What a Stray Cat Taught Me about Faith

I spent more than the first half a century of my life as a cat hater. I had no use for them. I’m a committed dog lover. I could never figure out why anyone would want to have a cat as a pet. During the peak of the housing defaults, many people in our neighborhood left their cats behind. It didn’t surprise me they would do this, because I couldn’t imagine anyone liking cats.

Our daughter Kate decided she’d use her own money (because I wouldn’t waste mine) to buy a bed, and supply cat food for those cats left behind. Skitty was one of the first cats to take Kate take up on her offer of food and shelter. Kate named her Skitty because for the first year she would get close but not allow anyone to touch her. Eventually she learned to accept affection from Kate. Now Kate can pick her up, pet her, or call her from anywhere, and she will come running to Kate.

My relationship to Skitty was weird from the start. For the first year, I noticed she was willing to rub herself on the box-wood. In fact she preferred to do this rather than accept affection from Kate. During phase I simply thought of her in the same way I thought of any cat, which was to say I thought Skitty was dumb cat. It wasn’t personal, my Skitty confirmed my belief that every cat was a dumb cat.

Over the course of the next 2 years, Skitty and I developed a strange relationship. Eventually, I took to feeding her. I discovered while she’d accept food from my hand, she’d never let me pet her. This confirmed my bias toward cats and even though I fed her, I still though Skitty was as I thought all cats are…..dumb.

Even though Skitty wanted nothing to do with me, she began doing something very strange. When I would take my dog for a walk around the block, she’d follow us the entire way. Sometimes staying so close, I have my dog sit, and I’d stop the walk just to sit down and take the time to feed both Skitty and my dog.  Skitty would follow us on a ½ mile walk any time she was around to see us begin our walk.

People who saw us walking together were simply amazed that a dog and cat would walk together. They assumed I had a close relationship with this cat who followed me and the dog around the block as if we were all best friends. They were always amazed to learn that Skitty who would come to me, put her paws on my pants and reach for food, would high tail it in the opposite direction if reached down to rub her.

Skitty and I have known each other for 3 years now. I can call her, and if she’s in earshot she’ll come running to me at the sound of my voice calling out “Skitty, Skitty, Skitty”. She’ll visit me in my garage without an invitation. She continues to walk around the block with us when my wife, dog and I go for a walk.

 On very rare occasions she allows me to pet her. I’ve learned never to assume that means we’ve become friends. In the next hour or on the next day she’ll run away at the site of my hand coming toward her. She hasn’t changed that much in the last 3 years, but I have. I no longer think of Skitty as a dumb cat. She’s become a loyal friend, who comes to me when I call, and continues to join us on walks around the block. A few days in every month she’ll allow me to spend time rubbing her and enjoying my touch. It never lasts. Skitty always returns to being skittish in my company.  Kate gave her an appropriate name.

You may wonder what I could possibly learn about my faith from Skitty. I learned I’m a lot like Skitty. I learned there is a lot of Skitty in me. Skitty will not permit me to offer my best to her on a regular basis. Most of the time, she continues to choose inanimate objects to rub herself on, even when sitting close by and long to pet her. On those rare moments she’ll choose my hand or my leg to rub on. More often and not I’ll sit close by hoping she’ll choose me over the box-wood, but that rarely ever happens.

I’m sad to admit this but my relationship with Skitty often resembles my relationship with the Lord. In times of crisis, I’m like Skitty, I cry out to the Lord, I want and seek out His intimate presence and comfort. I’m not alone in this propensity. In fact the entire Old Testament is filled this awful pattern. God reaches out and does something miraculous in the lives of the Jewish people and nation. For a short time they respond with a grateful heart. As time goes on they drift away.

This isn’t limited issue isn’t limited to Old Testament times and the Jewish people. A hymn was written about this very issue. The title is Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing. The words “Prone to wonder Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love, describes our doing to the Lord what Skitty does to me.

