I have a passionate interest in looking at how God works in an individual’s life. Although I believe this activity is ongoing in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary experiences in our lives, it often seems most apparent in the intersection of fate and destiny. By fate, I mean the hand of cards we’ve been dealt — our genetics, our biological makeup, the family into which we were born, a cultural context, a historical period — to a considerable degree, we’re defined by these realities. And yet, at the same time, destiny, your soul’s calling, is knocking at the door, offering, inviting the individual to what he or she is capable of becoming or actualizing.
And at the crossroads of Fate and Destiny is the individual who has to make choices, most of the time without understanding entirely (if at all!) what is going on.
So in that spirit, I offer you this lighthearted example of every individual’s story:
Mike-y, the Caverns Cat
If there is anything I can say about myself, it is that I was particularly blessed with a good set of vocal cords. In fact, one of the first memories I have is that of screeching at the top of my very small lungs at the indignity and injustice of having been dumped in a drainage ditch. Obviously my first people were not compassionate or responsible sorts. I was sick to boot, and truly did not know what was going to become of me.
There I was in the ditch, a tiny scrap of yellow fur, howling away, feeling perfectly sorry for myself, when I looked up and saw a woman with kind eyes (and yellow-red fur just the color of mine!) looking down at me. She murmured some soft, soothing things and lifted me right out of that ditch and cuddled me to her chest. Cold and wet and miserable as I was, that felt so good that I commenced to purr as loud as I could. She seemed startled at the magnitude of my purr-ability but fortunately did not drop me.
However, after some warm milk, and a soft towel to sleep on, I awakened to find myself in what I later learned was that most dreaded of places, a Vet’s office— slightly better than a drainage ditch, but not much. He must have said I was very sick, because I spent the next part of my life in the sad isolation of a basement “hospital.” The only bright spot in this sorry experience was all the tender, loving care I got from my new people.
When I finally got better enough to get out of the hospital, I found that I was not the only cat around. In fact, the farm my people lived on was fairly crawling with them, and they did not particularly like me. But with all I’d been through, this was a small thing, and I explored the farm to my heart’s content, and had LOTSA adventures. After a few months, one of the other farm cats brought home six newborns, and declared in no uncertain terms that she was tired of being a mother. Since I well-remembered my own abandonment, I felt the least I could do was check on them occasionally. Well, would you believe it?? Other than nursing them (obviously not something within my abilities), she left me with the entire responsibility for those little suckers, and I became their surrogate mother. Now, six kittens following me around, having to be cleaned and taught to be tidy, helping them to be farm-street-smart, letting them play leap-frog with my tail, and getting them outa scrapes, was tough on an adolescent male cat like myself. But I’ll have to admit I grew to like it, and was sad when one by one they left to seek their fortune.
One farm cat, a huge, untidy, quarrelsome creature named Fluffy (HA), took a particular dislike to me, and dealt me a grievous blow, which almost ended my life. It took 18 stitches to close up my backside, and it was back to the hospital again. Good grief.
After a few years of this type life, three things resulted in a major Life Change for me. The first thing was that a family of mockingbirds (nasty, sneaky, and very flighty critters) swore a vendetta against me, all because I merely climbed a tree to have a peek inside their nest. Now I ask you — was that fair?? I tell you, I got mighty tired of their swooping and swearing at me all the time, and I even heard they had put a contract out on me.
The second thing was that I was real tired of Fluffy and his ilk. As if looking out for mockingbirds wasn’t bad enough, Fluffy and his cohorts were always lurking around the food bowls, looking for trouble. I began to be very sorry for myself.
And the third thing was that on one of my nightly escapades, I scrambled across a river (on a log, I think), and couldn’t find my way back to my farm! I wandered around for awhile, and finally climbed a hill and found a whole bunch of stone buildings nestled at the foot of the mountain (the one I’d often looked at from the front porch of my farm). I hollered awhile, since by then I was getting very hungry (remember, hollering is one of my gifts), and finally people came to check me out. I told them my sad tale, and they were appropriately sympathetic. They treated me very kindly, and the Eats were good. I decided to stay, little knowing how the people at my farm would mourn my loss. (I can’t say the same for the mockingbirds and Fluffy.)
I soon learned that this place which I stumbled into was a place where lots of people came to look through caves, a place called Endless Caverns. Now I did not know what a “cave” or “caverns” were, but upon investigation, I discovered it was a large hole deep in the ground with fascinating tunnels to explore, and magnificent shapes and colors and dripping water and streams. Wow! (I even met a Rock Troll named Eddie there, and exchanged many wonderful tales with him — he was a fine fella, but that’s another story.) But the best part of all was all the people who would come to see the caverns! I loved them all, and they loved me back. Often on sunny days, I would be on the warm blacktop of the parking area to greet folks as they came in, or to get my belly scratched as they left. Sometimes the children would want to take me home with them, but I was always FIRM about staying near my caverns and my new people.
One day as I was snoozing on a side porch swing, I heard a familiar voice — one of my people from the farm! He called me by my real name, Mike-y, and I was pleased to see him again. Soon after that he came back again with the woman from the farm who always talked to me with a special voice, and I was very pleased to see her. We had a reunion complete with tears, and I was touched to know how fond of me they were.
They were so fond of me, in fact, that they gave me the choice about whether I wanted to remain at the caverns or return to the farm. With memories of deranged birds and Fluffy-cats, the choice was not hard. I became The Endless Caverns Cat, and if I do say so myself, grew to be rather famous. I even had a book written about me! The people from the farm came to visit me often, so I had the best of both worlds.
I grew to love the gang of people at Endless Caverns, too. Sometimes I went on cave tours, sometimes I sat on the counter at the gift-shop and watched people, and sometimes (when the noise and commotion got to be too much), I went to my special roost, high in the rafters of the front porch.
One day not so long ago, I had the urge to travel across another river, and this time I ended up in wonderful green fields. And do you know what?! Fluffy was already there, and he was a heck of a lot nicer! I haven’t seen those mockingbirds yet, but you never know.
I miss my farm people and my caverns people, but do you know, I think they’d be glad that I’m here.
So I’m telling them.