"It is not good to have zeal without knowledge . . ." Proverbs 19:2
A boney and marble colored creature appeared on the porch causally creeping towards the spaghetti-stained tupperware filled with cream, as it had done every night this past week. Peeping stealthily through the weather worn window was a 40-year-old woman named Sue oohing and aahing over every soft stride the stray cat took. Desperately anticipating the kitty’s first lick of the cream, Sue had forgotten about the roast in the oven now beginning to fill the house with smoke. Sue promptly leaped into the air, as the fire alarm pierces its annoying sounds through the thin, wooden paneled walls, thereby frightening the cat to scurry into the night.
This was not the first time Sue had attempted to woo a stray. Just the other month she was finishing the stages of the courting process, when, regrettably, the stray was rather grimly grounded into the gravel road by a blue Chevy pickup. This ritual, on Sue’s part, consisted of nightly milk for a week, followed by thin slices of turkey for no more then three days, finalized with stretching out her hand in hopes of petting the cat’s grungy scalp for the rest of the week. If all went well, at the end of the ritual, she, in effect, adapted the kitten as her own. Despite the minor set backs of the now mutilated cat, Sue always knew another stray would soon come.
There is something redemptive about Sue’s desire to see the lonely and lost find a home. Her moral sensibilities simply couldn’t sit and watch as a weaker creature struggles to maintain existence. Sure, she did not care for all the creatures of the world, especially spiders; she wasn’t Francis of Assisi. But, as a child Sue unquestionably put her bothers and sisters to shame. They found great delight in watching the weak and the feeble suffer, as was demonstrated by their morbid achievements against defenseless creatures. As time past, her siblings grew out of such betrayals to God’s creatures, but they never developed a sympathetic inkling towards them either. They were simply content to be differentiated from Mother Nature and enjoy her periodically on a sunny afternoon, as many of us grow to do.
Not so for Sue. Unfortunately, her moral sensibilities towards the lonely and the lost slowly grew over time to also include sympathies for the seemingly weak and the feeble men she met throughout her life. Sue’s life had become a game of rotating chairs between one sad story of a man to the next. Her soft spot for the disadvantaged brought its own share of hardships into her life. Sue’s first husband seemed programmed for periodic episodes of ferocity; he verbally berated her often to only show up the next day with a paper sack of strawberries and flowers craving superficial intimacy. Her second husband had a melancholy characteristic causing him to veil himself in his self-loathing for many hours in the city bar. On one abrupt day, his absence became permanent. The current husband is physically present each day and never raises his voice, but spends the majority of his time spilling his emotions to other women on the Internet: ironically, on the same website he meet Sue on. Every one of these men entered Sue’s life after she found them in desperate situations. After one is gone, she would begin the ritual again with great rapidity.
After Sue opened the windows to clear the house of smoke and cut off the burn spots on the roast, she dimmed the lights once again and begins to peep out the window and strained her eyes in hopes of seeing the marble colored stray make the ascent up the porch to the cream.
This was not the first time Sue had attempted to woo a stray. Just the other month she was finishing the stages of the courting process, when, regrettably, the stray was rather grimly grounded into the gravel road by a blue Chevy pickup. This ritual, on Sue’s part, consisted of nightly milk for a week, followed by thin slices of turkey for no more then three days, finalized with stretching out her hand in hopes of petting the cat’s grungy scalp for the rest of the week. If all went well, at the end of the ritual, she, in effect, adapted the kitten as her own. Despite the minor set backs of the now mutilated cat, Sue always knew another stray would soon come.
There is something redemptive about Sue’s desire to see the lonely and lost find a home. Her moral sensibilities simply couldn’t sit and watch as a weaker creature struggles to maintain existence. Sure, she did not care for all the creatures of the world, especially spiders; she wasn’t Francis of Assisi. But, as a child Sue unquestionably put her bothers and sisters to shame. They found great delight in watching the weak and the feeble suffer, as was demonstrated by their morbid achievements against defenseless creatures. As time past, her siblings grew out of such betrayals to God’s creatures, but they never developed a sympathetic inkling towards them either. They were simply content to be differentiated from Mother Nature and enjoy her periodically on a sunny afternoon, as many of us grow to do.
Not so for Sue. Unfortunately, her moral sensibilities towards the lonely and the lost slowly grew over time to also include sympathies for the seemingly weak and the feeble men she met throughout her life. Sue’s life had become a game of rotating chairs between one sad story of a man to the next. Her soft spot for the disadvantaged brought its own share of hardships into her life. Sue’s first husband seemed programmed for periodic episodes of ferocity; he verbally berated her often to only show up the next day with a paper sack of strawberries and flowers craving superficial intimacy. Her second husband had a melancholy characteristic causing him to veil himself in his self-loathing for many hours in the city bar. On one abrupt day, his absence became permanent. The current husband is physically present each day and never raises his voice, but spends the majority of his time spilling his emotions to other women on the Internet: ironically, on the same website he meet Sue on. Every one of these men entered Sue’s life after she found them in desperate situations. After one is gone, she would begin the ritual again with great rapidity.
After Sue opened the windows to clear the house of smoke and cut off the burn spots on the roast, she dimmed the lights once again and begins to peep out the window and strained her eyes in hopes of seeing the marble colored stray make the ascent up the porch to the cream.
So what is Sue's solution? Stop carrying for the weak?
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