There is a lot going on in the world, in the country, in our communities and families.

Sometimes, the best antidote to overwhelm is to give in to kittens the overwhelming, particular, peculiar love of God.

Sometimes, this can be expressed in kittens.

This is a prayer I shared on the Episcopal Cafe for the celebration of the arrival of new feline family members:

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.

(Yes, there are cats in the book:

The humble housecat has domesticated the earth so entirely that there is no escape from her influence, nor from her evangelism on behalf of the omnipresent Lion-tamer.

From A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing, out from Upper Room Books on April 1!)