CatEcumen the Ecumenical Cat

Could some Calvinist out there explain to me why someone can say with a peaceful mind, "True justice would be hell for the whole human race, wouldn't it?" (Source: "Calvinism, Arminianism, so what?" - but that's only one succinct statement of something which is widely believed by many.)

I can never quite understand how anyone can calmly believe that true justice requires that every human being who ever drew a single breath SHOULD suffer eternal conscious torment, that any exception to this rule is a miraculously gracious concession to which no human being could ever be entitled, and that the never-ending agony of each and every person ever born would be righteous and beautiful and perfect, and that we should joyfully worship the God who made it so.

Why it is that whenever someone messes up, even in fiction, I feel guilty? I'm watching "FlashForward," and the fictional mistakes of others make me feel sick with guilt, as if I am the one responsible.

It doesn't do much good to teach myself not to feel guilty about not being able to do everything for everybody if I'm just going to absorb guilt from fiction on TV.

Then again, maybe it's the political undertone in the "V" promos that is making me feel ill.

This had been the kitten's scheduled spay-day, but since her digestive problems continue, I didn't think that she was in good enough shape for surgery yet, so we postponed the spay for two weeks. Her latest new food, Taste of the Wild grain-free, seems to be helping somewhat - she has put on a bit of weight, and her coat feels silkier to the touch - but it hasn't fully resolved the problem.

This morning the kitten particularly impressed me with what seemed to be logical thinking from a cat's point of view. She was watching me scooping out the litterbox. With clumping litter, I use little plastic poop-disposal bags. After observing what I was doing for awhile, she came up next to me, squatted and pooped right directly on a plastic bag. I guess she figured she was helping me cut out the middle step by delivering right to the destination! I gently picked her up and put her back into the litter box to finish her business. I hope she got the message, but I couldn't scold her for what probably seemed to her like a very helpful thing to do.

I felt a little chill when I found Edith Stein's "On the Problem of Empathy" being quoted in the introduction to Evan Thompson's "Between Ourselves: Second-Person Issues in the Studies of Consciousness." There's definitely a connection going on here between my various areas of recent study. This is heading somewhere.

In order to try to keep the kitten (and the dogs) out of the kitchen garbage, I have been tying up the half-empty bags, but that makes it difficult for Ken and Jess to use them, so this weekend we bought two tall, covered kitchen trash containers for the kitchen, the kind that are operated by a foot-pedal to open and close the top.

So, how well do they work at keeping the critters out of the trash?

When we arrived home after dinner this evening, Jess commented that she hadn't seen our little mischief-making kitten since she came in. Only moments after she left the kitchen, I heard a "pop" and I turned around to see the lid of one of the trash containers opening and the kitten shooting out. :-)

Tonight marks three years since the death of a friend. Tonight is also the beginning of Yom Kippur this year.

I'm currently exploring my Jewish heritage once again, and although I was never observant even before my conversion to Christianity, I was tempted to consider at least a partial fast this year. It would bother my husband though, so I won't do it. I suppose it would be hypocritical anyway for me to do even a partial fast, since I am already committed to working tomorrow. It would be more of a symbolic gesture of recognition of the reality that I have done wrong, in many ways, but that redemption is still possible. As long as we're alive, it is not too late. Although I'm easily distracted and too easily discouraged, I still don't like to give up on anyone, not even myself.

For at least the rest of September, I'm going to be studying a Jewish spiritual path called "Mussar," and doing what is called an "accounting of the soul," to be more honest with myself about my flaws and make some real effort to be a better person.

One of the issues that I have run across in every attempt I make to learn and practice better conflict resolution and peacemaking skills, in trying to show more respect for other people, is that we are all locked into so much habitual black-and-white, either/or thinking. Any acknowledgement that "yes, Person A has done some significant good in the past to help Person B" gets immediately translated into "Person A can do no wrong, Person B can do no right" when it doesn't mean that at all. So I'm afraid to speak when I feel that I should.

We each make mistakes and we need to take responsibility for our actions. Certainly forgiveness delivered to the wrongdoer is premature until the wrongdoer acknowledges the wrongdoing, although the offended person may voluntarily choose to forgive for his/her own peace of mind rather than for the wrongdoer's sake.

I myself and others need to recognize that each individual can do both good things and bad things, and the good doesn't negate the bad nor does the bad negate the good. None of us are cardboard cut-outs. We are three-dimensional and full of shades of grey. It's so difficult to remember this, though, when our emotions tell us that people must be either bad or good, and that if someone did something wrong, that person must have been a bad person from the beginning and all the apparent good the person may have done was meaningless.

So, as an ethical and moral question rather than a legal one, if a person has done some good things, should that carry any weight in determining whether that person should be forgiven when they do wrong? Should it affect the severity of the consequences to be imposed upon that person even after the person has acknowledged and taken responsibility for a mistake?

I am trying to watch the streaming Rosh Hashanah service from Beth Adam's online humanistic Jewish congregation on the netbook, but the pets keep interrupting. The dogs are barking so loudly as I type this that I can't hear what Rabbi Laura is saying. (When she isn't knocking things off the table, McKenzie the kitten likes to sit on the netbook keyboard, blocking the screen.) So I'm not giving the streaming service my full attention. Do I ever give my full attention to anything these days?

