The Gospel According To Kittens
“We eat whenever we want to. Drink whenever we want. Our bowls are always full: they over flow. Our litter box is cleaned and our poop and piss carried away frequently, so we don’t have to live with the stench. We don’t wallow in our own filth.
We sleep wherever we want: couch, chair, floor, bed, under the bed, in closets, under tables, on tables, on counters. Wherever our paws can alight, there we claim as our most comfortable roost.
If we want for entertainment we absently push buttons until the light box begins flashing the contained, noisy humans we do not know – can’t smell. We hunt each other, plastic bags, cardboard boxes, shadows. We chase our tails.
We are the masters of all we survey. Nothing is withheld from our claws.
But every morning we sit outside a wooden door, when the Their sound of awakening begins to cry out. We rush to the dimly lit crack and wait. We wait for a hand to hold us, to pet our heads, scratch our bellies. We wait for voices that speak of love in warmth we know.
Every evening we hear the sound of arrival, different from the other imagined monsters beyond our sight. We race to another door and sit, waiting for the same.
Every so often, when one of us sits alone, we cry out, suddenly aware of the emptiness, the silence, the disconnection we feel. And a voice calls out from somewhere within our kingdom, and we race to it. Gladly.”
Three Wrong Doors
Some thoughts from Chapel today.
There are three wrong doorways to Jesus: fear, need, and tradition.
Fear: You did the math and figured out that Hell doesn’t sound like fun. So you bought fire insurance. You prayed the magic prayer, and asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins. So you could avoid Hell, not so you could follow Jesus. ? You came to Him to avoid Hell and, as far as you know, you’ve obtained that golden ticket. Why would you continue to follow Him more closely, live the life He wants you to have, when your need has already been met
Need: You were cleansed of your addiction, terrible situation, depression, anxiety, guilt, loneliness, or any other host of things that held you back. There was something that you were missing, or something that you had, that you needed to get or lose. Jesus took care of that. So why would you follow after Him further if you got exactly what you signed on for?
Tradition: You were raised in the church. You’ve lived the life. You’ve done the steps, in time to the divine music you were taught, perfectly, or close enough. You’ve avoided the “big sins” as a lifestyle choice, because that’s what you’ve always done. You don’t know any better, or any worse. Sin is something to be avoided or pitied, and Jesus will reward you for keeping your family happy, keeping His laws, and not committing all the fun forms of debauchery that those other people do, with your eternal pleasure in heaven. So why would you follow after Jesus, when you already know everything, and your reward is secure?
I was caught with how closely this tied with conversations in classroom management in terms of motivation – do we only reward or punish students into learning the material or behaving in certain ways? Should extrinsic motivations determine our actions over intrinsic ones?
Do we follow Jesus based on a quid pro quo system or because we want Him?
Are we astonished by who Jesus is, or just content with the present/future tangible and social benefits we receive and pain we avoid?
It’s Not Easy Being God
Creating the entire universe was easy, simple even, when you’re all powerful. When you’re God. Bringing together all from nothing, or something. or self (depending on who you side with), and putting everything that is into a swirling cacophony for your pleasure, is an afterthought compared to what comes next: being accepted.
It is not easy being God. The profound sense of separation anxiety that permeates every interaction will sag the strongest, broadest shoulders. Reaching out to creatures so far below your very ontological self, only to have your hand slapped away by an upraised finger or chin.
Knowing that your love sustains their ability to hate you, or worse, pretend you don’t exist. Being the ugly girl in class, the wall flower no one asks to dance, the one whose hair and glasses will never be let down by a Hollywood cliché. At least not in time.
Creation is easy, compared to dealing with creatures. Who would have thought drawing the planets into alignment would be easier than drawing all creation onto one’s self?
(re)defintion
I’m sitting in a chair in Nease Library. Second floor. Between the second set of stacks after the common area, on the left. Next the window. Facing Spinoza, Leibnitz, James, and the rest. Books as familiar as family. Maybe more so. Smells that transport me to this place a decade ago, writing papers, conducting research, composing poetry and song, love letters and harsh dismissals. Occasionally studying. Defining myself and my world.
Feels like home.
In educational theory we talk about multimodal education: information being transmitted via different avenues, working upon the different senses to aid in comprehension. Reading the text with a detailed diagram. Hearing a lecture while a demonstration is taking place. It is based on research into how memory is created, stored and retrieved. It explains why we have to turn the radio down and tell the kids to shut up in the back seat when we become lost while driving. It is the reason why we walk back into the room we had a thought that we forgot when we exited. Our brains store things stronger with multiple points of association.
This desk and seat may or may not be the same I sat in for years: they may have been switched, moved, replaced. But for some reason, that doesn’t matter. I sit down and I am not here, I am then. Not remembering, being. Living in the moments which are apparently ever present. These stains and scratches may not be mine, but they are. Every one.
The more you repeat an action, the more you return to a place, the more it is a part of who you are. For good or bad. Thus, we are where we go, where we return to, and where we remain. Blemishes and all, they define us. For good or bad.
Scattered Thought
. . .“taste and see” implies my love must be earned . . .