namaste

There is a neighbourhood cat I care about more than is reasonable or sensible to do so. He’s manky and scruffy, and he’s in a bad way. His tail is crooked, his eyes have gunk and one ear has a black infection on it. With little reason to trust me, he barely tolerates my presence if I’m lucky enough to see him when I take him a small offering of cat food. It seems he has known little kindness, and has good reason to distrust.

At first, I wanted to tame him, lure him gradully closer to our home and give him a name, a cushioned shelter and a permanent home. Perhaps even seal the deal with a little collar and a bell? I had grand plans. Till I noticed how quickly I move away from reality and over-spiritualise and intellectualise things. (What are the ethics of feeding feral cats? How could I get him veterinary help?) My saviour/heroine complex was in full swing, until deeper encounters with Cat invited me to something more free, holy and honest.

Gradully, Cat has become my Teacher. Feeding him, he has generously and unconditionally nourished me too. He is a feral cat, and that is his hard reality. He is not mine. He belongs to himself. Yet the concept of “inter-being”, suggests that how we interract with one another has the potential to support and nourish life mutually. The thought occurred to me: if I’m feeding him out of pity or do-goodism, then I should stop right now. But if I am willing to feed him, no strings attached, simply because he is hungry, then that feels like something new and good and life-giving happening between us in our inter-being. Cat started feeding me, when I realised I needed his help too.

Joan Chittister writes “There are some kinds of pain that cannot be taken in life. Loss. Hurt. Rejection. Disability. But those who enter into the pain of another know what it is to talk about the Love of a God who does not change the circumstances that form us but walks through them with us. … To go down into pain with another person breaks open the heart of the God who looks among us always for the face most like God’s own.”

And there, beneath & within Cat’s scars and scruffiness, I see Beauty, Goodness, and Life. I see the face of God. I recognise my own hunger & need. So I no longer feed Cat to “care for” him. I feed him to bow to the Divine in him. I feed Cat to nourish and tend to the scared, feral, neglected parts in me too. As I do, something new emerges. When I can acknowledge and tend to the bruised and outcast parts in myself & others, in some mysterious way it’s reveal it’s sacred-ness and I find that “Everything belongs”.

Namaste, Mr Cat. The Divine in me sees and bows to the Divine in you.

Namaste: I honour the place in you that is the same in me.

I honour the place in you where the whole universe resides.

I honour the place in you of Love, of Light, of peace and truth.

I honour the place in you that is the same in me.

There is but One, namaste.