“Daddy, how do you catch a cat?”
Lenny stopped typing.
“Say what, buddy?” he called from the study.
But Rusty didn’t respond. He wasn’t paying attention anymore. He was reaching for the milk in the fridge. His fingers couldn’t quite reach high enough to pick it up.
But they could reach high enough to knock it off.
But right before it toppled and burst onto the hardwood, cherry floors, Lenny pushed it back, closed the fridge, and looked down at his son.
“Why do you have my fishing pole?”
“And why do you want to catch a cat?”
“Because he’s mean,” Rusty said as he tugged his father toward the patio door opening onto the new deck — and the new home of two friendly-but-stray cats, Lenny noted.
The yellow one, one puff ball of fur, stretched lazily by the deck chair, his white belly turned toward the sun and his front paws stretched out, like he was doing aerobics.
The calico, a little fatter and without the fluff to hide its belly, buried its snout in a bowl of food.
“Which one’s the mean one, pal?” Lenny finally asked.
“That one,” Rusty said, specifically pointing to the calico with his 8-year-old finger.
“And why is it mean?”
“Because I just put food in the dish, but before the yellow one had one bite, the mean cat…” the accusatory finger pointing at the calico shook a little, “… came, pushed the yellow out of the way, and started eating all the food.”
“Ah. Gotcha,” Lenny said. “And now you want to catch it so the yellow one can eat?”
“Yeah. If I pretend to be nice and give it some milk, it will stay still long enough for me to catch it with the fishing pole.
(Lenny didn’t know — and didn’t ask — how his son would catch a cat using a fishing pole with a tangled line and no hook.)
“And then I would make him sit in the corner until the yellow one could eat.”
Smiling and kneeling down, Lenny slowly unwrapped Rusty’s fingers off the pole and sat him down on his lap on the recliner.
“Listen, buddy,” Lenny said as the two sat and rocked. “The calico is just a cat. He doesn’t know that he should share.”
“But why not?” Rusty interjected, his 8-year-old sense of justice far from placated. “Why won’t he share? Why does he think he should have all the food?
“He’s just mean.”
“Well, God didn’t create cats with consciences,” Lenny said. “Animals can’t tell the difference between right and wrong. If you poured out all that bag of cat food, he wouldn’t think that you wanted him to share it. He wouldn’t ask himself if he needs it all.
“Cats … well … they’re not humans.”
“Well, I hope God tells him,” Rusty said, refusing to acknowledge his father’s theological perspective. “He should share. That’s why I gave them so much food.”
“Well, maybe he should, buddy. Now, get ready for supper.”
“Mmmmm …” Lenny moaned in delight about 45 minutes later. He knew he ate too much; he couldn’t help it though, he told himself.
“All right, time for devotionals,” he said as opened the Bible.
“I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound,” Lenny started reading. “Every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
“Daddy, what does it mean to abound?” Rusty interrupted.
“Well, I think it means to have more than enough, more than you need.”
“And why did Paul need Jesus to help him abound?”
“What do you mean, pal?”
“Well, he says he can abound because Jesus gives him strength? But why is it so hard to have more than enough? We have more than enough, and that’s not hard, is it daddy?”
But Lenny didn’t respond.
He was looking at the mail he had absent-mindedly flopped down on the table earlier.
One letter asked for funds to help translate the Bible into a language that had no translation.
Another wanted to purchase firewood for widows in Ukraine, who would otherwise have to choose between heating their homes or buying food.
Lenny looked at them, remembering that he intended to throw them away.
After all, he had told himself, he couldn’t afford to help now.
“I know,” Rusty said, his excitement interrupting Lenny’s justifications. “The mean cat can’t abound good. He didn’t share, even when I gave him more than he needed.
“Maybe if he was a human like us, daddy, he would know how to abound.
“I hope God tells him.”
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