Easter Meows: Grooming

Cats groom themselves, and Baxter is no exception. Grooming has a number of purposes in the feline world. It keeps things like coat, paws and nose clean. It fills in time when there are no interest prey to watch. It soothes the cat when something upsets it. A few hardly licks of the back or shoulder, and whatever was causing anxiety and frustration seems to disappear. In fact, one of the ways you know that you have an emotionally troubled cat is if he or she grooms him or herself incessantly. Too much of a good thing turns bad when neurotic compulsiveness causes sin irritation. There is another down side to grooming -- hairballs! All that loose fur that the grooming relieves from the outside can gum up the insides. The hacking and full body peristalsis that can result are anything but pleasant for both pet and owner.

To groom the hard-to-reach places, cats have this remarkable ability to contort their bodies. They can twist in almost 180 degrees or fold themselves in half to get every inch of their torsos for a comforting lick or two. they won't stop stretching and bending until they get to the exact spot that needs attention. Comfort is worth the indignity of a compromised position. Grooming is all about the cat making him or herself feel comfortable, safe and secure. Baxter always feels better about himself after a few well-placed licks.

We have our own way of making ourselves feel comfortable and secure. Instead of licking our physical surface, we lick the internal side of ourselves, our spirits. When we are hurt by life's unfairness and rejection, we sometimes keep the wounds clean and fresh by wallowing in self-pity. When we are insecure and nervous, we do what it takes to feel at ease again -- eat too much, smoke, indulge our sexual fantasies, or overwork. When depressed or despairing about our significance or importance, we do something to convince ourselves that we matter and make a difference. Maybe we shop. Maybe we drink too much alcohol. Maybe we gossip about others' flaws and failures. Whatever it is, we build ourselves up by reaching for something that we think adds to our stature or dulls the pain of feeling small. We soothe our wounded spirit with something that licks our ego and brings a comfortable feeling for a while. But it doesn't last.

Our self-generated comforts all wear off in time, and we are left with the same wounded, anxious, depressed person in the mirror. We can't heal ourselves permanently. The wounds, anxiety and despair are too deep, rooted in original sin and the power of evil that is beyond our abilities to control. Only a power greater than ourselves and our devices can heal our souls, quiet our self-doubts, and lift our spirits. This is the power of the Risen Lord that promises peace beyond the grave, instills confidence through faith, and brings hope based upon a love that death could not contain. The resurrection grooms us for a new kind of life, one that finds comfort not in what we can do for ourselves, but in what God can do for us through sharing our talents with each other in the Lord's name. That is what God's love looks like when it grooms us into something beautiful. We discovered a communion of life that uses the circumstances we are in to reveal a deeper dimension, the mystery of grace saving us and ennobling us in the process.

Baxter needs a lick of his tongue to keep him calm and balanced. We need a lick of grace to find peace and our true worth. Let us help each other find the beauty secret we are looking for and the comfort it brings by sharing God's grace in our service to and with each other. We will all feel better that way -- less anxious, more secure, healed and at peace -- without the problem of hairballs.

Easter Meows: Free of Fear

Baxter is a scaredy cat. He hides under the bed when the vacuum cleaner turns on. He is easily startled by any loud noise. When I hold him in my arms and take him out-side on a sunny day, he gets easily spooked and tries to hide his head in the crook of my arm for safety. Anything unusual, unfamiliar or unexpected can raise a fright for him who likes to pose as my ferocious feline. Although he is bulky like a lion and likes to make threatening hisses when it’s safe to do so, under all this bravado, Baxter truly is a pussy cat—the cowardly lion wishing he were more but, when the test comes, failing to find it.

He is so much like us, isn’t he? We pose our courage in words and gestures when we know we can escape if a real test comes. We think of ourselves as strong and resolute in our beliefs and values, until they come into conflict with our self-interest and comfort-able life style. We use back room tactics to criticize others, but back off from directly facing them with our concerns and the reason for them. We take the course of least resis-tance to avoid hassles. It sometimes becomes ―live and let live‖ not out of respect for others, but out of convenience for ourselves. The price of peace becomes our passivity and apathy. We walk away from the problem or difficulty, hoping it won’t be there when we re-turn. We are afraid of what might happen if we deal with each other honestly, directly, and freely. If they won’t do what I say or do or want, where do we go from there? Is the only alternative to give in or force our way?

The Risen Lord speaks a few key messages to His first disciples. The first is "Fear not," and the reason He gives for relinquishing fear is "It is I." A relationship with the Lord Jesus overcomes fear. We are not left on our own to figure out the unknown and the dilemmas it creates. We have the wisdom, the care, and the strength that come from faith, and the support and shared insight that come from the community of disciples to which we belong. We are not alone, but we live bound to God through the mark of baptism and bound to all the baptized through the Spirit that was poured out on us. The Lord Jesus is the hub of the wheel, and attached to Him we are connected to all oth-ers who claim to be His disciples. What’s there to fear with such a united force?

