Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Cats, Kittens and Compassion

What is it about cats and kittens than gets humankind so focused on survival?

Several days ago there was this story out of Pennsylvania where a kitten was stuck in a sewer. People tried to coax and get the kitten out of the sewer for two days before they called in a local RotoRooter company to help.

They discovered the whereabouts of the kitten with a fiber optic sewer cam and then decided in which pipe they would find her. A guy, who says he's an animal lover, descended into the sewer system and got the kitten. Somebody named it "Lucky" and it is now waiting adoption.

I remember a similar story a several years ago; the rescue of Molly the cat trapped behind a deli basement wall in New York City.

There was some criticism of the New York media then for spending too much time on the rescue of a cat and not on other stories. The story, however, was important because it symbolized and validated the sanctity of life, any life. Why else would so many people, spent so much time, energy and effort to save a stranded cat behind a wall or a kitten wandering a sewer line. It took two weeks to finally rescue Molly who was stuck behind a concrete wall.

Molly and Lucky remind us that the essence of life is cooperation, concern for the other and compassion for the sustainment of life.

Given humankind's penchant for violence and indiscriminate destruction of each other we have much to learn about where we focus our loving efforts.

1 comment:

Topher08 said...

Bravo to you for writing about the sanctity of life and using the plight of Molly and Lucky to illustrate this. I feel that we as a society have become so disconnected from each other that we have forgotten that all life, no matter what being, is to be cherished. Thank you, as always, for sharing your observations.

 
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