So it's been a while since I wrote anything. I read an article in a magazine about a woman leaving her blog behind and her reasons made me think about my motives for blogging. I opted to remain silent while I sorted them out. So... I'm back.
Anywho- my husband and I watched the SEC championships this past weekend. We were a little disappointed by the outcome, but Notre Dame is gonna part the "Red Sea" anyway, so we're ok. (E totally came up with that line- I thought it was awesome.) After the game was over, we flipped through the channels to see what else was on. We don't get cable and we weren't sure if we really wanted to watch another football game. And that is when we stumbled upon this documentary on one of our PBS stations.
Oh. My. Goodness.
We didn't watch the whole thing. We COULDN'T watch the whole thing. We came to it briefly before they started discussing how all these ferret owners/enthusiasts cope with the death of a ferret. I've been around a couple of ferrets before and I used to own a couple of hamsters. I'm not anti-domesticated-rodent. Ferrets are, in my opinion, disgusting. They smell like urine. The homes in which they dwell smell like urine. Those who visit the home of a ferret leave smelling like urine.
The documentary highlighted how one lady buries her dead ferrets in her back yard. My husband and I were being a little immature while we watched this so we made jokes about compost and "too soon?" They showed the next lady who plants flowers in the cremains of the ferrets so that if she were ever to move, she could take all of her potted plants (and ergo deceased ferrets) with her. We thought that was a little creepy. The next couple people kept their ferrets' cremains in boxes or tins scattered about on shelves throughout their homes. I'm not one for ashes- human or animal- but this was just gross to me. And then, the most supremely gross part came. E and I found ourselves gasping and lurching back further and further into the back of our sofa with each aspect of this next part. They showed a chest freezer in the kitchen of one of the ferret-owner's homes. We stared at the TV with a strange mixture of horror and hope on our faces. There's no way there could be dead ferrets in there! This must be an awkward segway into how some owners go to extreme lengths to prepare food for their pets, right? Our fears were soon realized. The owner explained how they freeze the dead ferrets because if they have 25 lb of dead ferret, they get a better deal on the cremation. (Ew!) So she, and her other ferret-owning friends, store all their dead pets in the freezer until they have a sufficient amount. Then, when they get the ashes back from the crematory, they divvy up the ashes. As in "you had one ferret so 2 tsps for you. Oh you had 2 ferrets so 4 tsps for you." (Ew! Ew! Ew!) And then she said that her husband gives her a hard time about this ferret-morgue operation she has because they often have more dead ferrets in the freezer than they have FOOD FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. (OMG- I'm gonna vomit!!!)) This is where we had to change the channels! E declared he completely agreed with Romney that we could cut funding to PBS after that and my mom reaffirmed her stance on why she doesn't do pot-luck!
As part of their discussion on ferret grief, the owners shared how they believe these ferrets must be in heaven. They all seem to believe that their pets had too much personality to just end.
Here's where the faith comes in. I'm not one to believe in animals having souls or that Fido and Fluffy will be in heaven. But I can't say it would ruin my heaven to find them there. I don't think a person who makes it to heaven is really going to be put out if they thought Spot was going to be there and turns out he's not. It's heaven- it's going to be perfect and it will probably be absolutely nothing like what we imagine. But I digress... During the homily at mass this Sunday, the priest posited that Mary must have felt tempted to believe that all was over when she held the body of her son after he was taken down from the cross. Maybe its that I really don't like this priest or maybe its that anything that strikes me as pithy is almost immediately dismissed in my mind. Either way, something about this struck me as wrong. When I lost my baby to miscarriage, I did not experience a feeling or temptation to feel that the life was over, gone, done or anything like that. I absolutely clung to the faith that my child was in heaven. Any alternative would have been entirely too painful to even suggest.
NPR had a segment talking about how people read emotions based on bodies and faces. According to this study, the researchers were surprised to learn that in the case of extreme emotions, people actually relied on cues they got from person's bodies to find out if the person was happy or sad. It was surprising because everyone expected that it would be the faces that would be the most telling.
So here is where they all come together for me. We seem to talk a lot in popular society about a need to hang onto our faith in a life to come when we face the death of a loved one. It's talked about as if its an unnatural thing to hope. I think we might have that backwards, kind of like that study on NPR found. Cultures around the world have long held onto the belief in an after life. Even these strange ferret people had a hope in a life to come for their animals. The only people I have ever met that seem to believe life ends with death are atheists. And honestly, they seem to work harder than anybody else at trying to remain convinced of their atheism. Might it actually be that our Creator made us such that it is only natural for us to hope for a life to come because our persons are designed to be with Him forever? Not every culture sees the concept of an after life the same way, but I think that has to do with the differences between natural and revealed law. So, I don't think Mary had that temptation. Maybe she did, but I think I really doubt it.