That is why the second message of the Risen Lord is "Peace." We know we are free from fear when we speak and act with a sense of confidence and resolve that is not easily shaken or stubbornly stuck in one way -- my way! That is the case because our confidence is not solely in ourselves. We trust that the power of God is available to us who seek it and that this power is effective through us. This creates a certain detachment from our efforts. We don’t need to control every as-pect of everything in life. We don’t need to be successful all the time. We don’t need to do it only our way. We just need to serve. God’s power is a force for service, and if people are being served with the respect due fellow disciples, then we can relax about how it is done, who does it, or what the final outcome may look like. We work and live in peace.

Poor Baxter doesn’t have the benefit of baptism in the risen life of Christ. He has to make it on his instincts alone. No wonder he is so easily frightened. No need for us to be scaredy cats though. We share discipleship in a community of the baptized. We are not alone. Peace.

Easter Meows: The Leap

Baxter is a senior cat now. At eleven, he has sown his wide oats and is contented with the simple pleasures of cat life — food, sleep, sunshine and a good scratch. I do not know if Baxter has joined AARC (American Association of Retired Cats), but he definitely lives the retired life style. Still, there is one thing from his youthful prime that Baxter continues to practice with poise and aplomb. He still jumps! He still has the old stuff when it comes to leaping with grace and surprise onto a window sill, a table, the bed, even the roof of my car. He springs into place seemingly effortlessly. He glides through the air and lands where he wants, perfectly in balance. How does he do it?

I read that a cat’s skeletal structure isn’t made like ours. In layman’s terms, they are more loosely connected bone to bone so that they can “spring” from a set position and stretch to a new one without looking contorted or squashed. Their bodies have a lot of “give” to them, and that makes their movements look effortless. Even the old boy, Baxter, hasn’t lost this cat magic.

Nor has God. God is older than all of us. In fact, we gave up trying to count God’s age. It’s impossible, so we say instead that God is eternal, without beginning or end. Yet, like cats, God stays spry in His ability to leap and keep His balance in our lives. That is what He showed us in Christ’s resurrection. Death could not hold God down when Jesus was laid in the tomb. He leaped to new and transformed life, and established a new way of balancing the injustices and unfairness of life through the grace of His Holy Spirit. Love evens the scales. Love springs into action when all else seems lost. Love never grows old, and never dies. As Saint Augustine describes God, He is “Love, ever ancient, ever new.” It’s that Love that saves us through the Easter mysteries of death becoming the springboard to new life.

So don’t give up just because you’re older or feeling older through the weight of life’s burdens of sin and heartache. It is never too late to learn how to leap like a cat, when we let our graceful God land in our hearts and change our way of living. We may aim for places we didn’t think we could reach, and balance ourselves on a crossbeam there that we feared would not support us. But no one expected Jesus to rise from the dead after the cross of Calvary killed Him. Faith is a leap into the mystery of life from death, a leap into the arms of a loving God. So let’s not hold onto ourselves too tightly, or we will land hard and off balance when life moves us. Learn from the Creator of cats. We can still jump at any age, if we allow God to keep us loose and balanced through the power of the Risen Lord.

Easter Meows: The Look

You can’t stare a cat down. I have tried it with Baxter, and I never win. He usually gets me to laugh by doing something that distracts me even while he’s holding my gaze. Looking into a cat’s eyes is like looking into the abyss. What is going on behind that mysterious stare? Are myriad ideas running through his head about his owner, the weather, food, other cats, the next prank, or is the stare a blank, disguising a vacuous gray matter void of any thoughts? Cat’s eyes are a mystery. They attract us with their colors and their penetrating gaze. The dilating and shrinking of their pupils intrigues us. They appear at different times in different moods—mournful, happy, eager, bored, pensive, and caring. It’s all in the soft, feline eyes, and the eyes are the window of the soul. We are fascinated by their look because we hope to get a glimpse of what makes them tick.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to look into God’s eyes? What would we see there? Certainly, more mystery than we could ever imagine, and more love than we could ever hope to acknowledge and embrace. But where do we find the eye of God? Easter points the way.

