Baxter isn’t my first cat. He’s my third. The first one I had only for a few months. I was a summer graduate student at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and this little kitten was left on the front steps of the building where I was living for the summer. Since I was headed back to the seminary that fall, I couldn’t keep “Xenobia” beyond the summer term. Thankfully, I was able to find her a good home before I departed.
My second cat was “Gatto”, and we fell into each other’s lives as well. I moved into a new residence, and the previous occupants left their cat behind. At first, Gatto and I had a stand off, testing each other’s stubbornness. She wouldn’t abandon the back porch where I always came into the house from the garage, and I wouldn’t pay any attention to her meows as I was unlocking the back door. Finally, after months of this game of chicken, who will blink first, I succumbed. It was a blustery, cold winter night, and I got home rather late. She was plaintively crying in her usual spot, and I just couldn’t close the door on her in that frigid environment. She walked into the kitchen, down to the basement, and, well, she never left until she went to cat heaven.
Baxter was my choice — sort of. After Gatto died I greatly missed having a pet, but with all the surplus critters in the world, I couldn’t bring myself to get a designer cat. So I went to the cat house at Westmoreland County humane shelter and viewed the population. There were many from which to choose. Big, adult ones and little kittens, males and females, long hair and short hair, every color variety you could think of, all were up for adoption to a good home. But again, I didn’t really choose Baxter, he chose me. When I entered the “kitten room” for a look around, ten critters must have come over to me, but only one crawled up my leg crying to be held. That was Baxter. (Actually, his shelter name was “Elmer”, but I knew that had to change. He was much too coy and charming for that handle.) After I went home for a day to think about it, I returned and the rest is history. Baxter and I have been together for over ten years.
Pets teach us so much about ourselves and what grounds our lives. They force us to be disciplined about their care. Keep the litter clean if you don’t want a problem. Feed them good food to stay healthy. Respect their routines and their space, and they will manage themselves well. Pay attention to them with play and conversation and show them affection, and they will become faithful companions and loving creatures. We shape our responses to each other. Training is a two way street where we teach each other how to get the best from each other by giving our best to each other. Patience and perseverance are the hallmarks of loving someone enough to help them learn how to live with us, and us with them. Baxter and I taught each other how to give in to the other’s preferences without losing our self-respect. For instance, he knows not to jump onto the counters or table, and I know to turn the spigot on for him to get a drink. We try to please each other because we care for each other.
I mention these rules of living with my pet, because when I thought about them, they work for living with other creatures as well. If we want to learn to love each other, we need to follow the same basic rules. Not that other persons are our pets. We certainly can grow into a deeper and more reciprocal relationship with our friends and family than with our pets. But this doesn’t happen in some kind of esoteric and disembodied way. Our love for each other needs to be disciplined, respectful of each other, mutually efficacious, accommodating to each other’s wishes without being subservient, and patient and persevering. These qualities don’t come easily in a relationship, but without them, our relationships are superficial and one-sided. We get lost in each other rather than freed to be ourselves due to the confidence that only genuine love can bestow.
Today, many programs use pet therapy to get people to engage in their lives again, to overcome depression, isolation or the lethargy that convalescence can breed. God can use pet therapy to teach us how He loves us and how to love each other in God. He chooses us but we have to respond. He won’t give up on us, but we can’t give up on Him either. It takes a disciplined regimen to learn how to love God as He first loves us, with mutual respect and freedom to be ourselves. But the sacrifices it takes to care about God in our life and our world contribute much more to our living than they demand of us. They give us a faithful, divine companion whose relationship provides a key to what is true, good and valuable among the many choices we face in life. This direction will never lead us astray, but rather keeps us safe in the loving home God provides for us when we learn how to live with Him.
Three cats have taught me some things about caring for other living creatures. Three persons in one God can teach all of us much more about living together as companions on a journey to eternal life. Take God home with you today and rescue a life — your own.
