Today, I am bringing home kittens. What is the prayer for the adoption of new cats? Is there a ritual for carrying them over the threshold? It seems as though these new additions to the family should be properly celebrated, and brought to God’s attention:
For eyes that pierce the dark,
when we least expect it,
let us give thanks;
For the duty of care,
feeding, scooping,
cleaning, and scouring,
let us give thanks;
For fragility and agility,
the dance on the stairs,
dangerous vulnerability,
give thanks;
For the purring murmur in the night,
reminder of love awakened,
give thanks;
For the strange song,
not altogether holy,
give thanks to all that is Holy;
For the incantation of
all creation contained in the call
to the stewardship of a cat,
I give thanks;
For the foreshadowing in claws
of judgement,
and for their retraction,
I give thanks;
For curiosity that God has seeded;
for negligent affection,
hiding the impossible:
comprehension, connection
with the ineffable mind of One
who would create camels and scorpions
out of the same clay;
I give thanks for this feline revelation,
mediation, distracting reification:
Thanks be to God for the cat.
The Revd Rosalind C Hughes is the Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Euclid, Ohio. She blogs at RosalindHughes.com. Her first book, A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing is due out April 1 from Upper Room Books. And yes, it features kittens.