For the Love of Cats

Everyone who knows me knows I don’t like cats. No, I hate cats. That same group of friends knows I have lived with cats as long as I have lived with my wife (47 years next month). This situation has created many lively discussions in our house, and several times I have sworn that the current feline resident would be the last. I’m still saying that; so much for my sovereignty.

I don’t really know why I hate cats. My father and his father both swore they hated cats; maybe I just picked it up from them. Goodness knows there was never a cat in our house to fuel my hatred. For that matter, the two dogs we had as pets were both outdoor dogs dedicated (supposedly) to bird hunting. I remember hunting twice with the first setter, but never with the spaniel before he ran away never to return. My mother had a parakeet for a short time, but that is the only non-human I remember living in our home.

I’m just not a pet guy. I have said it on numerous occasions: I don’t have enough room in my heart to love a dumb animal that requires constant attention and needless expense. Why bother? I fully understand the unconditional love that pets can shower on their owners with yucky wet tongues and snuggling furry bodies. I’m content to live without that kind of affection. Honestly, I prefer to be without it, thank you very much.

It seems fitting then that I am allergic to cat dander. What, you ask, have I been doing all these years with cats in the house? Sneezing. Blowing my nose. Rubbing my itching eyes. Granted, I am allergic to many other things as well, so my condition cannot be blamed entirely on the cat, but surely the feline-in-residence contributes to my suffering in no small way. Yet I put up with it. Why? Because I love my wife more than I hate her cat.

This brings me to the point of this soul-searching revelation. This morning I read Psalm 36 in my devotions. Verses five and six read, “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.” Man AND beast? I followed a cross-reference to Nehemiah 9:6 and found this: “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”

The birds, the beasts, and the fish in the sea rate preservation by the Almighty Creator. It is not coincidence that the last phrase brings up worship. Elsewhere Scripture reveals that, “The heavens declare the glory ofGod,” and “the trees of the field will clap their hands [at His coming].” In other words, all creation worships the Creator. It is not hard to imagine that the Creator loves His creation: “For God so loved the world…”

The Greek word most often translated “worship” in the New Testament also gives insight into the nature of the relationship between creation and Creator. According to Strong’s lexicon, Proskuneo (προσκυνέω), derives from a word, “meaning to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand.” Our approach to the Creator as the crowning beast of His creation is “like a [pet].” Epiphany! God views us not unlike the way we view our pets: the greater looks down upon the lesser with love, affection, care and protection. Oh my!

Now I see that if I am to be perfected into the image of my Savior, who came and dwelt among “His own,” then cared enough to give His life for them, I need to cultivate a love for cats. That would make me more like Christ. After all, Romans 5:8 tells me that, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” It would be inappropriate to say that God liked us before He saved us. He hates sin, but He loves sinners. I hate many of the things that come with being a cat, but I understand that I need to love the cat in spite of all that.

Sigh! This becoming like Christ thing gets harder and harder. Come here, Sadie; let me scratch your dandered little head.

Where is We?

I’m reading Philip Yancey’s book titled, Prayer: Does it Make a Difference? Page after page, I am struck by his insightful questions, although I expect to be disappointed by the absence of answers. Yancey admits this will be the case early in his ruminations. Still, I am reading on because the discussion about prayer and the examples of fellow-prayers draw me in.

At one point Yancey quotes Walter Breuggmann amid a discussion of the candor evident in many of the prayers we know as Psalms. Breuggmann says the candor is necessary because, “life is like that, and these poems are intended to speak to all of life, not just part of it.” He finds is jarring that modern worship songs are nearly all “happy songs,” a fact that seems to him to be inconsistent with the proportion of not-happy songs found in the Bible songbook known as Psalms.

The presence of happy songs is no surprise given the tendency of many modern Christians to believe that happiness is one of the benefits of being a believer. I discussed this sad misunderstanding previously (see Happiness and Joy), so I won’t belabor the point here except to say that I believe it is important for Christians to learn the difference between happiness versus joy. (Yes, Randy, there is a difference.)

I found myself agreeing with Brueggmann and going a step further: not only are most of our popular songs upbeat, they are almost universally written in first person singular (1PS). Ten of the top fifty Christian songs on Billboard today have the words “I, Me or My” in the title. At least that many more speak in 1PS, though it is not in the name of the song. Of the remaining songs, the majority speak in second person singular (2PS) as they are directed to God. A recent survey by song licensing agent, CCLI, reveals fourteen of the top twenty-four most popular songs in churches are in 1PS.

At first blush, this may not seem terrible: we sing about our personal relationship with God, so 1PS and 2PS are the most likely points of view. “Good, Good Father” is a perfect example: You (God) are this; I am that. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself. However, if all I sing about is me and God, a large part of what it means to live as a Christian is missed. While a personal relationship with Jesus is essential, that relationship ultimately places me in a body, His Body, the Church.

Immediately someone will mention, “If We Are the Body” by Casting Crowns. But that song is a rebuke, and I don’t recall having heard it sung in church. Certainly, there are other examples of songs that speak to or about the corporate experience of being a Christian. However, as surveys show, they are not predominant by any measure. I suspect that the majority would also be “happy” songs as well.

This mistaken tendency to be self-centered and happiness-focused is not trivial. Jesus said the entire law of God rests on two commands: love God; love your neighbor as yourself. The self is to be taken to the cross daily, Jesus said elsewhere. James counselled that true religion is other-centered. Peter asks us to rejoice in trials. In Ephesians and 1 Corinthians Paul makes it abundantly clear that the gifts of ministry are given to individuals for the benefit of the body, not the individual.

Despite what the Alcorns and Bells of the world say, Christianity is not all warm fuzzies and happiness, at least not the Christianity that is portrayed in the New Testament. The joy (not happiness) we have is the joy Jesus had: He looked toward the joy “despising the shame"[and torture] of the cross. Over 50 “one-anothers” in the Bible call us to turn our vertical love for God into a horizontal love of those around us. First of all, Paul says, toward those of the household of faith (Gal. 6:10).

We need to keep singing those songs about the wonder of our salvation, but not neglecting to remember what our salvation is for. We were saved for a purpose: to love our neighbor. First those who sing around us, then those who dwell in the darkness just outside our church door. They need to know why we are singing.