Kitty Contentment

I would like the record to state that I am obsessed with the idea of a church dog, and I am very fond of Miss Clara Bo.

But someone’s gotta rep the cats on the Reformed Journal. So. Here goes.

I’m going to take David’s word that cats aren’t mentioned in Scripture, apart from lions and tigers (and bears, oh my!)

But perhaps we might take a philosophical approach, which will then lead to a theological understanding of the gift that is the domestic house cat.

Such an approach is taken by professor and writer John Gray, in Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life. Exploring the nature of cats and the writings of philosophers (many of whom had cats), Gray “discovers in cats a way of living that is unburdened by anxiety and self-consciousness, and shows how they embody the answers to the big questions of love and attachment, mortality, morality, and the Self” (from the front cover flap, as shown here):

Okay, that’s a pretty big claim. Possibly overreaching. I think cats are amazing, but also, you know, just cats.

But maybe there are some nuggets of truth here.

Let’s consider the idea of happiness.

Cats are generally happy creatures. They may not exude joy and delight at all times, but they are content with their lot. You can disrupt their happiness by changing their food (or being late in dishing out said food) or by moving them across state. But on the whole, day in and day out, cats are happy. They sleep, they eat, they get their zoomies out just as you’re trying to fall asleep, they knock pens and phones off the coffee table, they plant themselves squarely on the newspaper you’re reading, they crawl into your lap and make themselves at home. This is life, and it’s enough for them.

Humans, on the other hand, have a much more complicated relationship with happiness. Gray suggests that humans think of happiness as a project – a pursuit, says the movie – and thus we believe this project will bring fulfilment at some future time. Only time passes us by and we never achieve this fulfilment, and so anxiety and restlessness creep into our lives. We turn to diversions, projects, therapies, and quests, all to distract us from the fact that what we think we should be, we are not. And we wonder – am I doing what I’m supposed to be doing? Am I where I should be? Will I be happy somewhere else, doing something else? Will I find fulfillment then?

A friend asked me last week what I hope for in this new year. “To feel settled,” I told her. To feel centered and rooted, confident that I’m where I’m supposed to be. After a year of change that didn’t pan out the way I thought, I wonder, “What’s next? What should I be doing? Where should I be doing it?”

A few days later, I was seeking such centeredness by doing yoga in my living room, and it struck me: this was exactly the same conversation I had been having with my spiritual director during my final year in Grand Haven. I thought, then, that a new place, a new situation, would answer those questions, would solve the longing I had in my heart, would sate my restlessness. But here I am, still restless, still wondering, still searching for that future reality that will bring contentment.

David quoted lines from the poem by Christopher Smart about his cat, Jeoffrey. A contemporary and acquaintance of Smart, Samuel Johnson (who had a black cat named Hodge), scoffed at the belief that dwelling on the best path in life, on some future situation that will bring fulfillment, would bring happiness. He wrote to his friend James Boswell:

“Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent; deliberation, which those who begin it by prudence, and continue it with subtilty, must, after long expence of thought, conclude by chance. To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reasons, requires faculties which it has not pleased our Creator to give us” (Gray, p. 39).

Humans, Johnson believed, are deeply restless people, constantly seeking, rarely content. But such seeking is not the cure for restlessness. Such future planning and hoping does not bring contentedness.

Contentedness brings contentedness. The belief that this life, right now, is enough.

For the cat, this is so because they need no more than a soft surface upon which to curl up.

For humans, we curl up and place ourselves in nothing less than the hands of God.

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Life is, of course, more complicated for a human than a cat. There are decisions to make, responsibilities to shoulder, gifts to use, and unique longings that steer us along unique paths.

But perhaps, in the midst of all of that, we can look to the cat as our teacher and guide, showing us what it is to be content, in this moment, and in the moments to come. For in the arms of God, we are safe, we are held, and we are loved. And that is enough.

*This post brought to you by the 1,547 pictures of my cats on my phone.