I am going to spend much of this time (the Days of Awe from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur) reading and studying again about Judaism, from my extensive collection of books and from the 'net. However, I am still drawn to the teachings and the charismatic figure of Jesus / Yeshua, and I'm not ready to give up including him as a guide upon whatever spiritual path I walk.

I don't fully accept the argument best illustrated by the C.S. Lewis "trilemma" that Jesus claimed to be God and was therefore either fully God in human form, or else evil or mad. Jesus taught in parables, and often challenged his audience with extreme rhetoric, and many did not understand his words. Perhaps some of the sayings which have been recorded as claims to be the only path to God the Father or to be the same being as God the Father were significantly misinterpreted. Perhaps there is still both good and rational guidance to be found in contemplating his teachings in the context of the Judaism within which he taught.

Dear kitten: This is MY keyboard. I type words on it. I know that you find it to be a nice, warm place for you to take a nap. I have a keyboard blocker so that you can do that, when I'm NOT using it. However, I am using it now. MINE.

McKenzie and Logan - sitting peacefully together for a change!

A post from a friend reminded me about some of the ways in which I'm trying to change my thinking and how I still have quite a bit farther to go on that.

A moment of anger and frustration very quickly gets translated into my mind into global self-condemnation. "I made a mistake" turns into "I never do anything right." Someone else's momentary annoyance at me, which the other person probably forgot within thirty seconds, turns into "so-and-so hates me and is totally right to hate me because I'm a bad person." I am well aware that I'm not the only person who takes something trivial and pounces on it and turns it into a referendum on my value in the world, but I can't stop anyone else from doing it; I can only change myself.

This morning, I remind myself to claim the right to be imperfect, to be human, and to be OK with that.

I have decided that, for at least this season in my life (duration uncertain), I am going to explore Judaism again. That doesn't mean that I've made any definitive, permanent repudiation of Christianity. I have always been a spiritual wanderer, never quite comfortable in any one tradition, always meandering on to the next challenge, the next adventure. So I'm going back to spend some more time getting to know the path that I had left behind about fifteen years ago. Many people have trouble understanding a spiritual journey that isn't about zealous commitment to a single unwavering truth; I have trouble staying within any frame of reference which demands that.

For those who follow the Tom Sonday blog but who may have stopped following because it was just too hard to read it, Tom Sonday has now moved on to whatever awaits after this life. May it be a place of well-deserved peace and joy.

I never met him but have been in touch with his daughter Jessica off and on for several years, primarily through LiveJournal.

This has been a tremendously difficult time for the family, and the road ahead for them, now that he has passed, is still going to be a painful one. Because I'm in a weird space of spiritual transition myself at this moment, I am not sure what to say, but for any of you who pray or who are willing to send good energy, please keep the Sonday family in your prayers and keep sending good thoughts their way.

When I was a child, I had very little knowledge about my Jewish heritage, since I grew up in a non-observant family. About all that I thought I knew about being Jewish was that it meant not believing in Jesus. After many years of learning about the history of religion, and many years of my own meandering philosophical and spiritual journey through multiple religious traditions, I find it sad that so many knowledgeable adults still have that same simplistic view of what being Jewish means.

My ethnic identity will always be Jewish, regardless of what I believe. If I believe in Jesus one day and doubt him the next, do I turn being Jewish off and on like a light switch? No, I don't think so, because being Jewish is more than a set of theological beliefs. It's being part of a people, and one can't turn that off by changing one's mind.

In response to a friend's comment: when I post about the funny things the dogs and cats do, I'm sharing them because they're funny and I enjoy them. Even when I'm frustrated by something that is happening, I can still be amused and entertained by it, at the same time. I'm not really complaining, and I will try to stop sounding as if I am.

Just now, for example, I had to rescue my cup of coffee from an inquisitive kitten who wanted to taste it. I think that's funny, and I want to share it because I'm getting a giggle out of it, but I can understand why some readers might think I'm being negative, always whining about how tough things are and asking for advice on how to make it better which I then refuse to follow. Actually I'm enjoying the kitten and having a great time watching her.

I tend to forget that when I post what I think are funny pet pictures and accounts of what mischief they're getting into, most things that I post sound like I'm bemoaning my horrible life and asking for advice about how to fix these terrible things. Actually I'm enjoying my life and my pets very much, and getting a lot of joy out of watching them play even when they cause trouble, and I need to make it more clear from now on that I'm sharing the funny, not complaining about something bad.

How can I move on to do something else (no matter how many other things there are to be done), when my office chair is occupied by a sleeping dog, and the file in the center of my desk is serving as a bed for a sleeping kitten?

Time to relax and enjoy the moment!

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McKenzie dozing on the file I had planned to work on this morning


My dog is occupying my chair, how can I work?

Wikipedia definition of "woofer":

Woofer is the term commonly used for a loudspeaker driver designed to produce low frequency sounds, typically from around 40 hertz up to about a kilohertz or higher. The name is from the onomatopoeic English word for a dog's bark, "woof" (in contrast to the name used for speakers designed to reproduce high-frequency sounds, tweeter).

A novelty site called Woofer requires a minimum of 1400 characters, and uses people's existing Twitter identities. It's an amusing concept, and I was playing with it today.

I am well-known as a long-winded person who will never use a few words when many will do, so I have been finding it an interesting experiment for me to use Twitter and text messaging. It has been teaching me at least a few basic lessons in the art of brevity.

So, are you a "woofer" who uses lots of words, or a "tweeter" who uses few? :-)