TGIF

Christmas may be the single greatest stressor in my life, even in a life filled with too much stress year round.

It’s come to represent every emotional wound I’ve collected over the years and I’m miserable in spirit from the end of Halloween to Dec. 26, when the whole thing is mercifully over.

This year is worse than most, for reasons that are pointless to recount here.

(We must, of course, must also pile on some guilt for being a clergyman who has such issues during a “religious” time of the year. If it makes you feel any better, I’m a hoot at Easter.)

It’s best to keep these things to yourself and let the rest of world celebrate as there is such little real celebration at all these days.

My cats can tell, however, and one cat in particular tries to make it better.

Sleep runs from me in winter and I grow exhausted chasing what should refresh me.

Miss Kitty seems to know this.

Every night this week she has waited until I lay down, then laid beside me and purred until I fall asleep.

Cats don’t just purr to calm and comfort themselves…they will do so to comfort you.

After I fall asleep she leaves to sleep in my chair.

If I get up in the middle of the night the process repeats itself.

She knows something isn’t right and though I’m sure she has no understanding of what those things are, she wants to help the only way she knows how.

It helps.

A lot.

She doesn’t know she’s practicing the ministry of quiet presence.

Her gentle purring is worth more than a thousand lectures on how I should feel or any medication to help me feel that way.

She cares, she’s present, and she’s consistent.

May God grant me the grace to be the same.

There’s lots of arguments about whether our pets have a soul…all I know is that they often have bigger hearts than we do.

I think God made them that way to enlarge our own…

Make your own application…