03/28/2009 Sat

Today, we went and got Charlie cat out of the vets. He has to go back Tuesday for a shot but at least he will not be caged all weekend with hardly anyone around most of the time. He smelled and smelled and explored and explored once he got back to Don's place. It was as if he wanted to be sure no other cats had taken over in his absence. For an 18 year old cat (nearly 19, I believe), he was doing well and even went down the steps to check out downstairs as well. He seemed satisfied that nothing too untoward had gone on while he was away and I saw him climb back up the stairs to finish checking out the upstairs areas. Dr. Green did get results from the (enema) and we are hoping nature will take over now. He did not get his bath as the people there said they were afraid it would stress him to the limit. I did schedule Milo and Grayson for a bath on April 14 and I am curious to see how Milo does with it since he seems now to think water is a good thing and he doesn't seem to mind that the tide sometimes rises while he sits at the back of the shower stall. I now have 7 squirt guns to play squirt gun with him. (Don took the 8th to see if Charlie is similarly enthralled.) Gray doesn't pay any attention to the things. He thinks Milo is weird anyway.

I spent the afternoon (from 1 to 4 off and on) doing homework for a Wired 4 Ministry class I am taking at church on Monday. The class is only 2 and 1/2 hours but I guess spending more time on homework than on the class itself is par for classes in general. I used to spend practically all of my free time on Disciple Bible Study for 4 years and the classes were only one hour per week as I recall. The Wired 4 Ministry homework was interesting but also rather lengthy to do correctly. For the class, a person is looking for his spiritual gifts and the homework starts with 240 questions with answers giving a range from 0 to 4 with 0 being Rarely or never and 4 being Very True, Consistently. You put your ratings on a chart that winds being categorizations of what the questions indicate. You add up the scores per row and voila, your answers reveal the spiritual gifts God has given you (and really wants you to use in everyday life as well as in the life of the church). My highest scores show that my gifts are Mercy, Giving, Helping, and Administration. My lowest scores were Prophecy, Exhortation (or Encouragement) and Discernment. You are supposed to pick out your 3 highest scores and your 3 lowest but my scores for helping and administration were tied and they were 3rd down my list, so I gave myself 4 top gifts. It was amazing looking across the rows how often I had consistent 0's thru 2's on the low end and 3's and 4's on the high end. I think the test is pretty good but you have to know it is going to take a while or you'll be tempted to rush it and get invalid results . And then adding up all those little numbers across 17 rows with 12 columns each. Then, of course, there is reading and spending time pondering what each gift means and how it can be used. I already asked to be put on the hospital visitation team so mercy must have been on my mind even before this. Visits meant so very much to me when I was in the hospital that I figure it is payback time and I hope I get some blessings from it as well. I was once a Stephen Minister and I think that is a very valuable use of one's time but my person was older and one problem kept being replaced by another to the point that there would be no end to it. I loved her and she loved me so I had to just quit being a Stephen Minister and care for her as one person to another. I think hospital visitation will be a better fit for me right now as you can exhibit caring with a few visits and then let it be (I hope). I have also asked to go back to Stephen Ministry but this time, I want to listen to someone with a more solvable problem. And I will need someone who can meet with me at church as I can't ask Don to carry me to their home. Stephen Ministry is about caring, listening, and confidentiality and I think having someone drive you might ruin the confidentiality part of it. But meeting at church could be done anonymously.

Ben has another blog out about animals with pictures that are just hilarious. Here is the address for this particular edition of his blog if you are interested:

http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2009/03/animal-house-part-three-12-apostles.html

He does, by the way, do so much more than jokes and animals. I hope you have had a chance to read some of his other material.

Carolina won last night and Lawson looked awesome. But Oklahoma looks pretty awesome too. I am nervous about the game coming up tomorrow between them and Carolina. But I'll be watching nonetheless. One of our dear friends is a Syracuse fan and they lost the other night. Last Sunday, he told our SS class he needed to leave early so he could go set up his room for watching a game Syracuse was in last Sunday. I am sorry they lost for his sake. Don is happy as a clam that Carolina is still in the running. Hope it lasts even longer as he has to get by for a solid year on these last 3 games. It is fun and now we are going to get into baseball and golf. Don likes baseball somewhat but golf, no way.

Milo is now sitting on my Wired 4 Ministry homework and he happens to be part of one of my passions - caring for the welfare of animals. He has no worries, I think, but some do.