Analogies Anyone?

[Trishie]

Cavies or guinea-pigs.

I was saddened to see how an acquaintance kept a beautiful self-lilac, pedigreed, in a birdcage on strsw and only fed her pumpkin.

“If you ever decide you don’t want her, I’ll be glad to have her” was all I said. One day she rang and asked if I still wanted the cavy, and she brought her over in a plastic bucket her feet drenched with feard induced urine.

Josephine, like any person who had been treated without proper love and care, had little trust. She would stand legs stiff and not even relax or nestle when held. I bathed her and persisted with gentle affection, until as the days passed, like an abused human learning to trust, she gradually realised she was safe and loved.

We had a male, Flame, and they produced babies, which by the way are born with eyes open, fully furred and ready to run. Two were self-licas like herself, but the little female died. She grieved and tried to lick her baby to a response, but it was no use, so Josephine turned her attention to me. She had seen my cry from sadness at other times and used to stare at me intently as if to understand why, but seeing me cry over the baby cavy cluched in one hand as I hugged her with the other, she understood, and strtched her little head up to frantically lick away my tears. If ever she saw me crying agan for I hold her for comfort, she would urgently wipe away with her tiny tongue, any tears that fell.

In the years we had these little affectionate creatures, I often thought of how they reflected us. I cared for them, bathed them weekly, kept them outside during the day but inside on clean bedding at night…and it seemed that the care and affection given them raised them from what they were, small prey from South America, to something more. Just as we always have our human form, our frailties and weakness and limitations, so do they, but love and care made them into something more

 

[Trishie]

My last little cavy, Pia, lived until she was eight years old. As she became weaker with old age she sensed it before I knew, and began making the sounds of respiratory distress that her sister had died of. I would pick her up, and she’d immediately return to normal breathing. This went on for some time, and my husband said, “I think she’s faking it!” And you know, she was! How like many of us humans who use a means to an end. She was so convincing, except for the abrupt end to her ‘struggles’!

I began giving her more attention than usual…not that I ever neglected the little creatures! She thereupon no longer faked the respiratory illness that killed Tessie. After I’d put her on the grass one morning and she could barely stand, I began carrying her around in a soft shoulderbag with a small towel under her, as I did housework, and she seemed so happy. I would sometimes make little repetive sounds to her and she would echo them back.
One evening she suddenly ran up to my neck and went through the death agony. She looked dead but I made those sounds to her and she repeated them several times before she became silent.

To me, my cavies/guinea-pigs were always a parable. To many people they’re either food or kid’s pets.

I would think, I should love God as much as you love me, because in ratio, they loved me the best they possibly could.

My cavies were devoted with all the ability they had. They would cuddle me with their little furry bodies, and would refuse even their favorite foods if I’d not attended to them for a while…until they got their hugs and were replaced in their big night basket, and then happily ate.

They even played. Tessie when she was young used to run around on the grass doing little leaps. The more I laughed the more she’d do it, so vigorouly sometimes she’d land on her back. Flame had the most advanced game. He would be placed in the middle of the room. He’s look around for a few moments to decide which of two routes he would run. Once decided he’d run as fast as his stubby little legs alowed him, which means he was uncatchable. My boys would all chase him, laughing. When he decided the time was right he’d stop, to be scooped up and cuddled by a laughing boy.

When Pia was young she got out of the outside cage one and disappeared for two weeks. I was sure that neighbourhood dogs or cats would have caught her, until finnally I glimpsed a flash of brown fur in one of my very leafy gardens. I lured her back, and as soon as I picked her up, she snuggled, but then lifted up her little head and nipped my chin. I’m afraid I laughed because it felt like she was passionately saying, “How dare you lose me. It’s been so absolutely awful!” That was the only time she ever bit me. How like us at times, to last out after times of hurt and fear.

I think that we can find parables and analogies for ourselves and our realtionship with each other and God wherever we look

 

[Beautiful]

The Ladder of St. Augustine
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day’s events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,
That makes another’s virtues less;
The revel of the ruddy wine,
And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;
The strife for triumph more than truth;
The hardening of the heart, that brings
Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes
The action of the nobler will; —

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern — unseen before —
A path to higher destinies,

Nor doom the irrevocable Past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.

 

[Beautiful]

A partridge that mothers a brood not her own is the man who acquires wealth unjustly: In midlife it will desert him; in the end he is only a fool. Jeremiah 17:11