How do you tame a stray cat? You feed it. While you feed it, you sit very still close by. You talk to the cat in a gentle tone. You keep on feeding, sitting close by, and talking. Gradually, you move closer. You find something to pique the cat’s curiosity or appetite, causing it to come very close. Still talking, you touch it. It may shy away at the moment, but the touch feels good, and soon the cat will come when you call. He will rub against your leg to politely ask for more food—or even follow you home and move in for keeps.
How does God tame a straying people? He feeds them. While he feeds them, he stays close by. He talks to his people, mostly in a gentle tone. Gradually, he moves closer. He piques their interest with answered prayers and signs (miracles). He keeps talking through laws and through Moses. They shy away with their grumbling and consideration of other gods, but, still their wills are mostly captured and their hearts dance with God in the desert, until God brings them home to their own country with God’s laws eventually written on their hearts.
Or, God sends his Son to sit close by, talk mostly in gentle tones, perform some signs, and touch their hearts with parables and authoritative teaching.
Taming in the Desert and by the Sea
I used to wonder how the people of Israel could get lost on the Sinai Peninsula for 40 years. The answer is that they didn’t get lost for 40 years. God led them around in circles all that time—until they were tamed. He led them until all those who said in the beginning, “Would that we had died in Egypt when we had…” had died. Still, these not-yet-tamed Israelites were a “stiff necked people,” not readily bowing their hearts and their heads to the God who claimed and tamed them. Scripture makes it sound like they grumbled a lot and prayed a little. They were not easy for God to capture, tame, and use to lead the way for the taming of us all.
The Gospel today is Matthew’s description of the miracle of the loaves, the feeding the 5000. We know from the Sunday Gospel yesterday how that goes: these people are hard to tame, too. They want the food, the bread, but they want to skip over the meaning of the bread: God comes to care for (and tame) his people. It isn’t the bread or wonder of the miracle that is important: it is the God who is in Christ who comes Himself to tame his people.
Taming Today
As spikes in COVID cases send us back into mask wearing in public buildings for everyone, I wonder: how is God taming us today through this pandemic? Sadly, in many cases it would seem that such things as politics might determine the answer to that question. We think God is taming (or punishing) people of different points of view.
I check myself. Now that I am vaccinated, am I still fully conscientious to protect those who are not? I assume I am not infected or infectious—but data tells us that is not necessarily the case. Have I truly learned all that I need to learn from this pandemic about living from a baseline of Catholic teaching of the moral principle of the Common Good?
And what of the values of our culture? I’m reading a book which gives me pause. It is Thoughts Matter by Sr. Mary Margaret Funk. It is a book about the “Eight Bad Thoughts” identified by John Cassian in the 4th century from his interactions with the Desert Mothers and Fathers of Egypt. I quote from a description on the back of the book, “Cassian taught that real intimacy with God in prayer must include renouncing the thoughts belonging to our former way of life. In Thoughts Matter, Sr. Meg Funk instructs readers on how effectively to overcome these thoughts and to focus instead on thoughts in harmony with God’s will. The result is an experience of joy, hope, and freedom from enslavement to our appetites.”
Interestingly, two other books I’ve read during this COVID time, Kathleen Norris’s Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life and Thomas Merton’s “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” have at least temporarily led me to Sr. Meg’s conclusion: thoughts matter, and I must both take the time to examine my thoughts AND leave them open for God to tame.
Yet, I realize this morning as I write, since things began to return to normal in late spring, thoughts have gotten buried beneath busyness.
I have not been consistently at peace. I thought it was adjustment to several changes in my life and to having to create a new baseline schedule. Today I realize my restlessness is a sign that God is taming me–and that I need to be tamed more.
Hmmm.
Does God again have to tame me through struggling thoughts in the night because during the day I’m too busy to do anything that’s not on my To Do List? While I have so very much enjoyed to again teach, eat with friends, and take communion to the Carebound, there has been a restlessness in me, an awareness of being a bit of a stray cat, part of a stray people. It is easy for me to become a “human doing” instead of a human being.
Prayer:
Tame me, Lord. Tame me more. With a gentle voice, with signs and prayers answered. But help me submit to Your will—which is for me (and everyone) to live and love as You live and love. Tame me to be more like You, Lord. Feed me. Touch me. Talk to me. And let me, like my cat in the picture today, learn to listen to Your voice, follow Your lead, and rest in Your arms. Tame me, Lord.
