A month later

It now has been more than a month since Agatha died. I keep her ashes, fur, paw print, heart and candle in the gold bag in which they arrived when I picked them up from the vet. They sit on the window sill to my desk so that when I look out to the little shed, I see the bag knowing what it contains. It is not that Agatha spent time sitting in front of me, but she did sleep in the baskets that were on either side of me. To add to the collection, I have a little shrine, half serious, half silly, for her.

A friend gave me the little Saint Gertrude statue. I had no idea she was the matron saint of cats. So she watches over Agatha and the two are on a little knitted prayer rug from another friend's congregation. The photo of Agatha is when she was still feeling well (April 2009) and looking her imperious self. But, oh, we still miss her.

However, life goes on.

This is what I see most mornings: August in my face as he stands on my chest ready to lick my forehead (I think I must have an invisible 'M' that most tabby cats have) or, worse, my eyes.

This 1817 house has heaters that are just the right height for making cat nests. These two are sleeping on top of a box that still has kitchen utensils in it. No matter, under the ratty towel is a pillow and the two bask in the forced hot air heat. I suspect Aelred (Orange Guy) was there first.

The evening after August killed a vole in the kitchen, I decided to let things settle down in there so shut them out of the back part of the house (dining room and kitchen). When I came downstairs, they rushed to the door so I had pity on them and let them in. Always a stampede.

Meanwhile, I occasionally have reason to drive around Vermont. This photo shows Killington/Pico taken from Rte I-89, heading south in Randolph. I still struggle with the idea that I am going to have to leave these beloved mountains.



And here is Camels Hump taken from Rte 2 in Burlington.

Vermont got off easy with the blizzard of 2013. We got the usual 12-14 inches. The town plows create cement walls that are tough to shovel or snow blow one's way through; I did penetrate the walls on Saturday and my shoulders are still complaining.

Mission Farm Road on Saturday 9 February. It used to be Rte 4 but now is a tranquil side road, perfect for taking walks (one mile long).

The Guest House at Mission Farm and breezeway between the GH and vicarage. We cleared away a bay in the shed so I could get my car in there. It is a tight fit, only an inch on either side of the rear view mirrors and it doesn't completely protect the car but it is an improvement from having a car turned into a blob of snow. This photo was before I started working on the driveway and walkways.

I live here (loving it), now in my fifth month, but there is such provisionality to it that I haven't unpacked and am trying hard not to settle in. It has been almost a year since I moved out of the rectory. And frankly, life has not been secure since I left Northfield  in November 2008. Security is illusory, for sure, but sometimes it can seem steadier.


I occasionally have to remind myself that I am still and always will be a priest (photo taken at the cathedral before a RHE for a colleague last month). I passed my 19th anniversary two weeks ago and find myself in my 20th year still unemployed. I supply on Sundays so at least I am connected that way with an aspect of priesthood. To an outsider it probably looks as though I am doing nothing but I have been wrestling all this time with the distinction between the vocational and professional priesthood. It seems to me that as churches diminish in numbers, size and income, those who serve congregations will be forced to return to a vocational priesthood in which the main source of income no longer comes from the congregation but from another job. The priesthood, the esse, will be part of the individual but the individual will not have the luxury (or challenge depending on how one looks at it) of spending all of his or her time within the confines of the church. Twenty years ago, this sort of priest was called a tent-maker or bi-vocational priest. Call it what you may but for those of us who wish to stay in the northeast where churches are many, congregations are small, this looks like the future. My problem is age and experience... for a struggling congregation calling a priest at the top of the pay scale (my diocese's pay scale tops out at twenty years and then it is just a percentage added on) is not optimum.

So what to do? Where to go? How to live this vocation out? During this desert time of discernment, I keep trying to figure out what priesthood means to me and how I am being called to live into it. I know that a vocational call is one that is impossible, persistent, good for all and one that others see for you, and that is well and good. But what about the interior landscape? I still don't know other than the idea of leaving the only diocese I have really served (all but ten months of ordained ministry) is unappealing. However, the options truly are running out.

Sometimes the only thing I can do is meditate or, in this case, pray with the General Ordination Exam readers as we gather in community for compline.



