Sunday Morning Raptures

On every other day of the week, the morning steals in softly like a whisper. The sky erupts in pastel colors, silently, to surprise the unsuspecting onlooker, and the wind whispers the freshness of a new day. But on Sunday, it is as if the very stones cannot contain themselves with the joy of it for one more day without breaking into song.

Here in the village where I live, Sunday mornings commence with a symphony of church chimes and musical strands from every direction. The melody of "The Church's One Foundation" pours through my open kitchen window on the upper level of the duplex, followed by the ting-tonging bells of St. Paul's United Church of Christ and hymns from Good Shepherd Catholic and St. Mary's neighborhood parishes joining in heralding the Lord's Day.

Today, I let my feet follow the bells to St. Mary’s, walking about four blocks from where I live to the brick church that was built in 1902. I take my time walking through the neighborhood to get there, enjoying the old, unique homes along the way, many of which were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with large porches and beautiful gardens. I walk under a canopy of trees in full autumnal splendor. Anne of Green Gables would have been right at home here, naming everything, or walking in a trance under the trees like me, enchanted, day dreaming. 

One of the reasons I love old houses is the mystery of the stories contained in them. Who all lived there? What was it like back then when things were simpler, when people had to depend on their neighbors? What elements of history, if any, still leave their mark?

I have to cross a bridge that goes over a river that runs through the village. The water down below gurgles over the rocks and glimmers like broken glass in the sun. Inside the walls of the church, it is warm and cozy. Soft light glows through the stained glass windows, while the corners of the church are still in shadow.

The old priest, who has to sit down often, has a surprisingly rigorous voice and the fervor of a newly ordained priest saying his first Mass. 

“There is an ugly, ugly word that the world doesn’t want you to say because the world doesn’t want to admit it exists," he bellows after the opening prayer. "That word is SIN. They want you to think we all just go straight to heaven when we die. The world would think you are crazy for coming to celebrate the Eucharist and beginning by confessing your sins. But we are REALISTS. We know that we sin and we ask for God’s mercy...”

During his sermon, he sits up front, speaking to us from his chair, like a grandpa sharing wisdom with his family members gathered around. He says, “I don’t know when all this bull started – thinking we don’t NEED God.” He said, “People are full of themselves.” A little girl going up to him one day and saying, “I’m a princess!” and he responded, “No, you’re not. You’re a child of God.”

This old realist priest reminded me of what writers are all about. If we write for any purpose at all, it is to illumine truth. To strip off pretenses, labels and stereotypes, and find the living, beating, bloody heart beneath it all.

"'I want to write one true sentence,' he said. 'If I can write one sentence, simple and true, every day, I’ll be satisfied.'” (Hemingway in The Paris Wife, p. 81)

This week, I finished reading a book that wrestles with this realism, The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. The novel is about Hadley Richardson and her marriage to Ernest Hemingway during his first years striving to become a literary figure. It took me two days and a couple of nights to fly through the book, my heart cresting and breaking over the waves until the final page, when I cried my eyes out. 

We want to pretend like sin doesn’t exist, like it isn’t hurting our souls or our hearts or the people we love. Yet at some point, that sin, which seems so glamorous and luring to begin with, becomes the sword. It hacks away at our relationships and turns everything sour, and in its reflection we see the heartbreaking truth about ourselves… 

 "He was quiet for a moment and I could hear static coming through the line, a low cackle that seemed to stand for every sharp thing that had come between us. 'No,' he finally said, his voice very soft and sober. 'That’s not it at all. I ruined it.'" (The Paris Wife, p. 312)

We totter on the brink of grace and despair, only these two choices, because in the end, there is only life or death to choose from. Hemingway would have said the same thing, while enthusiastically watching the bullfighting in Pamplona, “This is what it’s all about. Life or death.”

Too serious a subject for a bright and beautiful Sunday? Yet living through the changing seasons in the Midwest, nothing could be more on my mind. I'm basking in each one of these warm days of fall and feasting my eyes on the green grass and colored leaves, before all of this richness dries up, and Wisconsin has to endure another long winter. Today might be all we've got.

