the incident of the sunbather and the prodigal cat

It is a rainy day. Jazz the cat is sleeping on the couch not six feet away from me as I write. I just paid my hydro bill online, answered a few emails, and my cup of chai green tea is empty. Pause. Okay, the cup is full again.

My summer schedule has been going well. The boss is firm but flexible, and has let me change up the hours on occasion as long as I get my work done. So on days when the 12-3 writing schedule just doesn't work due to a dentist appointment such as I had on Monday or an online lecture that I participated in yesterday, I work a little later or split a shift.

Just before my writing shift began yesterday, I had a little incident involving Jazz. If you are averse to stories with embarrassing personal details, you might want to stop reading right now. It was a beautiful sunny day and I thought I would lie outside for a bit and get some colour on my skin before I sat down at the computer for the rest of the afternoon. I have been sitting inside way too much this spring and the skies have been mostly overcast for the past few weeks, so I wanted to take advantage of the cloudless day to get my dose of Vitamin D happiness and even out those funny tan lines from my sunburn when we were in Florida.

I was lying out on my third floor terrace, enjoying the warmth on my back, when I heard Jazz scratching at the patio doors inside. I make it a point not to leave her outside unsupervised, so I thought it would be fine to let her sit there with me for the last 10 minutes of my sun break. I opened the door and she lightly stepped onto the bright balcony. She settled down in the corner under the patio table and looked out over the neighbourhood. I watched for a bit and was content that she would not run away. The sun was bright and beautiful, so feeling free and summery, I undid the back of my bathing suit.

Five minutes later, I heard some animal howling, but it was far away, so I relaxed and soaked up some more sun. After another minute, the yowling came again and then I realised that only one cat made that exact sound. It was Jazz! I leapt up, remembering to grab my bathing suit top just in time, and peeked over the railing of the balcony. Jazz and another cat were circling each other in a parking lot 2 buildings away. It didn't look like they were physically fighting, but the sound was definitely hostile. How did she get down there without me noticing? I called her name and she looked at me, briefly disengaging, but I knew she would not back off unless I came down there.

I fiddled with my bathing suit top, but those clasps are difficult to close at the best of times, and impossible when one is in a hurry. What to do? Just run down and get her, barefoot and half-dressed? Or go inside, throw some clothes on, and hope a bloody fight doesn't happen in the meantime. I chose the latter, you will be thankful to know. I ran inside and up a flight of stairs to my bedroom, pulled on shorts, a top, and my sandals. Then I hurried back outside and flew down the 5 half flights of stairs. Jazz and the other cat were on the lawn beside the neighbouring parking lot, fur high and backs arched.

I called out to Jazz as I walked toward them and to my amazement, she immediately turned and started to trot in my direction. I kept talking to her the whole time, calling and encouraging her to do the right thing. And she responded! She ran right past me, across the back lawn, and started up the stairs, all without much intervention on my part. When she got to the last landing before our balcony, she flopped down and started to pant, as if to say, "I'm done!" I was pretty impressed with her quick return, so I picked her up and carried her the rest of the way inside. There was no hissing, no fighting me, just a limp body in my arms, ready to come home. Amazing! I gave her a treat when we got inside and she spread herself out on the kitchen floor, spent from the ordeal.

I like this change in Jazz. She has become more attentive to my voice and less stubborn about getting her own way. She still has a very strong territorial instinct which makes her unloving and ungracious and ridiculously protective of her space and her stuff and her food, but my voice got through that beastly selfish urge yesterday and she responded with obedience instead of anger. She didn't fight me. She came home of her own will. She trusted me instead of herself.

Jesus, help me be more like Jazz.

This is a picture of my view today.

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun. I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading. One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others). Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding. Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity. In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007. “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’ Consider but a sampling o

comedic timing

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim

outWORD by Matte Downey

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