Fr. Orthoduck and a Kitsune

Father Orthoduck recently received the drawing above. It is a drawing of Father Orthoduck with a Kitsune. The message said in part:

You have an avatar as Fr. Orthoduck … truth be told I have an online persona as it were too. She’s a … fox (or as the Japanese call them, Kitsune … mythical foxes/tricksters that serve the Deity Inari in Shinto myth) So here she is … reading in curiosity and wonder as Fr. Orthoduck happily points out some stories of the Saints and verses for her to read.

I have excised enough of the message to make the sender difficult to identify. As C.S. Lewis is fond of having Aslan say over and over in his books, we are only told our own story. It is not mine to tell the reader someone else’s story. But, I will tell you that the drawing above brings a smile to my face every time that I see it. As the frequent reader knows, my wife and I were missionaries. During part of that period, I had the opportunity to visit a tribal village multiple times and to spend time getting to know the people and the culture and having the people get to know me and come to trust me. The end result of that multiple year set of visits was that the entire village decided to convert.

They, too, had their beliefs in both good spirits and evil spirits. At least one time I surprised the people by not being taken by an evil spirit. Frankly, all I knew was that I woke up in the middle of a full moon night at the village. I went outside and everything was bathed in pearly light. As I looked around, it seemed as though the village had been turned into a beautiful painting lit by the moon. The stars were shining brightly overhead and I could clearly see both the Southern Cross and the Milky Way. There was no electricity and we were high up enough in the Andes that there was less atmosphere and humidity for me to see through, which gave very clear viewing. It was all so beautiful that I began to praise the Lord and recite some of the Psalms that express the wonder of God and his creation as I walked around. Then, I returned to my sleeping area (a loft above a little local tienda), crawled in the sleeping bag and went back to sleep.

Next morning I woke up and told a couple of women at the tienda of the beauty of the night. They promptly blanched. It turns out that on those nights, it is a soul-sucker that comes around to entice you to come out and who will then rob your soul if you dare to listen to the call. I said that I had met no such creature, but rather had ended up praising the Lord and reciting some Psalms. They looked at each other again and decided that it must be because I was a priest. So, I told them that God, who is faithful, had kept me in his hand and wanted to keep them in his hand also. I know they did not believe me then, but it was one of the chinks that eventually led to the village converting. There were other happenings, but that is for other posts.

The picture above expresses nicely some of what I experienced in that village. I simply told them the stories of the Scriptures and of the saints. And God was faithful to provide and to call and to protect. And so, a whole village was added to the Church. Kitsunes can learn to follow the Lord.