Here is a chapter from my book Living Small, My Life in Paradise. Its a good book, about cats and cowboys. A 135-page Word file that took me about 9 years to write. Ive been a writer for a long time, and I think its worth a $5.00 read: Living Small, My Life in Paradise copyright 2014 by James Howard: Faith A heavy, oak cross hung behind the preacher. It was unadorned, simply two thick, perpendicular beams. No graphic representation of the crucifixion, just a plain, brown cross. Church. Youre in the house of the Lord, it proclaimed. Like just about everything else in Paradise, it made a simple, black and white statement. No frills. There were six of us in the congregation that Sunday - - the usual crowd. The preacher was a cowboy. He played hymns on his guitar, and gave the same sermon every week. We didnt mind. Faith, he’d start out. Ya got to have just a little bit. He held his thumb and finger close together, to illustrate the tiny amount of faith youd need. It was a small gap. Maybe a quarter inch. That quarter inch represented the difference between Salvation and Perdition, he explained. That week, that particular Sunday, I was lost, and that tiny gap seemed mighty wide. Id just put my sweet boy Whiskers to rest, and I was in a strange place where I knew no one, with just my kitty Doc for solace. For all the faith I needed, that tiny gap might as well have been the distance between Salvation and Infinity. “Faith,” the preacher repeated, just in case we hadn’t gotten it the first time. I shivered in the unheated church, still numb from the walk over. Even in the cold, I walk to church. It seems more holy that way. I imagine that Jesus walked to synagogue. Im sure he could have ridden. His disciples would have considered it an honor to lead the ass that bore him. But Ill bet it seemed humbler to Jesus to make that trip afoot. He was observing the Sabbath and keeping it holy, just as his Father had commanded. Jesus was a good son, like me, a nice Jewish boy. The harsh, frigid wind howling off the flanks of the Santa Rosa Mountains had been my first real taste of Paradise winter. I pulled my cowboy hat down deep in front of my face, tilted my head toward the ground, and leaned into it. Sometimes, when nature tries to pull ya down, it helps to lean on her a bit, as if to say, I give up. I aint gonna fight ya. Take what you will. That day, winter was bent on extracting her dues, Ill tell ya. I didnt have no friends. I didnt have no family. I was a stranger in Paradise. It was just me, my kitty cat, Doc, and an old furnace that stood between me and that godless wind. It may have been good for my soul to make that walk, but it was hard on the body. In mid, hard winter, reality can be a harsh mother in Paradise. The skies turn slate gray, the wind drives daytime temperatures down deep below zero. The cold snap had been so prolonged that the coyotes, driven to the edge of town in their search for food, howled in hunger and frustration. It wouldn’t even snow, which would have warmed things up a bit. It aint just the cold that gets to ya’, its the bone-racking, unrelentingly frigid wind that snarls at your face and ears as you bow your head and huddle deep into your jacket. Its that ungodly, Paradise wind that will bring a strong man to his knees. It wears at ya. At times like these, Paradise can seem a mighty tough place . Pioneers back in the 1850s probably felt this fear as well. Arriving at the end of a harsh winter, after having crossed the desert, Paradise Valley must have seemed their salvation. Early spring broke verdant green on a chilly Paradise morn, the Santa Rosa Mountains still buried deep in wintry embrace as the valley floor thawed. Legend says that upon seeing Paradise, the settlers fell to their knees in prayer and proclaimed, “Surely, this valley must be Paradise.” That’s how the place got named. Temporary shelter was their first priority, and then, planting crops. Three months later, the pioneers’ first hot, dusty summer must have seemed a blessing as they pressed hard to get the third and fourth cuttings of hay harvested. During autumn, the settlers marveled at the glorious gold and crimson streaks fading from the wooded canyons overlooking Paradise, like the last, rich vein of gold disappearing from a played-out mine. Then the harsh reality of winter hit hard as the barren trees, stripped of their adornments, hung stark against a clear, frigid sky. Perhaps those first early settlers asked themselves then, as I had this hard winters morning, Lord, what have I gotten myself into? Then, they turned to their faith for salvation. Church was an odd refuge for me. Since I was 13, I had been ambivalent about the Lord. When it came time to be a man, I remember sitting in a synagogue one day, and reading, Thou Shalt Fear Thy God. Hell, I thought to myself, I already got enough to fear in this