{"id":326,"date":"2013-02-01T22:36:52","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T06:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/?p=326"},"modified":"2013-02-01T22:36:52","modified_gmt":"2013-02-02T06:36:52","slug":"humble-beginnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/?p=326","title":{"rendered":"Humble Beginnings"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like feeding the animals in the morning. I often feed Mira\u2014Peter\u2019s Doberman. Then Peter\u2019s mealy amazon parrot, Jasmine. \u00a0(Where\u2019s Peter?) And last Silver, the cat from next-door that adopted us. In feeding Silver, I am also feeding the feral cat that sneaks out from under the house and steals a few bites.<\/p>\n

The idea of rural nobility and virtue may be an American myth, but having to feed animals in the morning is good. Putting their needs before ours\u00a0at the beginning of the day pries our heart out of the grip of selfishness and individualism\u2014whether it is an old lady feeding her cat or farmer feeding his herd. Mira\u2019s eyes looking eagerly at her food reminds me that my day isn\u2019t about me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like feeding the animals in the morning. I often feed Mira\u2014Peter\u2019s Doberman. Then Peter\u2019s mealy amazon parrot, Jasmine. \u00a0(Where\u2019s Peter?) And last Silver, the cat from next-door that adopted us. In feeding Silver, I am also feeding the feral … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6y6Br-5g","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marksletters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/cropped-cropped-cropped-cropped-Teckla-Mark-Mill-Creek-Falls-June-2011-3123.jpg?fit=1000%2C287&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marksletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}