Kittens

To be honest I’d forgotten how much fun kittens are. We’ve had five cats in our married life, and, amazingly, they all came to us as kittens. Yesterday we went and saw the kittens now running riot in Meg and Justin’s house. They are tiny (although bigger than when we first saw them). They are balls of fluff with legs. They have eyes that are way too big for their heads, and ears that seem to pick up every sound imaginable. They are cute. They are curious. Endlessly curious. Everything seems a great adventure: a shoelace; a toe; a shoe; any wire; all the gaps that you don’t want them to find. These kittens are spoilt They have a tower almost as tall as the living room on which they can climb and jump and scratch and hide. They can chase each other up and down, in and out of the doors and windows specially designed for them to do just that. If that’s not enough, they have a set of tunnels they can leap into and out of; a place to hide in and from which to pounce on a unsuspecting brother or sister. Then there’s the the laser lights: that brightly coloured dot on the carpet, the wall, up the stairs, on the furniture that must be chased down and thwarted by their paws. It can be exhausting just watching them. Every moment is a moment of excitement. Every moment is a moment for a new discovery. Every moment is a chance to escape and discover something new. Every moment is full of life and energy. Kittens are bundles of fun giving us hours of entertainment. But it won’t last. Our cats are now about five years old. They don’t care about towers as high as the ceiling. They don’t care about tunnels. They don’t care about bright coloured lights on the carpet. In fact, if we tried that with our cats, they’d look at us with that disdainful look only cats have, as if to say: “What are you doing? I don’t understand you humans!” When our cat Fizz was a kitten she use to jump onto the broom as we swept the kitchen and ride around all the time we were sweeping. Turns out the kittens we saw yesterday have risen to new heights of kittenness even today. In their house they have a hoover that goes by itself. You just set it off and it goes round the room by itself, very cleverly knowing when to turn and go in a different direction! It starts when you hit the start button. Or…when a kitten jumps on it and presses the start button for you! A kitten who does the hoovering. That’s not bad thing is it?!! Fizz got bored with the broom. She found other things to take her attention. Like birds, or mice or…So will the kittens. They’ll realise it’s really the job of the humans to do the hoovering. They’ll ignore the tower of fun. They’ll walk past the tunnels that once captured them. They’ll become cats. They’ll lose their kittenness. They’ll lose that fascination with literally anything that moves. They’ll grow up. They’ll catch birds and mice and frogs and bring them into the house just to prove they can do it. And, it would be wrong if they didn’t grow up. Same with me. I need to grow up. I hope I have. I certainly don’t do all the things I once did. I can’t! But now I’m older, I’m wiser, I hope. I have a different perspective on life and what’s important. But if I’m not careful, maybe I can lose that sense of wonder at the world. At possibility. Maybe I can lose that sense of fun you have when you’re young. Maybe I can become cynical. Maybe I can become a little less likely to expect something out of the ordinary. Maybe I have God figured out too. I know what he will do and what he won’t do. Maybe I lose that part of me that some people call expectancy. What some might call faith. Maybe I can lose that sense that God really can do something new, or different or unexpected. Maybe, it would be better if I still have a part of me that’s just like a kitten: there’s possibility everywhere. Maybe God would like me to be more like a kitten sometimes. And maybe you too!