Bringing Home Ginger

The day came that I've been wishing for and anticipating for a loooong time! I brought home a cat on Thursday night. My last blog post recounted how good things can come out of tragic events, and Ginger was one of those blessings that came to me out of an unfortunate incident. She was rescued from a house fire.

I first met her at the ballroom dance studio and dubbed her “Ginger Rogers” ever since. Before I saw her, I heard her little meow and saw one of the dancers suddenly prostrate himself on the floor to talk to her from across the room. I walked around the corner to meet a sweet-looking face and questioning eyes looking up at me. It was instant love. From that moment, my heart expanded and expanded and expanded! And when I heard her story, I thought, yes, Ginger! I’ll take you home.

It was one week before this that I had witnessed a house fire happen in my own neighborhood and been moved by it, so it seemed the event almost prompted my empathy more. Ginger’s owner had to move into low-income housing where pets aren’t allowed. That night I could hardly sleep - I was so excited with the possibility of adopting her.

When I went to Mass the next morning, the first reading recalled the infant Moses being found and drawn out of the water and adopted: 

Now a certain man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, who conceived and bore a son. Seeing that who was a goodly child, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took a papyrus basket, daubed it with bitumen and pitch, and putting the child in it, placed it among the reeds on the river bank. His sister stationed herself at a distance to find out what would happen to him.

Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the river to bathe, while her maids walked along the river bank. Noticing the basket among the reeds, she sent her handmaid to fetch it. On opening it, she looked and lo, there was a baby boy, crying! She was moved with pity for him and said, “It is one of the Hebrew’s children.” Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter,” Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” “Yes, do so,” she answered. So the maiden went and called the child’s own mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will repay you.” The woman therefore took the child and nursed it. When the child grew, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her son and called him Moses; for she said, “I drew him out of the water.”  

(Ex. 2:1-10).

I heard this and felt it was a sign. This cat, who showed up so unexpectedly, was like baby Moses in the basket, a gift from God waiting for me to reach out and embrace. I thought of how Moses grew up to bring deliverance to his own people from out under the Egyptians' rule and slavery, and how this cat would deliver me, too, from the loneliness I was experiencing. God provided a miracle in a basket with Moses, but he also provided along with it the resources Pharaoh’s daughter needed to sustain him (his mother as nurse). Ginger came home to me accompanied by free food, a pet carrier, litter box, litter genie, bed, cat toys and more.

My dance instructor who has five other cats of her own has been keeping her for the past month. She is so relieved to have me take her and says all Ginger wants is someone to bond with and love, and she needs a place where she can be the “only cat princess” in the house. “She is so sweet and loving. I just think she’s perfect for you.”

Episode Two: A Talking Cat

Ginger and I had an interesting first night together with both of us taking “cat naps” on and off all night. She had so many new smells and sounds to get used to, and I had to get used to sleeping with another breathing creature in bed. She perked her ears at every outdoor noise coming in with the breeze through the open window. Occasionally, she’d jump down from the bed and go exploring in the dark; then return and meow, meow, meow at me to tell me all about it. I said, “Okay, Ginger. You’re fine, Ginger” and scratched her head. Then she’d spring up onto the bed beside me, comforted to have found me again, and after a few more mellow meows, stretch herself out and start purring, the sound of it like a miniscule motorcycle engine. And we’d both sleep for a while, until the next time she bounced back down and came back again – each time like a joyful reunion.

Then today she gave me quite a scare. This little talker got so silent for so long, hiding behind the couch, that suddenly I wondered where she was. I spent half an hour calling her name and searching high and low in every possible hiding place in this house. But cats are the masters at hide-and-seek. Turns out she had found a way to crawl inside the sofa and was quietly purring from somewhere deep within the cushions where I couldn’t reach her! I finally coaxed her out with some food, so relieved that game was over. 

I'm sure we will have many more adventures, this little dancing princess and I. But both of us couldn't be happier!