{"id":25123,"date":"2025-04-17T01:19:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T05:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=25123"},"modified":"2025-04-17T01:19:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T05:19:56","slug":"where-the-lion-lies-down-heaven-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2025\/04\/where-the-lion-lies-down-heaven-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Where the Lion Lies Down, Heaven Is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"a
image via Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Charlie has not left.<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve never had a cat in my life before. My father had a bad allergy and didn\u2019t like pets anyway, and then I married a man who was allergic. But cats keep dropping<\/a> into<\/a> our lives<\/a>.\u00a0 Charlie is the first one who\u2019s stayed\u2013 on the porch, where she can\u2019t make Michael miserable. All I did was put a blanket in a box, and put out some food and water until she felt like going home to the Artful Dodgers<\/a>. But she did not go home. She stays on the porch. She hisses at other strays who come by, establishing her territory, so now instead of a whole pride of feral cats stalking near the property, I have one cat who thinks she\u2019s part of the family. I haven\u2019t had to set a mousetrap in weeks. When I go out to the garden, she joins me and suns herself on the patio. When I sit on the steps, she takes ownership of my lap, and promptly falls asleep there.<\/p>\n

The only inconvenience to all of this is that I\u2019ve got to stop her from running into the house every time I open the door.<\/p>\n

Last week I went over to the Dodgers\u2019 house, to explain to them that I hadn\u2019t meant to kidnap their pet. I was afraid they\u2019d be upset that Charlie won\u2019t go back to them, but they all just grinned at me. They were quite happy to know that Charlie is still theirs, but now they don\u2019t have to clean up after her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cat is yours, and I\u2019m just the cat\u2019s eccentric aunt,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be the cat\u2019s cousin!\u201d said Jimmy\u2019s boy, and that\u2019s how I found out I was part of a family.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always desperately wanted to be part of a family that didn\u2019t see me as a burden. I thought the family would come from the Church, but the Church hates me.\u00a0 A family has only come to me as I\u2019ve given up the struggle to conform with Steubenville\u2019s notion of a \u201cgood Catholic.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Jimmy\u2019s boy and the Artful Dodgers came to see if I had any snacks. We sat on the lawn, munching frozen chocolate-covered strawberries, with Lady Mcfluff the guinea pig munching grass under her laundry basket and the cat surveying us by the haunted house<\/a>. As we ate, we planned our Easter party. The Dodgers and Jimmy\u2019s Boy and the youngest two of the Baker Street Irregulars<\/a> are going to come to my house for a backyard easter egg hunt on Monday. Adrienne and I have been squirreling away candy and plastic eggs since March. I made the older children promise to watch the little ones and make sure everybody gets an equal number of eggs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Friday\u2013 that\u2019s the day we think about Jesus dying on the cross\u2013 you\u2019ll have the day off school, but I\u2019ll be hiking. On Saturday when Jesus is in the tomb, I\u2019ll be going to church in the evening. And on Sunday, the day we think about Jesus rising from the dead, you\u2019ll be in church and having Easter with your families. So we\u2019ll have our Easter on Bright Monday. That\u2019s the day after Easter, but it\u2019s still Eastertime.\u201d<\/p>\n

The children, who are miscellaneous American Protestants and go to the non-denominational church on the next block, nodded in agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus is going to rise from the dead on Sunday,\u201d said the little girl Dodger, the one who thinks Jesus lives on the moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is no need to proselytize or correct anyone\u2019s theology, in this new life I\u2019m discovering. There is only the obligation to stand in awe of the Resurrection, and then celebrate it with a party.<\/p>\n

I have tried to be a saint by pretending to be somebody else, and failed. I have to be myself. The only Jesus I could ever commune with is the One Who died and rose from the dead here, in the real world where I am. I tried to find Him in a vicious cult that lied about the world. I lost everything, and broke, and fell into a dark corner of Northern Appalachia, where I\u2019m learning to find Christ again. The children are teaching me.<\/p>\n

As I carried the guinea pig inside that evening, I had to step carefully. Charlie was running figure eights around my legs. She is far too interested in the pig.<\/p>\n

Later in the week, as I left the house to run errands, Charlie darted into the door and nearly got smashed by it. I apologized profusely. I pulled her out of the foyer and gave her a cat treat from the stash by the door. I reminded her that she is an OUTDOOR barn cat, and she\u2019s not to meddle with the rodent in my living room. I locked the door as I shut it, and left.<\/p>\n

I went to the chapel in the old hospital. I knelt in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and had my usual cry, and hoped God wasn\u2019t offended with me.<\/p>\n

I picked up Adrienne from the middle school and took her to run errands. We took too much time to admire the Easter candy and drove home the long way. Somehow, we were out of the house for hours. When we came back, I saw that the front door was open.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d not shut it carefully enough when I was fussing over Charlie. The door was now hanging wide open with the knob locked, blowing in the wind.<\/p>\n

Of course I panicked at the thought of my laptop sitting by the sofa, with all my manuscripts on it, and what a thief would do if he peeked inside the door. And then I had a worse thought. I remembered Lady McFluff, helpless in her lidless cage, right near the foyer. Charlie, so zealous for catching mice, always vying to get in. I left the groceries in the car and sprinted up the front steps expecting a disaster.<\/p>\n

The cat was on the threshold, obedient to my command. She was lying with her paws out\u2013 looking a bit like a lion outside a library, and a bit like the lamb that Christ carries on his shoulders in paintings.<\/p>\n

Lady Mcfluff was alive and happy in her cage, sunning herself in the light spilling in the open door, a few feet from the apex predator.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wolf will live with the lamb,\u201d<\/em> said Jesus. \u201cThe leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.\u201d<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Or perhaps it was my imagination, but it felt like Jesus.<\/p>\n

It felt as if Jesus was reassuring me that Heaven is coming to meet me, in the real world, in my trauma and my recovery and the new life I\u2019m discovering.<\/p>\n

It felt as if Heaven was already here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Mary Pezzulo is the author of\u00a0Meditations on the Way of the Cross,\u00a0<\/a>The Sorrows an<\/a>d Joys of Mary<\/a>, and\u00a0Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to \u201cThe Little Portion\u201d on\u00a0paypal<\/a>\u00a0or Mary Pezzulo on\u00a0venmo<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Charlie has not left. I\u2019ve never had a cat in my life before. My father had a bad allergy and didn\u2019t like pets anyway, and then I married a man who was allergic. But cats keep dropping into our lives.\u00a0 Charlie is the first one who\u2019s stayed\u2013 on the porch, where she can\u2019t make Michael […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":25126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1612,193,3192,4016,350],"class_list":["post-25123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-appalachia","tag-cat","tag-heaven","tag-lion","tag-pets","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nWhere the Lion Lies Down, Heaven Is<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"She was lying with her paws out-- looking a bit like a lion outside a library, and a bit like the lamb that Christ carries on his shoulders in paintings.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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