A Dog and a Cardinal Come to Call

 

by Pa Rock

Devout Birdwatcher

I was late in putting the bird feeders out this year, after deliberately stalling for several weeks while waiting for a combination of decent weather and personal ambition to strike jointly, but that came about this past Sunday.  Actually, a stray dog do helped to move the effort along as well.

The day - Sunday - began with the arrival of a young adult female dog who appears to be mostly pitbull.  I was typing at the front window about ten in the morning when I observed her loping across the road from my neighbor's property, and on across my yard.  I didn't think much of it other than the fact that I hoped she would not get hit by one of the many hopheads who enjoy racing up and down our otherwise quiet country lane.  

An hour or so later I took Rosie out the back door for her morning constitutional, and as I was supervising her in the privacy of our back yard, the large pitfall came bounding out of nowhere and jumped on me, pushing me back with her large paws and almost knocking me over.  Little Rosie, of course, was terrified.  Our guest bounced around, much like Pooh's friend, Tigger, and tried to get a good whiff of Rosie so that she could figure out just what sort of creature she was.

I took Rosie back in the house, and then went back outside to try and get some sense and measure of the new arrival.  That's when I decided that, since I was already keyed up, it would be a good time to work with the bird feeders - and my new friend followed along as I retrieved the feeders from their storage location, and filled and hung them.  When I finally went inside, the energetic visitor, raced off to meet the rest of the neighborhood.

The dog is white with large black spots and a square, bulldog, black face.  Her body resembles that of a full grown lab.  The next time Rosie and I went out that day, she was again bouncing and pouncing along with enthusiasm when she landed on my frightened little friend.  Rosie wasn't hurt, but she definitely wanted back in the house.  We have suffered along like that since Sunday while my son has been trying unsuccessfully to find the dog's owner. Sometimes Spot is here and sometimes she isn't.  This morning when I tried to take Rosie outside before daylight we found our nemesis on the back porch sleeping against the door.   I'm afraid she ultimately may be headed for the pound.

But, back to the birds.

The feeders went up on Sunday, and they had no visitors either that day or the next - which is what usually happens after they first go up.  I fill them with a mixture (of my own mixing) of sunflower seeds and hen scratch - both of which have gone through the financial roof this year.  (Fifty pounds of sunflower seeds is more than $27.00 at the local feed store, and hen scratch is now above $11.00 for fifty pounds!). But, hang the expense - and I feed on!

Yesterday, Tuesday, the first winter guest at the feeder showed up, a big beautiful male cardinal who stood tall next to globe feeder looking like a true prince of the Catholic Church.  In fact, my mind immediately careened back to my old buddy, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law who was merely Bishop Law, the head of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Diocese forty years ago when I knew him.  (I once spent a long, boring evening in Willow Springs, Missouri, listening to Bishop Law prattle on about the duties and responsibilities of parish council members - a role that the priest in Mountain View, Missouri, had thrust upon me for failure to attend mass regularly.  The last time I saw Bishop Law was in 1984 - I think - as he was getting into the backseat of his limo after a visit to the Catholic Church in my hometown of Noel, Missouri.  Shortly after that the Pope in Rome elevated him to the position of Archbishop of the Boston Diocese, and a year after that he was made a Cardinal, one of the princes of the church.

Cardinal Law had every intention of gaining one more promotion and becoming the first Pope from the United States, but those plans were foiled as he became enmeshed in the sprawling Catholic Church child sexual abuse scandal and finally admitted that yes, he had shuffled pedophile priests from parish to parish in an attempt to hide their criminal sexual maltreatment of children.   Law was removed from Boston and spent the next few years in the church bureaucracy in Vatican City - and in the coffee shops of Rome  - until he was ultimately forced into retirement.  

Cardinal Bernard Law died six years ago today in Rome, and I am fairly certain that he has come back as a red-feathered bird who is sponging off of my generosity.  That is a staggeringly significant (and well-earned) fall from grace for a man who once aspired to be the absolute monarch of the world's billion-plus Catholics.

(Note:  I am no longer a practicing Catholic or anything else for that matter, but I still worry about all creatures, great and small, who seek warmth, food, and safety as winter approaches - including refugees and especially children.)

Winter arrives tomorrow.  Stay warm and safe, and be kind - and if anyone would like to have a very friendly dog, please let me know!