family can disagree on issues yet love and appreciate one another.