A parishioner who raises GSDs for law enforcement sent in that picture above, although that’s not her cat and not her dogs. I think this must be her next project as a kind of final exam for obedience school.
Meanwhile, the cat cites Psalm 23 because his friend is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
I’m sure there are analogies in there.
The dogs, graduating from obedience school, are like: “That cat belongs to our teacher, so we’re going to protect that cat for our teacher. It’s all good.”
I’m sure there are analogies in there.
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 
Knowing that GSDs need a mission, they are saying:
“The cat is not the mission, the cat is not the mission,,,,”
Related:
I can still drive, thanks be to God. But I prefer to drive forward out of my driveway, so I have developed the habit of backing into my driveway every time street traffic permits. Well, one time I returned home while there were no other cars in sight and only one pedestrian who was not in my path but might be if I waited for him to approach it, which I would do if there was traffic also on the street.
I decided to speed up a little in order to be parked well before he came into any danger zone. I checked again for any new traffic and seeing none, I committed to my 90 degree turn away from my driveway to back up (keeping an eye on that pedestrian), pausing a moment in the middle of the street to make sure I was lined up properly, then I backed smoothly into my driveway and, in my peripheral vision, I saw the pedestrian bolt away from me like he saw a ghost.
I guess my GA smacked me in the back of my head because I suddenly realized that he must have thought I was trying getting into a position to abduct him. Consider, a strange vehicle first slowed while passing him, then sped up and then blocked the road, and then backed across his path, and was just ahead of him – waiting. Poor guy. I made an act of contrition for not taking this guys feelings into account.
To be fair, if the pedestrian had been a female, I would have kept a steady speed and drove into my driveway forwards, because my dear departed sister once counseled me about how women can be freaked out by a car’s movements close to them – this specific advice was occasioned when I thought a woman would walk across my driving path, so I slowed down to let her cross safely. But seeing her strange reaction, I asked my sister “why is she suddenly all tense?”
“She doesn’t like that you slowed down behind her. Just drive past her and I’ll wave to her.” What a world.
There is a culture of fear today that I suppose is another sign of our times (a time of psychological manipulation, spiritual confusion and moral decay). Innocent actions are too often met with suspicion especially if the doer of that action is a man. Such reactions are not only unhelpful in most cases but unfair and even dangerous.
I have lived long enough to have enjoyed the respect and protection provided by a good man heading my family, and living among other families wherein such was the norm – but that was long ago. My father, grandfathers, uncles and their male friends were like rocks to which their families were attached, and women and children moved about without fear.
Then came the sexual revolution and feminism. Patriarchal society was construed as evil, and an all-male hierarchical priesthood as a sin against women and equality of persons; the term “toxic masculinity” was coined; society was told that 1 in every 4 girls were sexually abused by their fathers, male relatives or friends of the family; and that God did not create us male and female, rather we evolved in a multiplicity of genders. I do not believe any of it because I remember a time before such mad ideas took hold but worry for our young people. They do not have the benefit of such memories and are therefore easy prey for the generational change agents – the “experts” – to manipulate.
Society has succumbed to a great deal of psychological manipulation in the last 50+ years by those who want to level society to an anomalous heap wherein masculinity and femininity are no longer clearly discernible, and the family and Church obliterated in order for a “brave, new world” to come into being. They cannot win, of course, but they have certainly created confusion, encouraged sin, and opened the door to a culture of fear and mistrust.
The Church needs its rock, Peter; women and children need their rock, good men as protectors of their families and neighbourhoods; and society in general needs to recognise itself as brothers and sisters in Christ, not alienated particles living in fear of each other.
Quite right, Mum. When men are represented as anchor-less, they are to be feared.
I am quite taken by the picture with caption. I am glad you put it, Father. There are, indeed, analogies there to be made.
Yes. Yours, I think, is “when dogs are rocks, cats are safe.”
Indeed 🙂