On those days I sit beside  Skitty longing for her to make the right choice and accept my affection. Most of the time it’s rejected. Skitty will accept some good from me, but keeps herself away from experiencing the best. Our Lord longs for us to draw close every day, and if we do, we will receive His best. If we remain like Skitty, we will miss God’s best blessings for our lives.

Jesus provides those us who are prone to wonder, the parable of the lost sheep. With this story, He makes it clear no matter how long or how far we’ve been prone to wonder, He will welcome us back with open arms. If we allow the Skitty in us to pull away in those moments, we’ll live our lives on the periphery of God’s blessings. If we accept the embrace the creator of the universe always and without fail welcomes us into His open arms.

                                                     What a Cat Taught Me about Faith

I spent more the first half a century of my life as a cat hater. I had no use for them. I’m a committed dog lover. I could never figure out why anyone would want to have a cat as a pet. During the peak of the housing defaults, many people in our neighborhood left their cats behind. It didn’t surprise me they would do this, because I couldn’t imagine anyone liking cats.

Our daughter Kate decided she’d use her own money (because I wouldn’t waste mine) and buy a bed, and supply cat food to those cats left behind. Skitty was one of the first cats to take Kate take up on her offer of food and shelter. Kate named her Skitty because for the first year she would get close but not allow anyone to touch her. Eventually she learned to accept affection from Kate. Now Kate can pick her up, pet her, or call her from anywhere, and she will come running to Kate.

My relationship to Skitty is weird. For the first year, I noticed she was willing to rub herself on the box-wood. In fact she preferred to do this rather than accept affection from Kate. During phase I simply thought of her in the same way I thought of any cat, which was to say I thought Skitty was dumb cat. It wasn’t personal, I thought that way about every cat.

Over the course of the next 2 years, Skitty and I developed a strange relationship. Eventually, I took to feeding her. I discovered  she’d accept food from my hand, but she’d never let me pet her. This confirmed my bias toward cats and even though I fed her, I still though Skitty was as I though all cats are…..dumb.

Even though Skitty wanted nothing to do with me, she began doing something very strange. When I would take my dog for a walk around the block, she’d follow us the entire way. Sometimes staying so close, I have my dog sit, and I’d stop the walk just to sit down and take the time to feed both Skitty and my dog.  Skitty would follow us on a ½ mile walk any time she was around to see us begin our walk.

People who saw us walking together were simply amazed that a dog and cat would walk together. They assumed I had a close relationship with this cat who followed me and the dog around the block as if we were all best friends. They were always amazed to learn that Skitty who would come to me, put her paws on my pants and reach for food, would high tail it in the opposite direction if reached down to rub her.

Skitty and I have known each other for 3 years now. I can call her, and if she’s in earshot she’ll come running to me at the sound of my voice calling out “Skitty, Skitty, Skitty”. She’ll visit me in my garage without an invitation. She continues to walk around the block with us when my wife, dog and I go for a walk.

 On very rare occasions she allows me to pet her. I’ve learned never to assume that means we’ve become friends. In the next hour or on the next day she’ll run away at the site of my hand coming toward her. She hasn’t changed that much in the last 3 years, but I have. I no longer think of Skitty as a dumb cat. She’s become a loyal friend, who comes to me when I call, and continues to join us on walks around the block. A few days in every month she’ll allow me to spend time rubbing her and enjoying my touch. It never lasts. Skitty always returns to being skittish in my company.  Kate gave her an appropriate name.

You may wonder what I could possibly learn about my faith from Skitty. I learned I’m a lot like Skitty. I learned there is a lot of Skitty in me. Skitty will not permit me to offer my best to her on a regular basis. Most of the time, she continues to choose inanimate objects to rub herself on, even when sitting close by and long to pet her. On those rare moments she’ll choose my hand or my leg to rub on. More often and not I’ll sit close by hoping she’ll choose me over the box-wood, but that rarely ever happens.