The empty tomb of Christ’s resurrection is the opening to God’s soul. It is the eye we look into to discover who God is for us. Like the eyes of a physical creature, it is a sign of the interior life, a clue to what may be going on inside the mind and heart of its subject. The empty tomb offers no definitive explanation of Christ’s victory over sin and death, but it draws us into this event by raising questions and calming our fears of the darkness we associate with such things. It declares that something happened here unprecedented in human history yet beyond the confines of that history. The eternal God reached into the realm of death and brought forth life that will never die again. He reached into the place where the consequences of human sin left a dead body and healed the effects of sin by raising that body to new life. And the best news of all is that this miracle is not just for the Jesus who was crucified, but through Him, it is for everyone who dies with Christ in baptism. God is the Lord of the living and the dead. God’s Lordship is generous, gracious and loving for us all. Unlike the power of the proud and arrogant, the victory of the Risen Lord is humbly shared with those who share His life. The empty tomb empties the tombs of all who believe in Christ’s power to save. Life is promised for all because one man died for the many.

This is, indeed, a mystery, more perplexing than any bizarre Baxter stare or human look at the unknown. It is the look of Love itself Who created the world and saved it from its own selfishness and limitations. It sees what we can’t see now. It promises what is beyond our ability to grasp. It is communion with God through the portal of what appears most separated and isolated from human contact with another, death. It is Resurrected Life. Nothing can explain it. Nothing can destroy it. But Christian believers throughout the world celebrate it this Easter day as the true heart of God shared with the broken hearts of humanity, making them whole. Alleluia!

Baxter and I wish all our readers a “Happy Easter!”

Lenten Scratches: Fresh Air

Baxter loved the warm days we had a few weeks ago. I would open the windows wide, and he would sit on the sill all excited about the sounds of the birds and the warmth and brightness of the sun. He perked up at any movement he spied from his self-designated observation tower. He was full of life because he surrounded himself with all sorts of living creatures. They made him curious, and he wanted to investigate every sight and sound he encountered. He jumped from window to window, taking it all in and smelling the sweet freshness of nature coming to life again.

What gets us excited about living? Do we think we are too old and settled to expect anything new and different to spark our imaginations? Are the responsibilities we hold each day weighing down our spirits and stifling our creativity? Can God get to us with a call to live life anew in His Spirit? We need to examine our lives in view of where we have positioned the windows. Are they shut all the time? Are the blinds closed to the light? Do we even look out through them to see a bigger world beyond our confines?

Lent is window washing time for us. Take the dust away from our vision, and let the fresh air inside. Now look at what God is doing in our world. Despite the wars and violence in our streets there are signs of compassion when the hungry are fed, the naked clothed and the homeless sheltered. Despite the greed and selfishness of some business and political activities, there are those who want to work together, who are generous in their dealings, and who treat their employees and customers with respect and fairness. Despite the frustrations with cold bureaucracies and insider deals, every system has people who believe that serving others is the first and most important thing we do each day. Look for these heroes in our midst. Thank them for being different, and follow their example. They are the breath of fresh air and warm light that signal the end of the world’s winter and the growth of new life.

We can so easily get discouraged these days by all that we see and hear around us, however, the reasons for hope are there too. Perhaps not where we are accustomed to look, but look again. There are open minds and hearts that seek to serve others and make a better world for us all. For us who believe, these witnesses of hope are signs of the Spirit released by the Risen Lord. As we approach Easter, breathe in that Spirit. Feel its warmth; see its hints of new life; and praise God for His presence and power in our midst. Become a witness and agent of God’s Spirit wherever you live and work, and so bring some freshness to the life you share with others.

Baxter sits on the sill of an open window to take in the freshness of new life. We sit at the entrance of an empty tomb to see things differently. Baxter’s viewpoint passes with the seasons, but ours is meant to last into eternity. Don’t miss the opportunity for some fresh air and new life this Easter.

Lenten Scratches: A Life of Blessings

Baxter has a very positive attitude towards life. He expects good things to come his way. Probably he holds this view because he is a cat. You see, cats have this outlook that life is at their service. You’ve heard, I expect, the old distinction between dogs and cats. Dogs have masters whom they idolize and try to please. Cats have servants whom they allow to take care of them. Being Baxter’s servant, I can attest to my role, and how he absorbs the things that provide him with pleasure and satisfaction. Give him a little catnip, and he is rolling on his back. Brush his back, and he purrs and purrs. Provide a meal, and Baxter dives into the bowl, chomping its contents with gusto. When something good comes his way, Baxter doesn’t hold back. He relishes its goodness, and how it lifts his spirit to enjoy living more.

I found this reaction in sharp contrast to a few comments I have heard recently about the beautiful, warm, early spring weather we have been experiencing. “Don’t worry. We’ll pay for this.” gives voice to the wary and suspicious attitude that has come out with the daffodils. If it’s good, there has to be a catch in it that will ruin it for us. If we like it, we will lose it. Something will happen to take it away. Life is out to make us miserable and defeat us in the end. Don’t trust what looks good and hopeful. It will only prove deceptive, and catch us off guard to dash our hopes. We don’t deserve pleasure and happiness, and in the end, life will exact a toll from every one of us, robbing us of what we cherish and enjoy.

