Farewell to Toffee

A month ago we had to have our cat Toffee ‘put to sleep’.

Before you think ‘aaah, what a shame’ I have to be honest and say that there was some sense of relief.

She was hard to love.

Toffee had come to us ‘second-hand’ – but not ‘pre-loved’.

She carried the name ‘Viper’ and, on the day when the

New Testament reading happened to be about Saul/Paul’s Damascus Rd experience, we optimistically re-named her Toffee to reflect both her dark tabby markings and the hoped-for sweetness of personality! But that was not to be.

We did our best to love her:

we appreciated her  penchant for high places and vertical movement: she loved open drawers, the tops of doors, the thinnest branches on our big trees, the top peak of our two-storey roof, the highest ladder even when it was already precariously occupied by a certain fellow in his early 70’s who should have paid for scaffolding while he painted the gable;

we built a little ladder for her in the family room so she could reach the highest bookshelf and settle into her special sheepskin-lined basket ... occasionally;

we offered her special food which she ignored, favouring one variety of biscats day after day;

we protected her from angry mynah birds who screeched and swooped at her when she ran the gauntlet from the house to the garden and back;

we tried to keep our/her house free from other cats who raised her stress levels by coming inside, eating her food, even coming upstairs as if they owned the place;

we tried to ignore the flattened ears,  the competition for every seat in the house that I chose to occupy, the thrashing tail, the sudden sinking of teeth into tender skin, the scratches, the growling and the look that could kill.

When we got back from our walk that Sunday afternoon four weeks ago, we found her upstairs on her master’s chair: she could not weight bear and horrible yowls accompanied every movement. Off we went to the vet : she must have been hit by a car because oneback leg was badly broken, she was in pain and treatment dollars were heading to four figures ... and so, with a mixture of guilt and resignation we made the choice to free her – and ourselves.

When she and I were alone while the paperwork was done and the deadly drug prepared, there was a moment of pure peace, as if she knew she didn’t have to fight anyone anymore.

No longer risking tooth or claw, I gave her a little farewell kiss and sent her home.

Loving when you get little in return is not easy.

But God does it all the time.

a day to remember

Twenty years ago, on 15th October 1994, I was ordained priest by Bishop David Moxon on the Feast Day of St Teresa of Avila at St Peter's Cathedral in Hamilton. 

I could not have imagined then the adventures which lay ahead: almost immediately came the opportunity to spend a year with my family in Canterbury, Kent studying for an MA in Applied Theology; then came the end of nearly a decade of ecumenical chaplaincy at Taranaki Polytechnic [now WITT]; the beginning of spiritual direction and ministry supervision practice; the responsibility of co-ordinating the Spiritual Directors Formation Programme for Spiritual Growth Ministries [www.sgm.org.nz]; being drawn - unexpectedly, and with great trepidation -  into aged care ministry where I now spend most of my working hours, a ministry which takes more of me than I could ever have imagined, where God sustains me - both on good days when I am a reasonably uncluttered channel of grace and on the 'other' days when my own stuff gets in the way.

Woven into these stretching opportunities were the challenge and amazing joy of going to study at St George's College in Jerusalem,  and the complex process of bringing five books to birth - labour intensive, tinged with moments of panic and moments of great joy when the creativity of the Spirit fired my imagination and lifted me up from the 'miry bog' of writer's block. 

God has sustained me through these past twenty years. Over and over I've been invited to do something that scares or surprises me, something that always stretches me and makes me lean more and more on God's equipping and less and less on my own 'self'. As the years in ordained ministry have unfolded, I've been learning to accept my shadow and acknowledge that I make mistakes - something the perfectionist in me tried so hard for many years to avoid!
[ There is a certain freedom in being old enough now to have genuine 'senior moments' - rather than 'menopausal drift'!] Most importantly though, for me, is coming to know in my innermost being, that I am - just as each person everywhere is - deeply beloved of God. 

As a fatherless child, I've always valued the father love of God deeply so the  Romans 8.15 reading for St Teresa's day, in the Message version is especially apt: 

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurous, expectant, greeting God with a child-like,'What's next, Papa?'

No matter what unfolds, what's next, God is with you, with me, with us all.

The first step

                                                            I'd just finished writing my fifth book and my husband kindly said,
'Well, that's the last book done!'

I hadn't thought of it that way, didn't want to think of it that way, as if an ending had been sprung upon me, not of my doing.

But ... as the weeks and months have unfolded since that March moment, I've accepted that there was wisdom in his words - as there often is - and see that, at this time in my life,  I'm being invited to a different form of creativity, one that is manageable in the midst of a work that takes me deeply into death and dying, one that allows me to reflect on the unfolding mystery of the 'ordinary' where Grace is found, always, if I care to look.

And so I am venturing into the unknown, not a big venturing like Abraham, just a small one, a bit like the Owl and the Pussycat. I am putting out into the global sea, with nothing more, nothing less, than the breeze of the Spirit in my sails, the friendship and challenge of Jesus for company, and the warmth of the love of God in my heart.

The process and the content will unfold in time: a poem here , a quotation there , a reflection, a picture ... it will be what it will be.

Unfolding is a time of vulnerability - the magnolia bud is at the mercy of the sharp-eyed wood-pigeon, the kereru, keen to sample the sweet petals before they grow into fullness of form. There is a certain vulnerability in blogging, as there is in living, and in loving. So here goes ...you are welcome to join me.