Diary of a Theologian

Lucky Kitty

It’s time to tell a story on myself. Imagine my feelings as I began reading: “Sasha, an eight-year-old peach-colored cat, fell from the balcony of her 15th-floor condo in Alexandria, Va., sometime in the wee hours of July 21.” The story continues promisingly: “Her feline roommate went to the balcony and paced. Their human, Meagan Wilson, woke up early, surveyed the scene, and began to mourn what she assumed was Sasha’s demise.” But then the tale takes a turn. “A neighbor found Sasha outside and carried her upstairs to Wilson, who was shocked to see the cat not only breathing but walking around. A vet flushed away some debris in Sasha’s left eye but found no broken bones or trauma to internal organs. Exemplary but not exceptional in her demonstration of a feline superpower, Sasha joins a long list that includes, for example, Sugar, a deaf cat that survived a fall from her 19th-floor apartment in Boston in 2012. Outcomes tend to be worse for cats falling from lower heights of, say, four stories. Given enough time, a cat will splay its limbs to increase its already impressive ratio of surface area to weight, for a parachute effect, which distributes the impact across its body when it hits ground. Wilson calls Sasha ‘one lucky kitty.’ Sasha was lucky to be a kitty.”

What can I say but “Amen”? This: Every creature has its distinctive goodness, given it as a sign of the Good that is the Reality that is God. I repent of ever having suggested that there is no goodness in cats. Parachute instincts, impressive surface area-to-weight ratio, walking away from such a fall. I would tip my biretta, if I had a biretta, to Sasha and to her maker.

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Clunkers in the inbox: An ad for a new book claims to offer “3 Biblical Strategies to Help Strengthen Your Families [sic] Faith.” I’d think one biblical strategy would be to have only one family.

And then this unintentionally provocative email from CVS Clinical Trials: “You may be able to help stop RSV in its tracks. See if you qualify.” I thought: Is the Revised Standard Version making a comeback? Has it aroused opposition that aims to stop it in its tracks? Then I wondered: Does CVS know that while I was at Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue our rector took us whole hog out of the RSV into the Authorized (King James) Version for all high altar and choral services?

As I may be perhaps the last person to know, RSV now stands for “respiratory syncytial virus.” But wouldn’t it be great if the RSV (Bible) could stop the RSV (virus) in its tracks!

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The paragraph I quoted about Sasha the lucky kitty was in National Review, September 12.

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Out & About. I am completely psyched about this coming Sunday, October 9, because I get to deliver the fall theology lecture, a “theology of walking” with reflections on the Camino. I was thinking about this lecture even while I was walking, six months ago. I hope you will be able to come to it. The talk starts at 5 p.m. in the Ascension Chapel of Church of the Incarnation, 3966 McKinney Ave., Dallas. There will be slides, time for Q & A, and a reception following. If you are not able to come, the lecture will be posted on Incarnation.org, but of course the questions are livelier and the refreshments tastier in person.

The following Sunday, October 16, the Good Books & Good Talk seminar will meet to discuss Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor. Anyone who reads the novel is welcome to the conversation (others are welcome to listen). This is at Incarnation, from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

I consider Wise Blood one of the most fascinating Christian novels and have read it a half dozen times. But an even better book, one which I have read more than a dozen times, is Augustine’s Confessions. I’ll be teaching Books V and VI on October 9 and 16 respectively, at 10:20 a.m. at Incarnation. (My apologies to my close readers for having the wrong book numbers last week.)

The Yellow Arrow

The Camino Francese that runs across Spain from the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela is a hard path to get lost on. The European Union in 1987 designated it as a European Cultural Itinerary, and one sees many distinctive blue EU signs marking the walking trail as well as cautioning motorists where the trail parallels or crosses a highway. The various autonomous regions of Spain also have their distinctive markers to guide pilgrims.

But the near-ubiquitous trail marker is the flecha amarilla, the yellow arrow. One sees these yellow arrows everywhere: on the sidewalk, on the corner of a building, on a road sign, on a tree trunk. They are the most common of the signs and the most spontaneous, in that it seems the collective minds of millions of pilgrims have noted the places where someone might be confused or lost. Often just when I started to worry that I might have missed a turn, there would be the flecha amarilla.

It turns out these arrows have a history. The guidebook says they were the idea of Don Elias Valiña Sampedro (1929-1989), an important figure in the modern restoration of the Camino. He was the parish priest at Iglesia de Santa Maria Real in O’Cebreiro in Galicia, a church that dates back to the 9th century and (again from the guidebook) is “the oldest extant church associated directly with the pilgrim way.” I visited the church one foggy morning in early May: candles were burning, seemingly from overnight; Bibles in many languages were on a wall for those who wanted to sit and read; cushions were on the floor before various places of meditation. It was a well-used, inviting place for prayer and understanding. On one side was a memorial to this priest. The guidebook again: “it was largely as a result of his efforts that we walk the route today.”

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Recently I had time to take a long walk in Dallas, the first walk of more than 10 miles since I returned from the Camino. I was heading north on Holly Hill, a street that angles north between Greenville and the Sopac Trail. And there on the sidewalk was the flecha amarilla. I was missing the Camino, and yet I was on the Camino. 

Bilbo Baggins wrote a truth when he began a poem: “The road goes ever on and on.”

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Out & About. Sunday, October 9, at 5 p.m., I am to give the fall theology lecture: “Theology of Walking,” in the Ascension Chapel of Church of the Incarnation in Dallas. The following Sunday, October 16, I will lead a seminar on Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor. And both Sundays at 10:20 a.m. I get to lead the class on Augustine’s Confessions, covering Books IV and V. All these events are open to visitors.