Gentle lightning…

We are told that St. Francis used to spend whole nights praying the same prayer: “Who are you, God? And who am I?” Evelyn Underhill claims it’s almost the perfect prayer. The abyss of your own soul and the abyss of the nature of God have opened up, and you are falling into both of them simultaneously. Now you are in a new realm of Mystery and grace, where everything good happens!

Notice how the prayer of Francis is not stating anything but just asking open-ended questions. It is the humble, seeking, endless horizon prayer of the mystic that is offered out of complete trust. You know that such a prayer will be answered, because there has already been a previous answering, a previous epiphany, a previous moment where the ground opened up and you knew you were in touch with infinite mystery and you knew you were yourself infinite mystery. You only ask such grace-filled questions, or any question for that matter, when they have already begun to be answered.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gate (CD/DVD/MP3)

 

Somehow I find the openness of St Francis’ prayer extraordinarily moving. As I wrote the other day, we humans are very slow to trust, even in our own Creator and Redeemer. In our own prayer, we reach up to God, but only in response to his grace—to the movement of his Holy Spirit towards us. It’s a bit like a lightning stroke, perhaps—as the stepped leader reaches down from the cloud to earth, so a smaller streamer of opposite charge reaches up from earth to meet it. When they touch, the great lightning stroke itself is formed.

We are too prone to credit ourselves with the responsibility for our own spiritual lives. Thank God, we don’t have such a heavy burden to carry. Being created things, we depend entirely upon the mercy of God, Christ, of whom John wrote, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” All that we are rests in God, and his touch awakens us to reach up to him, as a sleepy cat will sometimes reach up her paw to someone reaching down to touch her…

All retire to sleep, and sweet repose…

 

(The quote is from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 6, and the cats, from left to right, are Griffin and Tifa)

Sleepy Griffin…

Trust. Fear. Worship.

It’s a week now since I last saw Ruby, my little fluffy tortoiseshell cat. Hard to keep the balance between grief and hope, trust and imagination. I’ve done all that I know to do—asked around, put up posters, activated her microchip, and called and called, alone and with company…

And I’ve prayed, continually. Waking up in the night to pray often leads into long prayer for all the lost and wandering, for the hurt and bewildered of every race and species, for the seemingly endless pain of this broken world. Christ’s mercy is our only refuge, his making all things new the only light on our horizon (Romans 8:18-27).

Ruby’s sister Ftifa and uncle Griffin haven’t been looking for her, or obviously grieving, though they have both been spending rather more time indoors than they had, and both sleep on my bed most of the night.

A friend’s daughter posted a beautiful song by Kristene Mueller on Facebook this morning, and it brought together so much of God’s way with us in times like this. We cannot but worship, despite our fear. Listen, carefully, to the whole song:

St. Francis & friends

A new painting by Jan Oliver - notice all the doves, and Jan's little black cat!

I just love the sense of new beginnings here, the sun rising on a new day: Francis standing in his saint's niche, alive!, and the peaceable kingdom breaking through into the world we know:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spiritof the LORD will rest on him - the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD - and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroyon all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:1-9)

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I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. (Romans 8: 18-27)

 This painting, like so many of Jan's, makes that prayer, that longing of our hearts ("sighs too deep for words" NRSV) concrete and visible. Thank God for the openness of artists like Jan to the Spirit's searching...

Sad catblogging...

Poor Figgy, dearest faithful little black cat, has gone. She had a thyroid tumour, and her kidneys were failing. She was around seventeen, so she'd done well. Jan held her at the vet's, and she purred all the way to Heaven, to catch up with Scottie and Dusty and Mindy and Mable the Dog and all her old friends.

It's hard for us humans, outliving so many of our furry companions on the way...

A sad day...

We have finally had to give in and rehome our poor beautiful Lulu. She was so unhappy living with the kittens, spending all her time swearing at them and lashing out at them. She was miserable, and they were getting very frightened of her, so this morning we took her to the RSPCA rehoming centre. We both feel terrible, but it was the only solution, that or rehoming the kittens - but they get on so well with dear old Figgy, and Lulu really didn't. She needs to be an only cat... what she'd like above all is to live quietly with one or two people, with a warm lap to snuggle on, and no other cats to make her feel insecure. The very nice people at the RSPCA will let us know how she gets on...

But we'll miss her. She was such a character, and always waiting by the front door when we came in, purring and winding around our ankles. I know it's best for her, and for the kittens, but it hurts...

Sporadic cat-blogging episode…

Little Ruby has been for her first check-up at the vet since losing her eye, and he is very pleased indeed with her progress. (She continues to charm the socks off all the staff at the surgery!) To her immense relief she was able to have her Elizabethan collar off when she got home – she spent most of the next hour washing every scrap of herself several times over…

Here's a picture of Lulu looking, as Carly says, like a force to be reckoned with!

A light for my path…

Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, "How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?" There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let's rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

(Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey)

Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light for my path.

(Psalm 119.105)

I need to read things like this. I always want to know exactly where things are going, precisely what God has planned for me after I do this next thing, and he always says, "Just do the next thing. Leave the consequences, and their consequences, to me." I never listen… the next time I'm just as bad.

Ruby is doing well – she has been playing with her sister all day, as best she can with her silly collar. She refuses to go back in her cage at any price. I have to say she seems just fine not in it!

Ruby's home!

Little Ruby is home safely – thank you all for your prayers…

Apart from being most disgruntled with her silly Elizabethan collar, Ruby's happy, eating, purring, delighted to see her sister – but for the next couple of days she'll stay in her little cage. Early next week she'll go back to the vet, and if all's well, she'll be able to be free in the house. No one's going out till they've been spayed, now. She enchanted everyone at the surgery – Jan thinks they were sorry to see her go… They've made a wonderfully neat job of closing her eye – once everything's healed she'll just have one closed eye. She doesn't seem in the least worried about only having the one to see out of. Animals are so accepting and adaptable – they truly do seem to accept "that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8.28 NIV) So long as they know they are loved, and cared for, that's all they need…

I am so grateful for our cats, for their joy and their companionship, for the way they trust us and keep us company, when actually there is (except at times like this!) nothing to prevent their leaving and making an independent, feral life for themselves, like the wandering tom who hurt our poor little Ruby.

I don't know what it is about cats. I'm fond of all animals, cats and dogs and cows (especially cows) and stoats and crabs and spiders and the wonderful furry bumble-bees who fill our little garden with their hum in springtime, but cats are special…

Prayers for Ruby…

Our kitten Ruby is at the vets tonight: in the morning she is having one of her eyes removed, having been attacked by a local cat on the first day of her first oestrus. (We had been advised not to have the kittens spayed till after their first heat.)

Please pray for the poor fluffy scrap, that she will come through the operation as well as possible, and that she will not be too upset being alone – this will be the first night the two sisters have spent apart in all their short lives…

Cats…

(By special request – first instalment for Jane!)

 

Ruby

 

Ftifa

 

A cat is the best Christmas decoration…

Both kittens (you are not to look at the messy surroundings)

Friday Cat Blogging - the cat next door

This is Griffin, the cat next door, relaxing on our patio... which is I fear overdue for a spring clean!