Cat Imagination, Part II

Wendy yearns for Narnia

"I've got to get back! I'm a Queen there!"

If you're looking for Part I of this post, it's over on my other blog. A few weeks ago, I told how my cat, Wendy, either has a rich life of the imagination or is going completely insane. I'm still not sure of the answer, but let me catch you up on the latest.

First of all, she's developed an obsession for the TV show, Lost. I avoided that dread condition myself for years by refusing to watch the show, but Kristi was devious. She gave me season 1 for Christmas, and of course after watching season 1 I had to go out and get season 2, and so on, and so on. During one of the early episodes, the characters went down a hatch and into a tunnel. The scene was dark with flashlight beams bouncing all over the screen. Wendy bounded to the end of the bed and stared, enraptured, with her little head bobbing to follow the action.

After that, she was as hooked as all those folks you work or go to school with. I'm not making this up. Wendy generally ignores TV, but when Lost is on, she hunkers down on the chair or footstool and drinks it in.

One night, I pulled up a recent episode on the computer. She had curled up on my lap as she often does when I'm computing, but when the Lost episode loaded, she sprang up and started yipping in excitement. She climbed onto the keyboard and appeared to be trying to jump through the screen and onto the island. (If she had actually been in a Lost episode, it probably would have worked.) I had to pull her off the keyboard about three times and try to calm her down.

All this is nothing compared to her addiction to shadows. In the other post, I talked about her cute habit of watching shadow puppets on one particular wall. Now she follows me around the house just so she can lunge at my shadow. If I'm in one spot, she plops down and watches the movements on the opposite wall. I hardly ever see my cat's face anymore. She always has her back to me.

In the "Narnia" pictures at the top of the post, Wendy was actually watching shadows. The interesting thing to me was that, for ages, she was totally uninterested in what was making the shadows. She fixated on the silhouette of my wiggling fingers on the door, but when I tried to get her attention and get her to actually play with my hands, she wasn't interested. Right back to the shadows.

We've mentioned how a great book or a great movie can create a longing in us for Heaven or for God. That the fiction can provide road signs to the Real Thing behind the allegory. Watching Wendy, I was reminded that those of us with fertile imaginations need to be careful not to get so absorbed in the shadows that we forget the Real Thing.

When I get "lost" in a story, I need to make sure it's drawing me to God, not pulling me away from him. I don't need to sit with my back toward God, caught up in my own little world, and ignore the truth.

Wendy eventually did turn around and decide to come play with me. And we had a great time.

Of course, she still watches shadows. And I figure that's okay, as long as she doesn't forget I'm there.