Holly the cat with her owners.

Stories like this are not uncommon, but they always amaze me.

Holly, a four-year-old indoor house cat, got lost 200 miles from home. The owners, Jacob and Bonnie Richter, were attending an RV rally in Daytona, and one night Holly bolted out the door. They searched for several days in van, and finally returned to their home in West Palm Beach.

Two months later, Holly turned up at a home one mile from the Richters’ house. A family found Holly in their backyard, “barely standing” and struggling to meow. The pads on her feet were bleeding, her claws worn; she was dehydrated, and lost nearly half her weight, falling from 13.5 pounds to 7 pounds. This family fed her for a week, took her to a vet…and that’s when the embedded microchip was discovered, with information on Holly’s real owners.

I’ve heard many such stories involving dogs returning to a far-off home. Why? Perhaps because dogs are more often taken on family trips, and thus, they more frequently get lost. But it happens with cats, too. Here are some other stories. Perhaps some of them didn’t happen, or didn’t happen exactly this way–I’m not gonna try to verify these stories. But there are too many to discount.

• In Boulder, Col., a man moved fives miles across town. His indoor cat fled and showed up, 10 days later, at the previous house.
• In Russia, a cat was left with relatives, but traveled 325 miles over a year’s time back to the owner’s apartment building in Moscow–hungry, dirty, pregnant, and missing the tip of its tail.
• A year after a family moved from Utah to Washington, their cat showed up back at their home in Utah.
• In Australia, an indoor Persian cat left with relatives traveled 1000 miles to get home.
• In England, a Siamese cat hopped a train and got off at the right place, walking another couple miles to get home.
• In 2002, a cat disappeared while vacationing with his owners in Wisconsin, but showed up at their home in Minnesota, 350 miles away, 140 days later.
• In 1973, a couple gave their cat to a friend when they moved from Georgia to South Carolina. The cat traveled 200 miles to show up at the South Carolina home, which the cat had never before seen.
• In Louisiana, a 17-year-old cat traveled for three weeks and 300 miles–including crossing the Mississippi and Red rivers–to be reunited with his owners.
• In 1985, in Dayton, Ohio, a cat named Muddy Water White jumped out of a van driven by his owner. Three years later, the cat showed up at his home in Pennsylvania, 450 miles away. “He came and flopped down like he was home,” said the owner. She fed him for three days before realizing it was her lost cat.
• In France, a family lost their pet cat, who showed up 8 months later at their summer home on the French Riviera, 480 miles away.
• In 1949, a ginger tomcat named Rusty traveled from Boston to Chicago–950 miles–in just 83 days to return home.
• A family in Australia lost their cat while traveling. The cat showed up 9 months later at their home in Melbourne, 1472 miles away.
• In 1981, a Turkish worker in Germany returned for a visit to Turkey, but his cat, Minosch, disappeared at the Turkish border. Two months later, Minosch was found scratching at the family’s door on the island of Sylt in northern Germany–1485 miles away.
• When a family moved from California to Oklahoma, they left their cat with a neighbor. Fourteen months later, Sugar, a two-year-old Persian, showed up on their doorstep in Oklahoma, 1500 miles away, having averaged 100 miles a month to a place Sugar had never seen.

To me, the most amazing story involves an English Terrier, whose owner left England to fight in France during World War 1. Somehow the dog crossed the English channel and showed up in his owner’s foxhole on the battlefield. Or so the story goes. Believe It, Or Not.

How would our cats, Jordie and Molly, do? When Jordie is outside, he just spaces out; he starts walking in a direction, and keeps going. I highly doubt he could find his way home. But Molly–yeah, I think Molly could. But she’s so scrawny, and so skittish and afraid of everything, I wonder how well she could survive in the wild. She’s an indoor cat for a reason.

How do pets do this? Here are some explanations.

• Some animals have a “mapping” ability, remembering landmarks, scents, sounds, etc. In the wild, some animals hunt over a vast territory, but still need to find their way back home.
• Birds are sensitive to the earth’s magnetic field. It is suggested that cats are, too, though to a lesser extent.
• Many animals have keener hearing than humans, taking in ambient and other sounds and remembering them as a way to orient themselves. Likewise with smells.
• Perhaps animals take in the stars as a directional guide.
• And, of course, there are theories about psychic connections between pets and owners.

MentalFloss published “12 Historical Speeches that were Never Given.” Most are quite fascinating, ranging from FDR to Sarah Palin.

The first one was written for President Richard Nixon by William Safire, in the event that Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin crashed and died while trying to land on the moon. Here is that beautifully written, and thankfully unneeded, speech:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

Richard Stearns, president of World Vision US, published an excellent article on the Huffington Post. He mentions how Christians are fighting the secularization of society by advocating for symbols, like the Ten Commandments posted in courtrooms and nativity scenes in public places. There are various other symbols which we Christians make much fuss over–prayer at public gatherings, “In God We Trust” on money, “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the annual hubbub over a “war on Christmas.”

Stearns argues that obsessing over these symbols is backfiring, alienating people from the true Gospel. He writes, “The kind of Christianity the world responds to is the authentic ‘love your neighbor’ kind. Its appeal can’t be legislated through court battles and neither can courts stop its spread.”

I’m totally on board with that.

I get very impatient with these side-issue symbols being the public face of Christianity. It must come across as very petty to a watching world.

Stearns says Christian America needs to “get back to the mission Jesus gave us to show the world a different way to live — a way that demonstrates the great character of God: his love, his justice, his compassion, his forgiveness and his reconciliation.”

My guess is that the Dems and Reps will work out some kind of temporary fix to avoid the dreaded fiscal cliff, with a new fiscal deadline in 3-4 months. Then we’ll spend those months continually fussing over the same issues, and ultimately reach a VERY PROMISING deal which pushes a final decision down the road another 3-4 months…and after that, another temporary fix that puts another fiscal cliff at the end of 2013.

And by the end of 2013, after all kinds of pseudo-activity and countless meetings and innumerable press conferences and grand posturing, pretty much nothing will have been done.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the future of life in gridlocked USA.