That’s a big question

What is your favorite animal?

I immediately thought ‘definitely not humans’ but that shows you how the violent and selfish can unfairly skew your attitude. However, with the state of this world at the moment the wrong type of humans come to mind all too often. We should change that and remember that there are so many wonderful people out there and we’re only hearing of a small number of the pointless.

I would say cats

As we have four at the moment but they’re numbers 9, 10, 11 and 12. That gives you some idea. Yet I also love dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, and so on. As you may have guessed I love Flamingoes.

I rather enjoy this life so some of my favourites would be far better seen from afar, which is a shame. But tigers probably see us as food or a threat (not wrong there), and an elephant may not even know it’s sat on you.

“Herbert I didn’t order a pancake with jam, did you?”

“Muriel it has hair and teeth.”

“Whoops my bad!”

But all forms of prejudice

Are bad.

I’ve met so many people who say that they hate cats, to a cat lover. Such a casual term. Why would you even say that? You lose my trust at that point for that reason. You’re disrespectful.

I understand being scared of them, I used to be because I unwisely tried to break up a fight between next door’s cat and my dog when I was about ten. I wasn’t badly hurt but it was a shock. I got over it though.

Ditto dogs. They tend to be the main two who earn the word hate because after all it makes sense to be a one or the other type of person doesn’t it? It’s a point of honour. Yet many people have both, and the two species can get along very well.

A friend’s cat didn’t speak to her for a week after the dog died. She stayed out in all weathers, sitting on his grave at the bottom of the garden, glaring at the house. If they can love each other so much why do we need to make choices?

The truth is out there

It is possible to be different and not hate each other. Lions will walk past a herd of food if they’re not hungry. We’re the only species who kill for the sake of it. Who make up stories in our heads, and then act on them.

I wrote yesterday about difficulties communicating on social media, where you say something and can’t quite believe how someone else read it; ‘you got that from that?’

Do you think the God of love might be somewhat puzzled that His name can be used for protection in a violent situation of human choosing? Completely ignoring ‘Thou shalt not kill”? He didn’t say “For exclusions see the Apocrypha. How have Christians ducked under that one?

He’s probably thinking the divine version of:

“Are you freaking kidding me? I’m going to either try to save you all or leave you to the free will that you’ve abused out of sight. I did not mean the free will to kill each other! Dear Me, what am I going to do with you?!”

I’m reasonably certain that His compatriots (if we must see one beautiful energy with so many different faces and opinions) are equally baffled that we got that from that.

The truth is?

We don’t need favourites. We home cats partly because they fit into our lifestyle, but mainly because I’ve known when each and every cat we’ve homed has turned up.

Three times I’ve turned up at rescue centres one hour after kittens were released from the nursing pens, ready to be homed. I looked at Hito’s name on a list, knew he was who I was there for, and picked him out of a line up of three identical kittens, twice. The lady showing us around said “Just how do you do that?!” I already knew him. Simple.

We don’t need favourite deities, favourite political parties, favourite skin colours, favourite genders, and so on. We don’t even need favourites actors.

There’s nothing more pathetic than the end of Strictly Come Dancing when everyone wades in as to why their person was robbed! They made money and raised their profile. What’s not to love?

So that truth?

Love IS the guiding force of the universe. Hate is not. We don’t have to make choices. We can love everything and everyone if we don’t choose hate as a matter of belief or principle.

Oh…and bad feelings poison the host.

Deb xx