It still struck me as weird to be thinking about this ferret documentary in the middle of mass.
Anywho- my husband and I watched the SEC championships this past weekend. We were a little disappointed by the outcome, but Notre Dame is gonna part the "Red Sea" anyway, so we're ok. (E totally came up with that line- I thought it was awesome.) After the game was over, we flipped through the channels to see what else was on. We don't get cable and we weren't sure if we really wanted to watch another football game. And that is when we stumbled upon this documentary on one of our PBS stations.
Oh. My. Goodness.
We didn't watch the whole thing. We COULDN'T watch the whole thing. We came to it briefly before they started discussing how all these ferret owners/enthusiasts cope with the death of a ferret. I've been around a couple of ferrets before and I used to own a couple of hamsters. I'm not anti-domesticated-rodent. Ferrets are, in my opinion, disgusting. They smell like urine. The homes in which they dwell smell like urine. Those who visit the home of a ferret leave smelling like urine.
The documentary highlighted how one lady buries her dead ferrets in her back yard. My husband and I were being a little immature while we watched this so we made jokes about compost and "too soon?" They showed the next lady who plants flowers in the cremains of the ferrets so that if she were ever to move, she could take all of her potted plants (and ergo deceased ferrets) with her. We thought that was a little creepy. The next couple people kept their ferrets' cremains in boxes or tins scattered about on shelves throughout their homes. I'm not one for ashes- human or animal- but this was just gross to me. And then, the most supremely gross part came. E and I found ourselves gasping and lurching back further and further into the back of our sofa with each aspect of this next part. They showed a chest freezer in the kitchen of one of the ferret-owner's homes. We stared at the TV with a strange mixture of horror and hope on our faces. There's no way there could be dead ferrets in there! This must be an awkward segway into how some owners go to extreme lengths to prepare food for their pets, right? Our fears were soon realized. The owner explained how they freeze the dead ferrets because if they have 25 lb of dead ferret, they get a better deal on the cremation. (Ew!) So she, and her other ferret-owning friends, store all their dead pets in the freezer until they have a sufficient amount. Then, when they get the ashes back from the crematory, they divvy up the ashes. As in "you had one ferret so 2 tsps for you. Oh you had 2 ferrets so 4 tsps for you." (Ew! Ew! Ew!) And then she said that her husband gives her a hard time about this ferret-morgue operation she has because they often have more dead ferrets in the freezer than they have FOOD FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. (OMG- I'm gonna vomit!!!)) This is where we had to change the channels! E declared he completely agreed with Romney that we could cut funding to PBS after that and my mom reaffirmed her stance on why she doesn't do pot-luck!
As part of their discussion on ferret grief, the owners shared how they believe these ferrets must be in heaven. They all seem to believe that their pets had too much personality to just end.
Here's where the faith comes in. I'm not one to believe in animals having souls or that Fido and Fluffy will be in heaven. But I can't say it would ruin my heaven to find them there. I don't think a person who makes it to heaven is really going to be put out if they thought Spot was going to be there and turns out he's not. It's heaven- it's going to be perfect and it will probably be absolutely nothing like what we imagine. But I digress... During the homily at mass this Sunday, the priest posited that Mary must have felt tempted to believe that all was over when she held the body of her son after he was taken down from the cross. Maybe its that I really don't like this priest or maybe its that anything that strikes me as pithy is almost immediately dismissed in my mind. Either way, something about this struck me as wrong. When I lost my baby to miscarriage, I did not experience a feeling or temptation to feel that the life was over, gone, done or anything like that. I absolutely clung to the faith that my child was in heaven. Any alternative would have been entirely too painful to even suggest.
NPR had a segment talking about how people read emotions based on bodies and faces. According to this study, the researchers were surprised to learn that in the case of extreme emotions, people actually relied on cues they got from person's bodies to find out if the person was happy or sad. It was surprising because everyone expected that it would be the faces that would be the most telling.
So here is where they all come together for me. We seem to talk a lot in popular society about a need to hang onto our faith in a life to come when we face the death of a loved one. It's talked about as if its an unnatural thing to hope. I think we might have that backwards, kind of like that study on NPR found. Cultures around the world have long held onto the belief in an after life. Even these strange ferret people had a hope in a life to come for their animals. The only people I have ever met that seem to believe life ends with death are atheists. And honestly, they seem to work harder than anybody else at trying to remain convinced of their atheism. Might it actually be that our Creator made us such that it is only natural for us to hope for a life to come because our persons are designed to be with Him forever? Not every culture sees the concept of an after life the same way, but I think that has to do with the differences between natural and revealed law. So, I don't think Mary had that temptation. Maybe she did, but I think I really doubt it.
It still struck me as weird to be thinking about this ferret documentary in the middle of mass.