I had to rescue a kitten from up a tree today. When I say 'had to', it was a difficult call: it was the kitten's first tree experience, though she's been practising on a tall fabric screen in the study, so I knew her balance was already amazing, but the first time she went up that she couldn't get down either.
She had no hesitation in shimmying up the apple tree - nice day, a bit windy, but Spring is on the way and here it was, right before her, a vertical brown object just perfect for digging your claws into, up you go fast, lots of smaller sticky out bits you can hare along too, amazing feeling, no one can catch me...until you suddenly discover the ground is rather a long way off and going down feet first is not quite the same exhilarating experience....in fact it's really quite tricky. So after going back up higher and back down to the same spot fifteen feet off the ground several times, you just stop and look at your owner with those big hazel eyes and start mewing helplessly.
If I'd been in less of a hurry to go to work I would have stayed and watched a bit longer but I began to anthropomorphize rapidly, imagining my little black dot was stuck for ever and needed her mum to save her (classic mother-knee-jerk response). One wobbly stepladder, several fruitless attempts at calling her name and tapping the branch and a desperate grab later, and she was in my arms and swiftly into the kitchen with the door closed.
She probably spent the rest of the day thinking 'I don't know why that strange being got me down from a most enjoyable romp up the vertical brown spiky object; I was having such a great time...beats climbing up those green swishy things that hang near the windows any day...'
The response to small inexperienced beings appearing to get into trouble is so immediate; one wants simply to rescue them. It's just as well we never really see what goes on when we leave our tiny tots at child minders/nursery/school etc. We'd probably never be able to watch what they go through in order to grow up, without wanting to intervene every ten minutes. When I first left one of mine at nursery, they would lift him up at the window to wave goodbye, but I would have preferred not to see his little face crumpling behind the glass. Maybe a certain amount of ignorance is bliss.
And God lets all sorts of things happen to us in order that we should grow up. There would be little point in him rescuing us from this and that, even if think we need him to come and take it all away; we'd never learn to stand on our own two feet if that were the case. Perhaps we are more often the answer to our own prayers than we realise.
I'm going to need a lot more stamina to allow the kittens up the tree and let them make their own mistakes, whatever that means. Growing up is too precious to keep intervening. But I'll probably be standing under there for a while yet; worrying.
I was having kittens today.
To be accurate, I got kittens today. On Candlemas. Candlemas cats. Of course they're still very small at the moment. We've been wanting to look after some very small helpless little things for some time. Since we went on holiday without our (now very grown up) eldest son and stayed with some friends who had a cat. It may have been the combination of being exposed to a cat whilst missing a grown up child. The onset of 'empty nest syndrome' can do strange things to you.
Candlemas would appear to be an ancient custom dating back to the 5th Century Church, whereby candles were blessed at the midway point between Christmas and Easter - a kind of church half term celebration that winter is half way through. A last look back at Christmas before we look towards Lent. The reading is from Luke 2:22-40 where Mary and Joseph bring their first born son and present him in the Temple according to Jewish custom, along with a sacrifice of two pigeons - a poor person's offering.
Of course every parent thinks their child is a little bit more special than the rest, but Mary and Joseph must have had an inkling that in their case it could be really true. Simeon and Anna, the two elderly named believers they met in the Temple that day knew it to be true. They were watching and waiting for the Lord's Messiah. Whilst others looked for a powerful deliverer they were attuned to the still small voice. They both recognised it was this baby who would grow up to 'cause the rising and falling of many in Israel' and a sword would pierce Mary's heart because of his calling.
Because you can't hold onto them for ever. It is always hard to let go, let them grow up. Children don't stay children for ever. And kittens don't stay kittens for ever.
