Through the Looking Glass
It isn’t quite the Looking Glass that provided the gateway into Alice’s Wonderland, but the nearly wall-sized window that sits between our breakfast nook and the small deck behind our garage seemed that way for a bit. As I entered the kitchen after a good night’s sleep, I looked down at the rain dampened deck to see if Morris, the wild little Tabby who we have befriended, was sitting at the furthest corner where he usually waits to be fed. No Morris. And then I broke into laughter. There was Morris, sitting on the small table right outside the window, staring in.
Our indoor cats, Sassy and Mr. Fuzzy, occasionally stood up against the window and stared at Morris. We don’t know what cats think if much of anything. But I imagined Mr. Fuzzy, our handsome grey, and white, with hints of apricot, short-haired love ball pondering his life and Morris’. Mr. Fuzzy was in Morris’ place himself just a few years ago. He, too, was a visitor to our deck; a little bedraggled waif with a wound on his back. Eventually, he proved himself quite tame; tame enough to bring into the garage, get veterinarian care, and hold in isolation from Sassy while we figured out what to do for him. Once we failed at locating any previous owner, we went through the necessary medical steps to make it safe for us and Sassy to adopt him.
So there is Mr. Fuzzy, warm, loved, played with, cuddled…looking out the window at a very damp Morris. The wild little orange guy shows enthusiastic affection for people but doesn’t know enough to not scratch and bite without warning. I wonder if Mr. Fuzzy has any idea of how well off he is. Does he look at Morris and say “Wow, that could be me.” Or is he so used to being spoiled that he looks down on Morris as some sort of second-class cat? Does he, maybe, even think of Morris as deserving his fate because of his behavior, or his somewhat beat-up appearance?
No, we can’t know what cats are thinking. But I do know that humans are sometimes challenged by similar situations. We are blessed, and we get so used to it that we take it for granted. We forget that it is a loving God who blesses us continually. Or we are blessed and we look down on those who have not embraced the blessings, who, perhaps, have squandered them… who wind up cold, and wet, and hungry. Many of us are generous in caring for those less fortunate, yet still can be less aware than we should of how blessed we are.
Sometimes it might as well be Alice’s looking glass that separates us from an understanding of just how blessed we are, even when it may seem that we are falling a bit short on blessings. For example, when we see a television program about the poorest poor in Somalia, do we immediately think “Thank you, Jesus! How very blessed I am.” Or do we think “Those poor people.” The sense of compassion for the poor is certainly healthy, but it is even healthier for that compassion to come from a conscious sense of thanksgiving for how abundantly blessed we are.
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow”…. always, in every moment, in all things.
