For Wilshire Baptist Church
A large, long-haired white cat has taken to lounging in our back yard. We see her on the patio, on the walk, in the flower beds, drinking from the birdbath. She moves slowly and gingerly – as if she’s stalking some unseen prey, or maybe she has arthritis or some other ailment. Whatever, we’re OK with her hanging out but we won’t feed her because, frankly, we don’t want to become the feral cat headquarters of our Embree neighborhood.
I say that because the woman who cuts my hair has a significant feral cat problem in her neighborhood, and she has gotten involved in their welfare by offering shelter and food. It’s admirable, but she’s doing more than we wish to commit to.
But then we hosted a National Neighborhood Night Out gathering in our yard a couple of weeks ago and learned that the large white cat isn’t feral at all. It belongs to the adult daughter of our neighbors across the alley. We wouldn’t have suspected that because we never see the cat in their yard, although I did see it once under a car parked in the alley behind their garage apartment. So, the cat isn’t feral, and in fact she has a name: Princess.
Which just goes to show that you can’t judge some things simply by what you see, what you think you know, or what you’ve experienced before. Or, what you’re afraid of.
Before we moved into our house, we were visiting the property one night and saw a pickup truck roll by slowly, seemingly casing the place. Unoccupied homes and especially new ones are often targeted by burglars, so after the pickup moved on, we quietly followed it down the street and continued as it turned the corner and then slowly moved to the next block, where it pulled into a driveway. Long story short: The man had been robbed recently and he was concerned when he saw a vehicle at our vacant house. He was watching us, and we were watching him. Ten years later he’s a good neighbor and he was there at our recent neighborhood gathering when we learned the truth about Princess.
LeAnn and I have a little intellectual exercise we do sometimes when we see or hear something unusual. We’ll fill in the gaps with conjecture, but then we’ll stop and say, “That’s just a story I’ve made up because I really don’t know anything about it at all.” That puts an end to any further intrigue and for good reason: Often enough, if we eventually learn the full story, we’ll discover we were dead wrong.
It’s natural to try to figure things out – to be curious about something and try to fill in the gaps between the little pieces of information we have. But it’s dangerous if we allow our stories to run wild like feral cats.