The Cat in Us

We have a new cat in the house. I came back from India missions some 4 months ago to be greeted by a scrawny screechy ball of fur. My no.1 princess had impulsively 'rescued' him from the street as he was almost run over by a car; she so 'kesian' him for he seemed to have been abandoned or maybe just lost his mummy-cat. She named him Maffin, with an 'a' instead of 'u'. Apparently he was a bit sick and the kids spent a small fortune on vet, deworming and deflea-ing fees. At first he was supposed to be just a temporary resident in the house till he got better and we could find someone to adopt him. In fact I had nicely made arrangements with one of my staff to do so. But as the days lengthened into weeks and months, the whole adoption plan was abandoned, becoz Maffin had literally stolen his way into the kids' hearts.

As for me, it was more a case of "no, pluhleese, not another cat, no matter how cute..." But 3 votes against 1 is obviously a minority and overridden in our democratic household. So Maffin stayed, much to my chagrin and worse, to the absolute annoyance of the other 2 queen-cats in residence. Especially  our "tigress" Zaza who sulked so much and for so long. Even now, she's barely tolerating the young upstart and is often swiping at and/or chasing him . Even our normally easy-going placid Uggy is sorely tried by the kitty's antics coz he bullies her daily by jumping on top of her, biting her neck and chasing her tail. Uggy is such a sweet 'oldie' she's never been known to growl much but she's growling a lot now.

Me, I can only watch resignedly as Maffin gets into all sorts of capers in all his friskiness. He pokes his head into everything literally - cups of milk, tea, coffee or milo, soup in bowls, empty or full laundry baskets, even bathroom drain outlets (which lids he somehow defly flips up) He 'hunts' everything from cockroaches to snails and pulls at everything from clothes on hangers to dangling wires.  He chews everything he gets his mouth on and drags leaves into the house to decorate my carpet.  He sniffs and jumps at the moving robot vacuum, as if willing it to play catch with him. His paws are forever swiping things off the table . He practices his claw-shredding skills on the newspapers before I get to read them. And then when he feels like being petted, he jumps into my lap to curl up or climbs to sit in the gap between my neck and my chair at the computer table (for some reason, he's got a fetish for that place). He delights in rolling in the dustpan as if it's his bed and of coz he howls like a banshee when my kid puts him to bath. What do you do with a cat like that? Discipline, yep. Unfortunately he doesn't understand commands like No, No No, I said No, or variations like Sit, Stop, Don't, Wait, Watch out, Not there  ....heck he doesn't even respond to his name. I could whack him on the head, grab him by the neck, tweak his ears or nudge him away ever so many times, but all these are only a temporary restraint. He will be back at his tricks in no time. Man, what can you do with a cat like that?? 

The more I observe Maffin and his antics, the more I see the 'naughty cat' traits in humanity. Aren't we all so prone to poke our heads into all sorts of things and end up missing the main thing in life? We get so easily distracted by what Apostle John calls "the world and its desires - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16-17) that we blithely and merrily go thru life, totally unaware of or uncaring about the reason we were created which is, in the words of Jesus, to 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart,  with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and to love your neighbor as yourself' (Luke 10:27). We spend so much of our time and energy 'hunting' for the best job, best spouse, best house, best clothes, best hand-fone, best whatever-that-catches-our-fickle-fancy for the moment.
In the so-called 'progress' of life on earth, we pull/put down relationships, stab each other in the back and step over one another in climbing the ladder of 'success'. We sweep aside everything and everyone that stands in our way and dig our 'claws' in deep to hang onto what we determine to be 'mine, mine, mine'. We demand our right to be loved at our convenience, our way, our time. And yes, we don't even know we are rolling in the dirt of sin, becoz sin is a dirty word and has been replaced by excuses, justification and political correctness. That's how 'catty' humans have become.
Very like Maffin, we are deaf to God's voice saying No, Don't, and its myriad variations of caution and prohibition. We balk at anything that interferes or curtails our freedom to live as we like, and certainly we object most strongly to anyone attempting to tell us we need 'cleansing'. For awhile perhaps we may feel slightly uneasy when some (holy-moley) person talks about sinners in the hands of an angry God. But sooner or later, it becomes, who cares about God; it's 'just religion', so to each his own; let's just live and let live, every way is the right way as long as we don't hurt others. 

So we carry on like Maffin, blissfully eating, drinking, living, loving, and yes, sinning. In his catty little mind, life is just one big ball-game to be enjoyed whilst it lasts.  I guess that's how we view our life on earth too. But we aren't cats. We are made in the image of our Creator, for a particular purpose. As King David acknowledged, "What is mankind that You are mindful of them, human beings that You care for them? You have made them  a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of Your hands; You put everything under their feet." (Psalm 8:4-6). That doesn't sound like a cat's life to me. So why are we behaving  like cats, intent only on doing 'our thing'?

Yet I have to admit whilst I get angry with Maffin's naughty acts, I also understand he is 'just' a kitten. Likewise, God knows we are 'just' human, as Jesus said it all at the cross, when He was hung for our sins, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34) Even now we don't know what we are doing really when we forget, disbelieve, disobey, reject or simply can't be bothered about God. He could have done given up on us for all the wrong we do, intentionally or unintentionally, knowingly or unknowingly,  like I gave up on Maffin. But instead He loved us to death, literally. The only reason Jesus died on the cross is because He loves us.

Cats know instinctively how to respond to love. Even the little grudging love I give to Maffin, the Terrible (when I am in a generous mood)  is reciprocated with a purr of acknowledgment, a lifting of the head to be stroked and petted some more. Love always elicits and evokes a response. When I see how even a cat can so easily accept the 'crumbs' of love I dish out, I cannot understand how is it that we humans won't respond to the highest sacrificial love of a God (which isn't dependent on His moods or our performance) who went all the way into and beyond death for us, that we might have the one thing that truly matters - abundant eternal life. Hmmm, could it be that on one hand we are too 'catty' simply bull-dozing our way thru life, but on the other, we aren't 'catty' enough to let ourselves be loved..... 

"....And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" - Ephesians 3:17