I’m sad to admit this but my relationship with Skitty often resembles my relationship with the Lord. In times of crisis, I’m like Skitty, I cry out to the Lord, I want and seek out His intimate presence and comfort. I’m not alone in this propensity. In fact the entire Old Testament is filled this awful pattern. God reaches out and does something miraculous in the lives of the Jewish people and nation. For a short time they respond with a grateful heart. As time goes on they drift away.

This isn’t limited issue isn’t limited to Old Testament times and the Jewish people. A hymn was written about this very issue. The title is Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing. The words “Prone to wonder Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love, describes our doing to the Lord what Skitty does to me.

On those days I sit a long for Skitty to make the right choice and accept my affection. Most of the time it’s rejected. Skitty will accept some good from me, but keeps herself away from experiencing the best. Our Lord longs for us to draw close every day, and if we do, we will receive His best. If we remain like Skitty, we will miss God’s best blessings for our lives.

Jesus provides those us who are prone to wonder, the parable of the lost sheep. With this story, He makes it clear no matter how long or how far we’ve been prone to wonder, He will welcome us back with open arms. If we allow the Skitty in us to pull away in those moments, we’ll live our lives on the periphery of God’s blessings. If we accept the embrace the creator of the universe always and without fail welcomes us into His open arms.

I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where's Yours? Is Published

After 2 years of writing, our book I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where’s Yours is finally published and available in hard cover, soft cover, and with low priced E-book as well. Getting off track, I have a gripe with e-books. I can’t help but wonder why some titles remain so expensive in e-book format. As the author, I had the opportunity to set my e-book price. The soft cover edition retails at $19.95 but I set the e-book price down to $2.99. That price seems both fair and reasonable. In my opinion, E-books should cost much less than paper- back editions and I’m glad I control over the price of my e-book. That was a detour, now I’ll get back the point of this piece.

Even though my book went through two professional edits, and my wife and I read it over many times, our published book contains some errors, as the majority of my writing does. In a quest for perfection, it’s easy to get so discouraged you won’t begin a project, or you’ll quit in the middle of a project you started. I’m all too familiar with the quest for perfection.

 I have a tendency to leave out words in sentences. When I proof read, I fill in the missing words in my head, so I don’t see the error on the computer screen or hear it in my head as I read. Therefore it’s inevitable everything I write will contain multiple errors.

My editor told me, I Left My Prostate in San Francisco had more than 5,000 corrections. This averages to out to 19 corrections per page. I shutter to think about how many additional errors I had that were eliminated by spell and grammar check. If I included those errors, it’s likely before any corrections were made, I had some type of error every 5 words. That’s a pitiful statistic. Even with spell and grammar check my error rate was prior to editing was 1 error per 13 words.

Given my propensity for errors, one might easily conclude that I should stay far away from blogging or writing book.  Many people look at what they do poorly and stay far away from those areas. In matters of faith, deciding to avoid something based on our abilities or disabilities is the wrong thing to do. My favorite biblical example of this comes from the life of Moses.

God had a plan a task and a mission He wanted to accomplish through Moses.  He wanted Moses to go back to Egypt with a message from Pharaoh. The message wasn’t complicated or difficult to remember. The message was so short, even I could remember this message:
Ex 5:1
Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.'

 Moses did was most of us do. Moses performed an assessment of this strengths and weaknesses. After his evaluation he said this to the Lord in  Ex 4:10
"O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue." He went on to advise God to send someone else!

How often have we passed up an opportunity because we disqualified ourselves from the challenge? More than once I became so discouraged with my propensity for errors, I wanted to quit writing I Left My Prostate in San Francisco-Where’s Yours? Like Moses I asked God: Are You sure You chose the right person to do this? What will I do other than to produce a mistake filled book? Those questions came from the place of discouragement.

Better, wiser, and healthier questions come from the place of discernment. Discernment recognizes the problem and looks for solutions. I didn’t want to pay thousands of dollars to an editor, but I had to if I wanted to produce a book that wasn’t filled with errors. In the process I learned that editors miss mistakes as well. Our book went through 2 rounds of professional editing. After that, my wife found more than 30 errors that were missed. Once the book was published we found a few errors both the editors and my wife missed. Oh well. If perfection were standard our book would not see the light of day.