So, things are quiet. I just don't have a lot to say. [Nor do I have the patience to figure out the oddball formatting here.]

Dear, dear Agatha

Dear Miss Agatha Birch Funky Paws of many other names departed this life for the greater life on Thursday 3 January 2013 at 6.00PM in the presence of her loving human can openers, a respectful vet tech and gentle vet. She is now fully once again her feisty, imperious, opinionated self, ready to put any young whippersnapper into shape.

Saying goodbye is always heartbreaking, especially when the one to whom you are saying goodbye is so utterly trusting. But I think the Grey Lady was worn out and had a sense that it was time. She did not put up any fight and went peacefully.

So, goodbye, little one. This is one of the last photos I took of us together before we made the final trip.

I am sure this little kitty is more handsome than this photograph... the day that Agatha left us, a friend in El Salvador adopted her first kitteh and asked if she could name him in honour of Agatha. Knowing that agata in Spanish is 'agate' or 'marble,' I said certainly. This little six month-old Siamese's name is AGATHO. When I get a better photo, I will post it.

It has only been six days.

My heart still aches.

Here we go again

Just as I was beginning to let myself settle in here, I have to pull up stakes and do a six-month stint in a rented house with the hope that I actually will have a job before then. It all is unreal.

Living room bookshelves are empty. It was nice having the built-in shelves. Without them I am in trouble.

Three of the four cats supervise the downstairs packing. They are not amused.

Her face says it all.

Agatha

I will know more tomorrow when I pick her up, but Agatha has a mass on her right side (liver) and her gall bladder does not look normal either. She has been at the vet since Tuesday because she had not been eating last week. They got her eating, put vitamins into her so at least have stabilised her but we will have the conversation tomorrow about what next. I love my squawking, chirping, growling, meowing, insistent, funky paws Agatha and will do what is best for her. If only cats lived longer.

For sale: One useless cat

A parishioner sent me this:

Palm Sunday afternoon sillies

Given that I had three back-to-back services this morning, there is not much brain power. How fitting, then, to receive an email with these sillies. Are you comfortable?

Jump!

Not quite Van Halen....

Young Guy takes on Orange Guy, ousting him from his perch while San Romero de las Américas looks on.

Do you ever feel this way?

Check this out for kittehs on a treadmill.

Friday cat blogging

returns albeit feebly. I just don't have free time any more...

Young Guy supervises the synching for the first time of my new iPad with my MacBook Pro... photo taken with my iPhone. Too many 'i's in this statement.

He is not partaking of my Flor de Caña rum, however. That is for humans only.

Summertime silence

Once fall kicks back in, I should be a bit more regular in my posting here. Between working with CREDO and the Strength for the Journey Haiti (Kouraj pou Vwayaj la Ayati) initiative, parish work, and finishing off the Long Trail, my time has not been free to putter here. We only have about 65 miles left to walk of the LT and then we will have finished its 273 miles of punishing rock and root-strewn paths.

Cats are fine, missing me. Miss Funky Paws is back from the brink, has put on weight and is fully herself, loud and feisty.

[photo: from the Forehead on Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest peak, looking south at Camels Hump, the third highest in Vermont]

Visual aid

Here's what snork looks like.

Nothing like a purring cat

to help with the lonelies.

Click here for an explanation.

She merits her own posting

Thirteen years ago today I brought La Doyenne home from the Central Vermont Humane Society shelter. She had been found abandoned in an apartment in Barre, VT along with another cat... their names were Jack and Jill (!). I did not take the other cat, a black and white short hair, just this one, brought her home (age 9 months). She was a lean kitteh back then. I will try to scan a photo but here is a recent one, a repeat... in all her glory.

Selected cats

Just three photos to let you know things are fine... none of Miss Grey Lady; she does not hang out with the hoi poloi, you know.


This morning all three decided to camp out in my bedroom.


I liked the way he draped his tail in the window this evening.


Then he decided to join me in reading 'Así matamos a monseñor Romero,' an investigation by Carlos Dad in El Faro (San Salvador). Very well read cat, I dare say.