Friday, August 19, 2005

All creatures, great and small...

Storyteller's World has a wonderfully silly post about the theology of badgers, which in its turn reminded me of two anthropomorphic text messages I received in the last couple of weeks. One, from Teen Wonder, read simply "Burying Rat. Don't wait" while the other, from my incumbent, set out to inform me of the joys awaiting me here on my return. The content overran one screen, so what I read was. "Can you do funeral on Friday? Furry family..."
After Darling Daughter and I had stopped cackling about the images this conjured of a whole tribe of werewolves in mourning (what...read too much Harry Potter? us?? never!) I was slightly disappointed to scroll down and discover that this was a reference to the 3 cats and 2 dogs who allow us to live with them, and who had invited the vicar to visit while we were away. He wanted us to know they were fine!
And the rat? Not a parishioner, but the late lamented companion of one for whom Teen Wonder does a spot of gardening...
But one final return from holiday story concerns friends whose house was burgled while they were away some years ago. Even their freezer was emptied, except for one item, which lay lonely and unloved at the bottom. It was, as anyone could have guessed, a bag of Mediterranean vegetable stew...but to save time, my friend had simply labelled it "Rat".
You can't really blame the thieves for leaving it, can you?

5 comments:

Karen Sapio said...

One member of a former youth group had a pet rat named Beatrice who had numerous health problems. I cannot tell you often our end-of-meeting prayers included intercessions on Beatrice's behalf. "For my rat, Beatrice, that God would heal the infection in her tail . . ."

Stuart said...

Then there is always the story of the fox, rabbits and guinea pig at Greenbelt, but you would need to ask Liz to tell you that one.

Stuart said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Kathryn said...

Indeed there is, Stuart...and I always assumed that it had been immortalised in the title of your blog?! Will never forget the look on Liz's face as we left Lambeth after the GB birthday party, and a fox stalked us round the garden ;-)

LutheranChik said...

I think Euro badgers are nicer than Yankee badgers...ours are quite vicious beasts.

I remember during Lent this year we gathered people's petitions on slips of paper and took turns reading them aloud, then nailing them to a rustic cross at the front of our sanctuary...I was reader one Sunday, and after a litany of really grim, thought-provoking adult prayer requests I came to a child's scrawled petition, something along the lines of "Please help my kitty get better." It was sad too, but so sweet.