My God, My God, Why Have You Abandoned Me?

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Ps 22: 2a


These are powerful words. So powerful, they are remembered. Maybe not chapter or verse, but they are remembered. It is the utterance of human identification. A collective fear. A sometime in a lifetime moment.

I doubt that Deliah or Susie have processed their abandonment so long ago. They only sought food and warmth and shelter. Without the burden of thinking, they escaped the fears of their own making. Worrying about how they would eat next month or even next week.

How many times I have uttered that phrase. In different ways but with the same intention. How many times I have felt so alone that even God has walked out of the room. But I am not alone. We all suffer disappointments. Setbacks. Illnesses. Rents go unpaid. People get sick. Things don’t go the way that we want. Our loved ones hurt us. Hurt us again. We suffer sleepless nights worrying about the things that need to be put in God’s hands. Why have you abandoned us?

When I am suffering my angst, I need open my eyes. I need to notice God in the disappointments and in the despair. High school seniors running a dress boutique restore the dreams for needy girls to go to a prom or to a Sweet 16. Operation Fairy Dust is God walking into the room. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/nyregion/28about.html?ref=nyregion) A donor’s conference at the United Nations discusses the ways in which monies from around the world will help rebuild Haiti. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28sun1.html?hp) We can criticize the world for abandoning many places but can applaud it loudly when it resounds of God’s love. We are God’s response to the question.

When I am suffering my angst, I need to know I’m human. It’s all right to be fearful. It’s all right to feel alone. Christ sat in the Garden of Gethsemane and felt the same way. Christ got down on his knees and prayed. That’s all I need to do, too. A very human man was afraid and called out in his fear. When I do the same, I am heard, too.

By The Grace of God I Am

But by the grace of God I am what I am

1 Cor 15:8

A weekend morning. Sleeping late. Striped sunbeams streaming in the window and if an artist’s brush captures this moment, Susie, Deliah and I slumber peacefully. We are undisturbed by alarm clocks or traffic or phones. It is a gloriously serene and quiet Sunday.

I have not always appreciated this silence—the empty spaces of times allotted for rest and reflection. Life was meant to busy oneself in. Now, life is different.

Susie’s and Deliah’s entry into my life provided me pause. Cats by their own design possess the wisdom to spend a great deal of time resting in order to have a great deal of time living.

Susie and Deliah descend from an ancestry revered by Egyptian Pharaohs who believed that cats had already experienced the rebirth that they, too, were about to embark on. Like many cat owners, the Pharaohs recognized what great companions cats would be in this journey. Likewise, the Egyptians bestowed upon one of their goddesses, Bastnet, the features of a cat, and believed she brought many blessings upon a household. An inscription on a pyramid in Thebes recognizes the respect and esteem that cats held in Egyptian society:

Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; thou art indeed…the Great Cat.

Each of us carries a little magic or a little wisdom or a little miracle in our pockets. Sometimes, we carry it quite unawares. I doubt that Susie or Deliah know how greatly they have influenced my life. Delivering God’s blessings through being exactly who we are is the blessing.