I did my last animal rescue last summer…..it was for me, a dismal failure…I was putting out food at the feeding station, when a very old,very-sweet,female-black&white&in terrible shape-Cat crawled out from under the shelter & dropped in front of me. I knew this wasn’t going to be a ‘rescue’ but rather just bring her inside, clean her up & let her die in peace…….I could not leave her outside to die.
I am going to make this short….as i was bathing her I realized she was infested w/maggots. They were dropping from her wounds. I called Jake the Vet to come & put her ‘down’. By the time he finally got back to me, 2 hours or so later, the maggots had eaten a hole in her side the size of a silver dollar…& Jake was in New Mexico. I did not have the heart to accomplish putting her down myself,…..in the peace of this house……& she was being eaten up alive in front of me. My son took her to the local ‘Shelter’……I am assuming they put her down immediately. God in Heaven, that poor animal.

the next morning:
this is the stuff nightmares are made of
the final arrival of atheist
being eaten up alive by devouring worms
what possible purpose???…
save some evolutionary-custodial-cleanup
I have seen the feeding frenzy of maggots
devouring dead animals in the woods, or roadside
it is a study in directed chaos
not unlike a murder of Crows in the late-Autumn-Champlain Valley sky….
it seems w/out direction
yet accomplishes a purpose.
I have seen the Heaven of the Animals w/my own eyes
God does not view His Creatures as so much garbage
to be trashed or re-cycled
the atheists can keep their hopelessness
Mercy originates in Heaven
& dwells in a contrite Heart
what purpose, therefore, to embrace final death
save, this Vision of the maggots of ‘No God!’
eating the Spirit up alive.
though yet I falter! my eyes are pinned on Heaven
as I greet this Old Cat this morning
set free from the physical laws of mortality
dictated by this testing ground.

& so:
I have been questioning God on the issue of His Mercy & the Innocence of the Animals….I was not w/this rescued Cat-person long enough to even name her, neither hold her long enough to assuage my sadness over the horrid events of her life that brought her to such an end. What purpose to speculate…only that her end was entrusted to me.
Am I more merciful than God…does He not see the profound misery of His creature…am i called by compassion to act instead of waiting out God’s moment??!
I think on the Suffering of The Mother of God as She watched Her Son devoured before Her eyes….yet She accepted the Will of God, never crying out that it end before God’s Time…….& I am only w/an animal….dirty, blind & badly torn up but grateful to be in my care & I cannot bare her suffering …….it is beyond me…….& I can’t bring myself to end it.
We will never understand God’s Ways ,they are not our ways…which is why, to entertain the notion that ‘we are god’….is sheer folly.

UPDATE: the shelter,….they put this cat ‘down’ before midnight. amen
I named this cat Missy….she is responsible for the contrite introspection that has called my eyes, blinded by too much World, back to Heaven…..
nothing calls the human experience back into focus as quickly as watching the agony of another……only evil mocks such. I am grateful to this animal for the deep wound rendered onto my heart……the simple things are so beautiful…how easily they slip away from the day to day of it……I watch my mind ponder so much feeling……
think whatever you like……the smallest sins are the biggest, the Saints make confession every day…..the smallest things, the most telling, tripped up by a feather…..the smallest moments, the most compelling, and easily missed.