Saturday, October 14, 2017

Heartbreak: Losing Bashful, So Alive in My Dreams

 
In dreams, my memories ramble,
out where my heart cannot go,
back to the love and the laughter.
Lord, what a far, distant show.
--Hoyt Axton

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sometimes I dream of the sky.
-- Hoyt Axton
 
 
 
 
 

Monday, May 29, 2017

What It Takes to Cry

“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”  
―  Hans Christian Anderson


Χαθικε - Lost, Missing
It's spring and the fields are full of life.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     But this little guy is missing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
I have noticed that sometimes the tears don't come until after I tell somebody.  That happened today. I said, "One of my cats is missing."  And the tears came.  What was, over the weekend, one after another sudden attack of ungodly pain, assaults on my heart I tried desperately to run from, distract myself from, bargain with God over, were transfigured into water, and came flowing out of me in tears, only in the presence of another human being, and only after I said the words:                                                                                                                                                                                                
"One of my cats is missing."


It's something I don't understand.  

“It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses. ”  
 Colette



To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

 William Wordsworth





Friday, March 17, 2017

#160

Big Boy.  YUGE.  Came home a little lighter yesterday.  He's the 160th cat I have altered.




Once at the vet, he escaped from the trap in the back room, and my vet had a heck of a time finding him and getting him back in.  He said he was one of the cleverest cats he's ever seen. 






Thanks to Becca.

Friday, March 3, 2017

The Least of These

For I was hungry and you gave me food. Matthew 25:35




A lot of people have tried to contact me asking me how I am, where I have gone, etc., etc.  I have struggled to answer them, or postponed answering them, because I have been unable to put my feelings into words, or to explain myself to anyone.  I tried with someone here, someone also in animal rescue, but she had no idea what I was trying to say.  



She is not a believer, and I don't know many people here doing what I do who are.  I think you might have to be to even want to understand.  For the others, they shrink back in horror, or they try to lead me down a road that is not for me, giving me a pep talk. I don't want to be fixed in that sense, not if God is speaking to me through my experiences.



I don't even like to use those words anymore after what I have learned -after doing this for 6-7 years now - "animal rescue".  It makes me sound like I think I am a hero, and I don't.  I have learned unequivocally, I am not. Please don't say that.  Meet me where I am.



But I recently I heard a homily, a podcast, which put into words for me what I have been going through, and I would like to share it here, to speak for me.  For those who I haven't spoken to, I will be in touch as soon as I am able.  I have been facing enormous physical and mental exhaustion, mostly mental - probably mostly spiritual.  It was a blessing to me to have what I suspected confirmed by a member of my faith.


The notion that perhaps I am not on the wrong track, and this is indeed the way it is supposed to be, gives me hope in the path I have been taking, and the future.  But it will require to regroup, re-evaluate my goals, and re-prioritize them.





Here is the link to the podcast,  for those who might be interested.  I think the truth of it is profound:

The Least of These




Funny, when I see the quote at the top of this post from Matthew is the first quote I chose for my blog, over in the sidebar, when I started this work, it makes all the more sense to me.







I have learned instead I am the one who needs rescuing, and is being rescued by God, and hopefully will continue to be, to learn of my own spiritual poverty, and that this is the meaning of God asking us to do charity, to learn this awakening, sobering truth.



But I still can't explain it as good as he did.