life from my Daddy without havin to be scared of one more guy. So I put the prayer book back in the pew carefully, stood up, and walked away from the Lord. And I didnt look back for 35 years. Ill tell ya what brought me back to God, and you might think it strange, perhaps even blasphemous. It werent no preacher, nor a divine miracle, nor an act of contrition what brought me back to the Lord. It was the death of my sweet kitties Sparky and Whiskers, and my need to make sense of a world that took from me the only creatures who loved me. Whiskers had found me just after my marriage broke up, and Sparky had come to me when Whisk had needed to go away for a bit. As long as you have somebody to love, youll do just fine, Grandma had told me after Id lost my wife. Im not sure she meant kitty cats, but they was good enough for me. Many people think that cats are wild and aloof, and most folks in Paradise regard them as vermin, except when they need rodent control. True, cats can be independent - - but when you’re really blue and hurting bad, cats can sense it, and they wont let you down. Theyll be there for you until ya feel better, and then they wander off and resume their kitty cat ways. My second cat, Sparky, was a beautiful boy - - inky black, with luminous, golden eyes, and friendly as the day was long. His personality flew in the face of the stereotype that all cats are aloof. If’n hed been born a human being, Sparky would have been a salesman for sure. That cat loved people. Most cats will run from a stranger, but Sparky would come right up to you and start talking in a meowy voice, the most friendly creature you’d ever meet. If hed had hands instead of paws, he would a grabbed yours and been a’ pumpin and a’ pumpin. That kitty cat loved everyone, a true friend to all. Whiskers, by contrast, was dark and deep. His impressive whiskers, long and white, stood out sharply against his ebony face. The white fur on his tummy, and booties on his rear feet, contrasted with his pure black fur, dark and smooth as velvet. Badly abused, then abandoned as a kitten, Whisk mistrusted everyone except me. Everywhere I went, Whisk had to go. And, of course, when he saw Sparky with me, he had to be there double. When the three of us would walk down the street together, people would stop to stare at this tall guy flanked by two black kitties. Are you walking those cats? theyd ask me in wonder. Nope, Id reply proudly. Theyre walkin me.” Kitties love to wander, thats their downfall. One time Whisk just wandered off into the desert and stayed out there for three months. I knew what he was doing. He was curious and wanted to see what was going on. I knew hed come back when his curiosity was satisfied, and sure enough, after three months, he did. The day he returned was the happiest day of my life. My prayers had been answered. Thats the day I began to believe in God. But it was Sparkys death what brought me home. He died so sudden, my grief shook me to to my boots. One day he was playing and talking, friendly and so alive, and the next, he was just a lifeless ball of fur. Hed been spending his nights courting a neighbor cat, and I like to think that his last evening on this Earth was spent with love and affection. On a dark road, as my beautiful Sparky was coming back to me, the Lord called him home. The day that Sparky died I wept deep tears of hard grief. Putting him in the grave broke my heart. I wrapped Sparky in my tear-stained shirt as I lay him to rest. I wanted him to have something of mine in the hereafter. I buried him near where he fell, and marked his grave with rocks from the field where hed loved to hunt mice. Sparky, A Loved Kitty, I painted on one stone. For weeks after Sparky died, I was forlorn. I could not stand the thought of my beautiful boy lying in the cold, dank earth. It didnt make sense, how a creature so friendly and animated could be so present one moment, and gone the next. The thought affronted my sense of propriety. I struggled to make sense of his death, and what I came up with was Heaven. I figured that God would surely not put as beautiful a creature as Sparky on this Earth, and then take him away to nowhere. That same conviction led me to church this frigid Paradise day to mourn Whiskers. Ya gotta have just this much faith, the preacher admonished one last time as he concluded his sermon, holding his thumb and his forefinger near together to illustrate. “Just a little bit, thatll get ya started.” Ever man comes to terms with God and the Hereafter in his own way - - my own belief had been born of the need for comfort that I’d see my sweet kitties again some day - - and if there was no Heaven before, well, I guess I just made one up. Hope, surely, is the beginning of faith.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 22:42:30 +0000
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