Soaring

As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might. – Marion Anderson

The other night I was watching TV when Barb came and said, “Keith, come here; there’s something wrong with Sophie!”

Sophie is our cat, and as cats go, she’s actually quite delightful. Unlike many felines, which are often snooty and stand-offish in their demeanor, Sophie enjoys her people. She does not consider herself our superior, but does take a leadership role in the family. She’s not arrogant and demanding, but when she wants something, she lets you know with a gentle nudge.

One of her favorite past-times is playing fetch. She will bring a hair scrunchie and drop it at your feet, waiting patiently for you to shoot it across the room. She loves to go pouncing after scrunchies, chasing them down like vermin and bringing them back in triumph as trophies of the big hunt; then she drops them at your feet, ready to go again.

Sophie is an indoor cat – mostly because we’d rather not deal with ticks and fleas and evidence of her hunting skills which would please her far more than they would please us, I am sure. Being an indoor cat simply means she doesn’t associate with neighborhood puddies as much as she might if we let her run loose. She doesn’t seem to mind. She may not be able to make mad, passionate love, being an indoor sort, but then again she doesn’t come home the victim of a neighborhood brawl, either – which brings us back to our story.

Barb was sure there was something wrong with Sophie, as she (the cat) was sitting in the hallway moaning in a very peculiar manner. I got up to see what was wrong, and found her sitting in the hall staring at our neighbor’s orange long-hair gib*. Somehow, the neighbor’s tommy had gotten into the house (probably through the garage door when Barb came home) and was simply sitting in the hallway, looking at Sophie.

Harley (the neighbor cat) just sat there with a small bemused smile. He seemed quite pleased with himself, and was most unconcerned with my arrival on scene. The crisis came to a resolution and conclusion when I picked up Harley, scratched the underside of his chin, wished him well, and returned him to the great outdoors. Sophie didn’t say “thank you” but did seem somewhat relieved and appreciative of my efforts, and that is as much as any cat owner can ever hope for – even from a scrunchie-chasing phenom like Sophie.

I felt a little bad for Sophie at first, for it seemed like I had deprived her of a golden opportunity to get to know her neighbor better, and yet I know that cats are social isolationists and that what I did was beneficial and possibly prevented a major Maul in the Hall.

But people are different, aren’t we? We’re not well-suited for isolation. We want company; we need other people if our hearts are going to sing in purr-fect harmony. We need people to lift us up; we need people to share our burdens, to help make things right when things go wrong, and to light a lamp when life goes dark.

It is so tragic to see people put down because their language is different, or their skin is different, or their culture is different, or their religion, or their food, or their clothes. Too much of what we say or do isolates us from one another, squashing hopes and dreams of a better life for everyone. How tragic, and how sad: going through life with claws bared so no balloon will ever dare come near to lift you up onto the thermals that promise a view of greater things.

How Cat-astrophic. How Myow-pic.

The truth is that when we put one person down (as Anderson says above), we ourselves are grounded with them; but when we lift a person up – any person – we are free to fly, to soar, and to see one thing most clearly: We need one another in this, our valley. Believing that – wouldn’t that just be the cat’s pajamas?

Peace!

* gib is a term used to describe a male cat that has been neutered.