Monday, May 09, 2005
ministering in the physical
My aunt Kay has a cat who will be turning 17 this summer. Pepper has been a fixture at their house for as long as I can remember, neutered and lazy and shy, a plump blue beauty with a garbled meow. I hadn't seen him for several years, but when I walked through their garage this weekend he was sleeping on the hood of the Taurus, and I stopped to say hello. He stood up and purred as I scratched his back. I was shocked how skinny and weak he seemed. His hair was matted and dirty, his purr sort of dim and arrhythmic. I stayed there for a long time, singing as much of "Old Deuteronomy" as I could remember and giving him a thorough rubdown.
Our communion brought back memories of my cousin Justin, with whom I spent most of my summers and whose image holds some of my deepest concepts of my self. Since I moved every three or four years, and all my friends did the same, I never kept a friend longer than a year or two, so he was my only consistent peer. More of my formative memories are tied to him than to anyone outside my nuclear family.
Pepper brought back lots of these memories. Rubbing his fur reminded me where I came from, and suggested where to go next. I was thankful for the wisdom in his eyes, thankful for the fact that he knew me and seemed to understand me. Stupid cat that he is. I don't think he'll live through next winter. I was glad to get to talk to him one last time.
My dad's parents died about eight years ago, and being the youngest, he inherited the house. Most of their stuff was divided up amongst him and his five siblings and the house stands mostly empty, but it's furnished enough for us to spend summers and weekends there. Yesterday after my parents left for Prattville, I stayed behind to read on the front porch a while before heading back to Auburn. I felt the strangest urge to spend ten minutes sitting in every chair, take a nap in the back bedroom, use the bathroom and wash some dishes. Let the house feel lived in.
Houses this old decay rapidly when vacant, and before anyone realizes it they're leaning over the side of the road with the posture of the unimposing grandparents who withered away inside. That ever-constant living room was a piece of my history, and has been divvied up equally between six families to leave only a skeletal outline of a significant portion of my past. The remaining furniture waits patiently, slowly slipping from the imprint that was left in my memory by Smith and Iva Boozer. The house welcomes me, invites me to relax in its embrace and remember where I came from, stare out over the pasture into the sunset and listen to my history in the mockingbirds' songs.
Yesterday I wanted to tend to the easy chair my Mama spent her last three years in, assume my Papa's horizontal stature on the red-flowered sofa. And the house wanted to tend to me, remind me who has loved me, who provided the way for my existence, who pointed me to God.
It was my spirit communing with eternal things via physical objects.
Just like I've been asking for!
at the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy
when he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall,
the oldest inhabitant croaks:
Well, of all things, can it be really?
No, yes, ho hi, oh my eye!
My legs may be tottery, I must go slow
and be careful of Old Deuteronomy
--TS Elliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
(...first known to me as the musical Cats)
Our communion brought back memories of my cousin Justin, with whom I spent most of my summers and whose image holds some of my deepest concepts of my self. Since I moved every three or four years, and all my friends did the same, I never kept a friend longer than a year or two, so he was my only consistent peer. More of my formative memories are tied to him than to anyone outside my nuclear family.
Pepper brought back lots of these memories. Rubbing his fur reminded me where I came from, and suggested where to go next. I was thankful for the wisdom in his eyes, thankful for the fact that he knew me and seemed to understand me. Stupid cat that he is. I don't think he'll live through next winter. I was glad to get to talk to him one last time.
My dad's parents died about eight years ago, and being the youngest, he inherited the house. Most of their stuff was divided up amongst him and his five siblings and the house stands mostly empty, but it's furnished enough for us to spend summers and weekends there. Yesterday after my parents left for Prattville, I stayed behind to read on the front porch a while before heading back to Auburn. I felt the strangest urge to spend ten minutes sitting in every chair, take a nap in the back bedroom, use the bathroom and wash some dishes. Let the house feel lived in.
Houses this old decay rapidly when vacant, and before anyone realizes it they're leaning over the side of the road with the posture of the unimposing grandparents who withered away inside. That ever-constant living room was a piece of my history, and has been divvied up equally between six families to leave only a skeletal outline of a significant portion of my past. The remaining furniture waits patiently, slowly slipping from the imprint that was left in my memory by Smith and Iva Boozer. The house welcomes me, invites me to relax in its embrace and remember where I came from, stare out over the pasture into the sunset and listen to my history in the mockingbirds' songs.
Yesterday I wanted to tend to the easy chair my Mama spent her last three years in, assume my Papa's horizontal stature on the red-flowered sofa. And the house wanted to tend to me, remind me who has loved me, who provided the way for my existence, who pointed me to God.
It was my spirit communing with eternal things via physical objects.
Just like I've been asking for!
at the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy
when he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall,
the oldest inhabitant croaks:
Well, of all things, can it be really?
No, yes, ho hi, oh my eye!
My legs may be tottery, I must go slow
and be careful of Old Deuteronomy
--TS Elliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
(...first known to me as the musical Cats)
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Beautiful.
I once experienced God through my cat. At least once, I should say. It led me to write a poem about it and develop a loose riff on incarnation. It seems to me that the Incarnation is not ended. For one, Christ lives bodily in the presence of the Father (a human body communes with the Almighty!). Secondly, I think that Christ/God/the Holy Spirit flashes across the world, leaping from eye to eye, incarnating and incarnated in the random matter of this life. I have seen Him smiling at me from my cat's vast eyes, moving electrically in the table in front of me, speaking distinctly through the ramblings of a deranged man. These three experiences speak more to me of the Incarnation than any theology. God is still Emmanuel.
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I once experienced God through my cat. At least once, I should say. It led me to write a poem about it and develop a loose riff on incarnation. It seems to me that the Incarnation is not ended. For one, Christ lives bodily in the presence of the Father (a human body communes with the Almighty!). Secondly, I think that Christ/God/the Holy Spirit flashes across the world, leaping from eye to eye, incarnating and incarnated in the random matter of this life. I have seen Him smiling at me from my cat's vast eyes, moving electrically in the table in front of me, speaking distinctly through the ramblings of a deranged man. These three experiences speak more to me of the Incarnation than any theology. God is still Emmanuel.
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