Yes, there are losses, pain and suffering, disappointments and frustrations in the course of a lifetime. We have our share of rainy and cold days. But the question that faces us is what are we made for. Are we dogs or cats in God’s eyes? Is our lot to satisfy a capricious master so that he might throw us a bone once in a while and pet our head in a condescending gesture of divine pleasure? Or has he chosen to be our servant, blessing us despite the hardships and heartaches that come our way, and sharing these to lighten the burden. Is God for us or against us?

Saint Paul eloquently answered that last question in his letter to the Romans. “If God is for us, who can be against us? Is it possible that he who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for the sake of us all will not grant us all things besides?” God is the servant who saves us. God’s service does not demean Him, but ennobles us and shows us what true love looks like. Such love takes on the trials and selfishness of others and redeems them by absorbing the ultimate consequences that such darkness exacts on life. It dies to what could be its own self-serving pleasures to show those who are not sure of life’s source in goodness and grace, that in the end, all will be well. True love is crucified, and on the cross we see that both in the darkness of a frigid winter and the warmth of an early spring, we are blessed “because of Him who has loved us.” No change in the forecast of our lives can take that love away.

So enjoy the warm weather. Relish the good things that come your way. Take heart when the weather or your fortunes grow cold. The divine, crucified love that serves us is true. Cats got it right from God’s point of view in Christ. Soak in life’s blessings, and trust that God’s love finally wins out.

Lenten Scratches: Water Antics

As you know, Baxter has this thing for drinking from the spigot in the bath tub. He sits on the edge of the tub patiently waiting for me to walk by the door, so that he can call me into the bathroom to turn on the spigot for his drink. He places his head under the stream and drinks the water that rolls off of his head onto the tub floor. Of course, this means that the gets quite wet from the whole maneuver, but he obviously thinks it’s worth it. He keeps coming back for more. He doesn’t see a problem. I, on the other hand, have a problem with the aftermath of Baxter’s hydration technique.

I try to wait until he is finished with his slurping up the H2O, so that I can stop him before the big splash. If I’m alert and quick, I can pin him down and dry him off with a towel before he sets off on his merry way. However, if I miss his cue that he’s done with the drink, then I have to deal with the splashes on the floor, the walls, the rugs and anything else in shot of his vigorously shaking head. Sometimes I think he tries to fool me purposely, so that he can get a shot at me. When my back is turned, he leaps out of the tub, shakes and runs to escape my flurry of unpleasant words and the flying towel that follow. He has made it a game. Let’s see who can outsmart whom. Will Baxter be high and dry from the alpha cat’s Turkish towel off, or will I, and my surroundings, be wet and offended by his mischievous antics? At this point, I think the game is tied.

Our God plays with water as well. He separated the sea for the Israelites to escape Egypt. He brought water for the people from the rock in the desert. After the exile, Ezekiel speaks of God’s salvation as life-giving water flowing throughout Israel refreshing the land, and John the Baptist calls the people to repentance through his baptism in the Jordan. Finally, the risen Lord Jesus commissions His followers to baptize all nations “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Water is a common medium for God’s touching our lives and renewing them.

He used water when He first touched us with new life at our baptisms. Through this primal ritual of our Christian life, God gave us all the basic elements of faith—overcoming sin, identifying us as His children, commissioning us as priest, prophet and king to carry on God’s work in the world. Baptismal waters cleanse and give birth, and by recalling our baptisms, they replenish our spirits when we feel dried up and withered by the desert of our godless world today. “Never forget your baptism and its meaning for your life.” This is the message of Lent each year. We want it to wash over us again and again, so that it will soak into us and our way of living. Forgiven as sinners, loved as children, and commissioned as disciples set the landmarks in the Lenten landscape, and a river runs through this promised land like the Jordan river through the holy land. Its source is the waters of our baptisms into Christ’s life.

Don’t try to dry off too quickly from these waters. Too often we forget that we are baptized believers with a dignity and responsibility that is divine by adoption. We act like everyone else — arrogant, competitive, self-centered, self-indulgent, uncaring. We are called to be more. Wake up to who you are and what you can do in God’s name. Splash in the life giving waters where you died with Christ to rise with Him to new life. It’s God’s trick to save you and recreate the world through you. So what if you get a little wet. Just take a cue from Baxter and shake a little water on others to invite them to play along. That’s how the world is converted, not with crusades but with clever ways to invite others to take a drink, get a little wet, and enjoy how God saves us.