Formica and Tesla, my cats, often gaze longingly at the ceiling so it’s not surprising their favorite cat toy is a five and a half foot ladder, but when they’re on it they sit looking UP as much as they do looking down.
Many of us wish for world peace, not as Miss America rhetoric, but a place where we all work together, a place we don’t have to worry about our destruction or plan another’s.
I paint pictures on my ceilings but I’m not sure my cats enjoy them. I can see a few of the qualities of heaven but all too often my longing to go Home seems somewhat flat\.
Then I remember the Kogi of South America who raise a child in a cave. A teacher comes daily to train the child about ethics and the world beyond. For years and years the youth never sees his teacher because the young person sits facing a wall, which I suspect is no more Heaven-like than my ceiling. The shadow of his teacher is thrown onto this wall by a fire and the child hears and sees evidence of someone he never really SEES.
I can’t see God either, but I see His evidence and get His messages. When the Kogi child grows up he’s brought out into the world. He sees, then, what he’s only heard about; a world longed for something beyond a flat as a ceiling.
Many of my wishes and desires are a longing for Home and I’m reminded of this as my cat stare up.nancymauerman.com