The Carrier

My nickname for my orange boy cat is Macho. So, it’s simultaneously sad and funny when he screams like a woman. Why was he screaming? Well, all I did was put him inside the pet carrier so he could get his annual shots at the vet this morning. As usual, this freaked him out. I think Macho woke up at least one of my neighbors with his high-pitched screeches.

I tried to make the car ride as enjoyable as possible. I even played “Message in a Bottle” on my stereo as a humorous soundtrack to Macho’s melodramatic meowing. I tried to be as playful with him as possible. “You like it when Mama drives fast?” I asked as I zoomed onto the highway with The Police on my stereo. I told Macho, “I love you!” He replied, “MEOW!!!” He calmed down a tiny bit after we arrived at the vet’s office and I pried him out of the carrier. He was literally trembling and snuggled next to my arm, bosom, and tummy during the examination and injections. This was a very scary process for him. See the panicked look on his face in the photo above? (I snapped it after I brought him back home).

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

In a previous blog post (on 8/22/10), I briefly mentioned what happened when my girl cat, nickname: Choochie, had to live in the pet carrier while she healed from her spay surgery several years ago. (Last night and this morning, she was hanging out in the pet carrier while Macho was avoiding it.) She became obsessed with her stitches and licked/scraped them so much that she gave herself an infection. I kept a close watch on her during her healing process, and I love how the two of us bonded during that time. (Perhaps you’ve seen Facebook pictures of her perching on my shoulder. Aw, I love my Choochie!)

Lately, I’ve been going through a very intense emotional healing process with God. He’s been slicing me open, cleaning out the dirt, squeezing out the infectious puss, and washing it all out with hydrogen peroxide, so to speak. I wonder if the healing process is even more painful than the initial wounding! It’s a very scary process for me. I don’t want God my Father to pick me up, while I’m kicking and screaming, and stuff me into my carrier and drag me to the spiritual doctor’s office. It’s scary to be examined, poked, and prodded. But when I’m trembling, I can nestle close to my Father and bury my freaked-out head in His arm, bosom, and tummy. He can calm me down and tell me everything is going to be OK. He can assure me that it’s all going to be over soon and that He’ll be there with me the entire time.

To clarify, I don’t want this scary process... yet I want it. Make sense? :) I don’t want to remember terrible memories or make amends where I need to or face fears or smell the stench of an old infection. But I want to get cleaned out as much as possible, and I want to be all healed up, freed up, brand-new, ready to fly and soar above whatever’s coming up next. I want to be as close to my Father as possible. I’m glad that He wants to be close to me, I’m glad that He’s patient with me, and I’m glad that He cares enough about me to take the time to heal me.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go check on Macho. Sometimes he gets feverish after his shots, but he’ll be back to normal in about 24 hours or so. At least the womanish screams are only a memory now. MEOW!!!

The Nest

Disclaimer: In this post, I may ramble a little bit, I may be weirdly metaphorical, and/or I may be in your face and stomping on your toes. Or I may just confuse you. I may say stuff that will make you go, “Well, duh,” because it’s something you’re already familiar with, but I’m articulating something that I’m experiencing for the first time or that’s clicked for me at a deeper level. Please humor me. I'm a writer. If the light bulb turns on for me, I want to communicate it in such a way that it will hopefully help other people see the light, too. :o) Maybe my cats can help me clean up after myself later. Phew.

“Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young -- a place near Your altar, O Lord Almighty, my King and my God.” (Psalm 84:3)

I’ve been thinking about “nests” and “feeding” lately, especially with my new church responsibilities and, well, there’s a nifty little visual aid outside my apartment now. Meet mama and daddy swallow.

Daddy swallow is the rugged one on the right who’s perching with one claw on a screw/nail above my kitchen window. Mama swallow slept in the nest until the eggs hatched and the baby swallows grew too big for her to stay in the nest. As you can see...

...they can be demanding little cheepers. At least, I hope the photo quality enables you to see how adorable they are with their little beaks wide open at even the slightest hint of mama swallow incoming with breakfast.

It’s really something how they instinctively open their mouths: “Aaaah! Incoming food!” I even saw a yellowjacket fly by the nest once, and the baby birds did the same thing: “Aaaah! Incoming food! I don’t know if it will sting my esophagus on the way down or if it’s healthy for me at all, but I’m hungry, and this food is buzzing straight at me!”

In John 21, Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep. In a nutshell, that’s basically what church leaders do for people. One of the worship pastors at my church basically said once that you have to be careful what you feed yourself, because that’s what you’ll feed your little ones. What if they’re thirsty? He said you don’t want to give them a drink of toilet water. No way. You need to give them clear, clean water.

Sometimes it helps to take a closer look at the water you’re drinking and the vessel you’re drinking from, literally and metaphorically. The other day, I wondered why my purified drinking water left a weird taste in my mouth. I took the lid off my thermos and saw that there was a paper towel soaking at the bottom. (gag)

Recently, I went through some of my old journal entries (from 1997-2000). Once the shock wore off from reading and remembering the type of crap that I used to scream at God, I read some of the stuff that one or two of my “mamas” in the Lord used to feed me. Now that I'm out of their “nests,” I can see that I wasn’t always fed good things. I believe that they loved me, their intentions were good, and they fed and cared for me the best way they knew how. But I didn’t have to swallow everything they tried to feed me. In my journal entries (for privacy’s sake, I won’t share specifics on this forum), I could see some good mixed in with the chaos. I could tell that God was peacefully feeding me Himself in the midst of the crazily confused environment that I lived in. Maybe there was a yellowjacket nest right next to mama’s nest, and in my demanding hunger, I devoured the harmful insect along with the nourishing worm.

OK, so I’m not a scientist -- maybe baby swallows really are supposed to eat yellowjackets. My point is that if the food or water is bad, I’m learning to spit it out. If I have my own swallows or sheep to feed, I have to be careful what I consume. I have to be careful to provide the best food and water that I can to whoever I’m responsible for feeding. Another thing I’m learning is that after eating bad food, well, I can expect a bad poop.

That’s another thing about nests and birds -- so much poop to clean up! (I’ve heard that it’s the same way with human children and that it involves diapers or something.) I think that’s part of life. When it’s time to eat, you eat, and when it’s time to poop, you poop. As you grow, hopefully you learn to eat better food that helps you grow healthy and strong. Hopefully, you avoid bad food. Hopefully, you’re in a nest where mama and daddy swallow are teaching you how to be a swallow who will leave the nest someday and go build your own nest and have your own baby swallows. Hopefully, mama and daddy swallow are teaching you how to fly.

The baby swallows are growing so fast! I think it’s only been two or three weeks since they’ve hatched, and they’re already stretching their wings and tumbling out of the nest. (I saw one on the ground the other day. It looked like daddy swallow was supervising and giving him a pep talk.) I think they’ll all fly away pretty soon. (sniff) Also, I did snap a miraculous swallow-pooping photo, but I’ll spare your eyes, reader. Incoming!