I Love My Cat
Every evening about six, my cat informs me that it’s supper time.
After supper, she goes outside for her evening constitutional.
At 9:30 she sits in front of me and reminds me that according to her clock, it’s time for bed.
At six in the morning, it’s time to get up….breakfast beckons.
After breakfast, a nap.
When I leave, she waits outside for me to return…then runs up the driveway to greet me when I return.
We have a scheduled life together.
She knows when I’m stressed, she knows when I’m sick, she knows when I need some company.
It’s been a tough morning online and she’s stayed on my lap instead of on the bed…staring at the computer as if protecting me from an enemy.
She cares about me beyond the food dish, and I care deeply about her as well.
Why am I writing this ?
We need a better theology of pets.
The churches I’ve been in have always taught that animals were soulless, replaceable creatures that were primarily created for food.
It’s the soulless part I have trouble with.
Our pets are capable of love and love is the defining attribute of God.
We connect with them at the deepest levels of our humanity, the humanity that was created in the image of God.
We have real relationship with them.
How can that not have the mark of the eternal?
How can that be something insignificant in the kingdom of God, now and forever?
I expect to be greeted by a menagerie of loved ones who’ve gone before me when I get home… including four legged ones I miss more than most of the two legged ones.
That’s what I’m thinking about this morning…your thoughts?
“I expect to be greeted by a menagerie of loved ones who’ve gone before me when I get home… including four legged ones”
I used to have what passed in some circles as a biblical argument for this, but I’ve forgotten it. I don’t really need one anymore, I just believe it.
Jim,
I was going to do a “biblical” defense…but like you, I just believe this to be true…hardwired into my spirit.
I totally agree. …we need some better theology on the subject. My fave remembrance of Dr.Walter Martin was talking about how God made companion animals for the pleasure of mankind, thus, since at God’s right hand are pleasures evermore, he believed that meant our dearest pets would join us in Eternity. He said he couldn’t prove it Biblically…..
I LOVE my cats too. What great friends and nurses they always are, always have been.
I once was involved in a ‘dispute with a young guy over the verse in Ecclesiastes ‘who knows if the soul of man goes up and the soul of the animal goes down?’ Sheesh.
Truly. Who knows?
I’m reading the OT…. am disturbed by the animal sacrifices and am trying to console myself that the souls of those critters were summoned by God.
Who knows?
Paige,
I agree with Dr. Martin…
Isn’t God’s plan to redeem all creation? Romans 8?
Your reflection made me think of this article from Peter Leithart’s blog:
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2013/07/word-spirit
My understanding is that humans have souls because, like animals, we are living creatures. The soul being, in an active sense, that which desires both natural things and God. What sets us apart from animals is not our souls, but our ability to form a “self” (to use Kierkegaard’s language), to turn our subjective experience of God and creation into an objective reality, and therefore be responsible for that subjective reality in a way that animals cannot be.
One thing I felt helpful about this approach is that it avoids limiting animals to a kind of secular realm of purely natural creatures that have no relationship with God.
Whenever I see a dead animal on the road, I am reminded of two things: 1) One die, I will die and 2) it will only be a sleep like theirs because we will be raised and brought to a new Earth where death will be no more!
I wonder if we’ll all be vegetarians then 🙂
Piper believes pets are in Heaven, it’s a settled matter.
I have two dogs who are so completely lacking in smart but not lacking in delight. I wish I were more like that. I’ve mastered the ‘lacking in smart’, so I’m half-a-way there.
I really enjoyed the book “Heaven” by Randy Alcorn and he spoke to this issue.
Patrick…according to Isaiah, even lions and wolves will eat straw……
Michael,
I love my cat too. My grandson and I rescued him from a Stater Bros. parking lot 15 years ago. He was just a tiny kitten then, soaked and shivering under a row of shopping carts.
John closes his Gospel by saying that the deeds of Jesus were not all written down. I’m betting that a tender heart for animals was amongst them.
