About a week ago, Baxter got sick. I came home and discovered that he hadn’t eaten his dinner. None of it. He was lying on my bed, half asleep. I asked him if he were sick, and after a few words of cat speak, I concluded he was. When I petted him I got very little of the purring engine I usually hear. Instead, he sort of softly squealed and closed his eyes, wanting to resume his sleep. After a while, he awoke and ate a little, but it wasn’t five minutes before he brought it up. A little later he had another bout of vomiting minus any food. I was getting worried. Was this something serious?
I know animals can turn seriously ill on a dime, and Baxter has a good number of years under his belt, which makes him even more vulnerable. I decided to keep him from eating anything for a time to see how he would be. I learned from the vet that sometimes cats’ stomachs need to quiet down before they can start up again. Then I had to bring back the food slowly and see if the episode would pass. It did. In twenty-four hours, Baxter was his old self again. I was relieved.
It is scary when we think about how vulnerable we are in today’s world. One microscopic “bug” can travel throughout the whole world in this jet age, spreading illness and disease among many populations before anyone notices. We travel long distances in close quarters. We are so used to managing our health that we panic when we think it is unmanageable. We deceive ourselves into believing that epidemics are episodes from the past, until we realize that they are just bigger and more bizarre than in former times. We control bubonic plague, leprosy, tuberculosis and polio, but then Ebola arises with a deadly force. Our jet set life style carries with it a free ride for contagion which can spread within 72 hours nearly everywhere on this earth. What can we do to escape this threat? How do we feel safe again?
We can face our vulnerabilities and accept what they say about us humans. We so often avoid our weakness and fragility that we begin to think they aren’t part of us. We are tough gogetters able to take on any challenge. We hate to admit our limitations and accept our frailty. We would rather hide these in our resolve to do it ourselves rather than ask for help, in our working alone rather than with others, in our stubborn independence which puts ourselves and others in greater jeopardy to harm. But these are simply delaying
tactics. Finally, we will all have to face our strength slipping away, our minds clouding over, and our need for others to take care of us. How do we handle the inevitable decline? Cats’ instincts take over, and they give into their weakness quickly. We are different. We accept our human condition gradually and often reluctantly. We may fight it at first, but our faith offers guidance here.
The cross of Christ can help us face our vulnerabilities and their consequences. As Jesus embraced His frailty in the face of the destructive powers of sin and death, He was broken, weakened and finally taken by others to a place to die. But He was not defeated. He continued to reach out to others—the women, His Mother, the Beloved Disciple, the good thief. He addressed His situation with respect for Himself and others—“It is finished.” “Father, forgive them.” He passed on His life—He gave up His Spirit; “Truly, this was the Son of God.”. When He is most vulnerable, weak and stricken, Jesus teaches us the most about the human condition we share before God. He teaches us how to face it, embrace it and love it by finally handing it over to our loving Father and trusting that He, not us, will save it.
We resist losing what we love and cherish whether it is our loved ones, the dignity of our work, the identity we have forged through loving relationships, or even a beloved pet. But fighting to hold onto these and other parts of our passing life when they are ending prevents us from appreciating the gift they are to us and releasing them with a grateful heart. In the end, all the good of our lives is held in God. Pray to be able to hand our lives over to Him as Jesus did to the Father, and see our vulnerabilities as the last call from God to live by faith.
