Friday, February 12th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
Dear Friends,
Yesterday standing at my front door in pajamas I asked Rachel to come and identify the animal tracks that loped across our walkway, up the steps to our front door, then back out over the side yard. “It’s a cat,” she said. Upon closer inspection she said, “No, it’s a dog. See the claws?”
I couldn’t tell, which is why I asked.
I said, “Let’s put out a bowl of milk for tomorrow and see what we get.”
“No,” she said. (Though she did this once, which is how we got our last cat, Miss Kitty who we had for most of the growing up years of our boys.) “What if it’s a fox?”
Foxes like milk, I thought. And if it were a wild animal, we had stolen its habitat with salted roads, fertilized lawns, and Cape Cods like ours. Milk is a sorry consolation.
When neighborhood kids traipse up our door step selling Girl Scout cookies or popcorn or giftwrap, they always make a sale. Those kids probably put some mark on our mailbox letting other kids know we’re easy targets.
I hate to see a fox leave empty handed. I pour some milk in a bowl before I go to bed.
But that’s not the point of this impromptu story. Standing at the door, wondering about the snowy footprints, we noticed a squirrel wriggling on its back in the snow. It was injured. No prints led to the spot upon which it writhed. It had fallen from a low branch, from the tree with a rot-hole in it where a family of squirrels live. We watch them from our front room.
It wasn’t bloodied. It hadn’t been in a fight, at least not on the ground. The snow surrounding it was untouched all around that wounded beast.
I pulled on clothes over my pajamas. I am not a morning person. I stabbed my bare feet into Ben’s old work boots, a size too big. My favorites.
“Don’t pick it up without gloves,” Rachel cautioned.
I imagined it wringing back to life and attacking my juggler.
“I’ll get a shovel.”
I went out with a cardboard box padded with newspapers. I carefully shoveled the animal into the box. “Shall I bring it in?”
Rachel looked at me like I was insane.
The garage was as cold as it was outside, without a sun.
“Put it here,” she pointed, and I set it in a patch of sun at a recessed corner of our yellow house, out of the wind. Rachel gave me a towel which I folded onto the squirrel.
By now he was moving less, and I didn’t know if it was because he was scared to death of me or if he was actually dying. It was quiet. He was a young squirrel, not fully grown, but big enough to dart around the branches of our front yard tree. He was very still. His wide eyes, so brown, so brown, were breaking my heart. I’m no Dr. Doolittle. And I was not prepared for further intervention. Don’t we all deserve to be held when we die? My instinct, of course, was to cradle him to my chest and sing. I didn’t want him to die. I wanted him to thank me this spring, chat me up from that hole in the tree. We all want to be somebody’s hero.
I trudged down to the warm basement to see if we still had Miss Kitty’s plastic cage. I could put the squirrel there and put him in the basement. Rachel was on some Zoom call with Church Ladies; she didn’t have to know. But we gave that cat carrier away before we moved. The dog’s wire cage couldn’t hold such a narrow animal.
When I came back outside, the tip of squirrel’s tail poking out from under the towel was moving ever so slightly, but I think it was the breeze. My fallen friend was in shock, in sleep, freezing.
When I came out after my hot shower, I removed the towel and that young squirrel’s body was stiff and his eye was covering over with a cloudy cataract as perfect as a snowflake.
And, now near midnight, listening to Rutter as you will have the opportunity to do on Friday morning, heading soon for that bowl of milk for the visiting fox, I realize I’ve been so sad all day long for the squirrel I could only love but could not save.
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Life is worship.
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See you Sunday. (And don’t forget the congregational meeting at 10 a.m.)
PEACE and much love,
Matt Matthews
864.386.9138
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Our Annual Meeting is THIS Sunday February 14th at 10 Sunday morning. Join us for a quick report. We’ll also vote on the pastors’ terms of call. Thanks for joining us. Here’s the link. https://firstpres.church/meeting
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Hard copies of the Annual Report will be available in the plastic holders on the wall outside the alley entry of the Education Building on Friday. If you want a hard copy, you may drive by the alley, and find hard copies there. Also, PDF copies will be available on our website at this link:
https://firstpres.church/hp_wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020-Annual-Report-4.pdf
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From your Nurture Team — Last week’s photo challenge received many correct guesses, starting with Nancy Brombaugh and Amy Born, who identified Joyce Wittler!
Here’s this week’s photo.
Visit http://fb.com/groups/firstpreschampaign to make your guesses, or email them to photos@firstpres.church.
Please join in the fun! We are running low on photos, so we would like you to select a photo from your younger years (grade school, high school or early adulthood). Photos need not be professional. Candid shots are welcome. Please send your photos to photos@firstpres.church.
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LOSSES
by Carl Sandburg
I HAVE love
And a child,
A banjo
And shadows.
(Losses of God,
All will go
And one day
We will hold
Only the shadows.)
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Rutter’s Requiem, offered for the Charleston Nine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bz39xh5Boc
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