While we’re on the subject of cats….. may I ask you dear kind hearted folks to pray for a little guy named Simba? He is at death’s door after a botched simple surgical procedure. My good friend who does kitten rescue has him. Lord have mercy on little Simba. Thank you
Horse sense should be in this conversation
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=124191381045509
I really like cats too. they taste a lot like chicken
In one of his books C.S.Lewis postulates that our pets are not “beasts of the field”. They have self awareness, (the ability to discern right from wrong) and they learn that from us. He goes on to speculate that perhaps as Christ has sanctified us we have sanctified our beloved pets. I have found much comfort from what he wrote and also the scripture that states “all of creation groans awaiting it’s redemption.”
I personally expect to have a fur- fest on the other side 🙂
Oh yeah… I forgot to add Lewis thought perhaps self awareness was a indication of having a soul.
bd
that horse trained its owners well.
I wish I could love my fellow man the way I have loved my pets.Cats dogs and my little g-pigs……my confession of sin for Thursday.
came2pass,
I like your #14 a lot.
This just made me smile. I too, look forward to the day my pets who have gone before me meet me at the gates.
And those who I still miss even years after their passing, will still have a spot on my lap even then.
I am not a universalist when it comes to pets being in heaven–some of my dogs have been completely forgettable & a discredit to their breeds and Maker. 😉
I have had some reprobate pets… 🙂
I have heard taught that our pets have souls, but not a Spirit. Poppycock I say. They have a much better understanding of our Creator, the Spirit, simply because of how they were created. We are the ones with the deficit, not them.
Heaven is a much better place than earth ergo there will be pets in heaven. I hope it’s not me.
Animals are a model of devotion. We could learn an example from them. Well, I dunno about anyone else but I sure could.
Most of the pets I’ve had have been loving, but there was one… so bad we renamed him Stinky. He is no doubt in purrgatory. Declawed. With guard dogs. Hosed every day.
So will there be more animals than people in Heaven? 🙂
As a family that has the “Noahs Ark anointing” of a sorts I can totally related to you Michael. We have, through various circumstances, rescued, 2 dogs, six cats, 6 birds, 1 gold fish, one Red Earred Slider turtle and a Plymouth Rock Chicken. We have been blessed with a very large back yard so we can do this comfortably.
They all get along together which blows my mind daily. But the thing that really fars me out is the fact that my chicken has much more intelligence then I could have ever imagined. She comes when called by name, Susie, and comes when I tell her I found a bug in the yard. She require me to let her sit on the back of my leather chair for about fifteen minutes each evening before going into her coup for the night outside.
When I am in the back yard she will squat down low for me when she desires for me to give her love by picking her up and petting her. Now science is backing up my own amateur discovery about my chickens intelligence:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-startling-intelligence-of-the-common-chicken/
Everyone of my cats behaves in like manner as yours does. When my wife is hormonal all the cats and dogs surround me…LOL.
A couple of my cats will make intense eye contact with me, as if to check up on me.
I love my Cat too! Her name is Joy and she is a Pewter color. I feel that she completes our family.
Ok…that settles it Solomon…you are in my circle of good guys!
In God’s hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. Job 12:10
I know that my hamster will be in heaven. I know hamsters don’t have the same level of awareness as cats or dogs, but he seemed to basically like me and he was always gentle and never bit me, and he had a definite personality, and I would be sad if he wasn’t there.
I don’t know if all animals end up in heaven, or just the ones that people actively want there, or what. But I do hope that all the animals who have been abused and severely hurt (be it badly treated pets, or dogs in dogfight rings, or animals in factory farms) by people will find some kind of solace in the afterlife.
Since you didn’t write about cats today… I backtracked. Cat bites linked to depression.
http://www.boston.com/news/source/2014/02/study_links_cat_bites_to_depression_wonders_whether_cats_are.html?rss_id=Most+Popular