The Bible was written to teach us about God, ourselves, our relationships, and most importantly our purpose in life.
God’s said this to Moses: Ex 4:11-12
Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?  Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.

That message wasn’t just for Moses. Those words are for us today. I needed God’s assurance as I wrote the book. Now that the book is finished I need this reassurance even more.  Finishing a book is the first step in the process of making a book successful. The next task is marketing. Marketing involves public speaking and dealing with the media. I’m blessed not only with the propensity for errors in writing, but also with speaking.

 An error in High School and the public humiliation that followed shaped my opinion of my self and my abilities for decades.

In a Social Studies class in the 7th grade the teacher asked: What right was protected by the First Amendment? I raised my hand and was called upon. I meant to say “Freedom of Speech” what came out of my mouth was “Speedum of Freech”  Forty seven years later, I can still  hear the laughter echo in my mind. I call that experience a shame anchor. Everyone has them. They are painful memories that shape who you are, and what you will and won’t do in order to avoid that familiar and painful sense of shame.

I have a choice of who and what I’m willing to believe. I can base my life and my life choices on my shame anchors, or I can base of my life and choices based on God’s promises.  God has promised He will help me know what to say and how to say it. I believe that. Does that guarantee I won’t mistake either in writing or speaking. Absolutely not! I will make plenty of mistakes. I’ve probably made some in this piece. God’s grace cover’s my mistakes, so I can laugh about them. If other people laugh at my mistakes, that’s Ok by me. We will all enjoy a good laugh together. It’s laugh without shame, it’s a laugh about our imperfections. The truth is our imperfections and mistakes can be quite funny!

The fact that I’ve published a book, blog, and I’m now engaged in marketing and public speaking I hope encourages anyone reading this to become all that God wants them to be, rather than be controlled by your imperfections, mistakes and shame anchors.

Transformations

 This weekend I joined the Alliance of Independent Authors. I was accepted into this association because I’m in the process of becoming a published author.  That's a transformation my wife & I worked to achieve for years. It's a transformation I'll be proud to attain. There are other transformations that I haven't worked for, yet taken years to achieve.

 In my wallet I currently posses a senior citizen discount card to a local restaurant. Somewhere along the line, I missed middle age. From my perspective I went from being a young married person to a senior citizen in the course of no more than a week. I often stare in the mirror wondering how I transformed from young married status to senior citizen status so quickly.

 I’ve developed a theory about this. When you are young, times moves oh so slowly. Waiting a year from the time I got my permit to the time I received my drivers license, felt like an eternity. Now decades move that quickly. So I’ve come to the conclusion that time actually speeds up the older you get. I can’t prove this scientifically, but if you ask Senior Citizens if time moves quickly you’ll get a much different than asking the same question to a teenager.

 Transformations occur over the course of time. Some are sought after, like getting a driver’s license or publishing a book. Some just happen over the course of time, like becoming a Senior Citizen.

 I have a have a hands down favorite transformation. It didn’t require any work on my part at all. One of the amazing aspects of this transformation is it’s available to anyone who asks. Once you receive it, it’s yours forever. Death cannot take away or defeat this transformation. The way to receive it is found in:
 2 Cor 5:17
 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

 I’ve experienced this transformation. Transforming into a new creation a Christ is by far the best and most valuable transformation available this side of heaven. If you have not experienced this transformation, your missing out on the best transformation that life has to offer.

 I spent decades of my life in disbelief. Now as I reflect back on every transformation I’ve experienced I’m most grateful to be a new creation in Christ. If you’ve not made that transformation, think about, pray about it, read the New Testament, seek out friends and family who’ve experienced this transformation, and ask them about it. Then you can make an informed decision whether or not you wish to become a new creation in Christ. It is by far the best and most important decision I’ve made in my lifetime. I believe that today, and I’ll believe that throughout eternity