"And The Holy Spirit Descended In The Form Of A Cat"

Sunday night I have my first "Wake up at 0300 in a panic because of my job" event.

I was in a muddle of dreams involving rock climbing (from a conversation the night before - never in my life have I rock climbed and likely I never will) and towers on the tops of mountains and looking down into canyons and suddenly I woke up and thought "This is the start of my 60 day countdown".

Thanks, brain, for being on top of it.

I know, I know - it is not as if I had not known this was the case and had already started constructing a plan, nor that I had not even started doing some of the things on that plan (I had).  Intellectually I know all of this.  And yet there it was at 0300: my brain awake, my heart apparently on full adrenalin, informing me that I was on a countdown.

I quietly sat there in bed for a period of time until, as usual, I acknowledged the fact that I was not going back to sleep and rather than doing the early morning Thrash and Roll that generally tends to wake up one's wife, I retreated to the living room couch.  My attempts at getting "rest" were as unsuccessful as I had thought they would be - they never work:  if I am up, I will be up for at least 2 hours - so I finally lumbered over to the chair.

My daily routine of reading material was present, and so, by the light of a full brightness cell phone screen (money savings and all), I started reading.

And then A The Cat showed up.

If one is out in the morning before 0600 or so, A will show up - the fact he did not show up originally was due to our cooler morning weather and him being out on the Catio.  Yet here he was, delightfully tickled to have someone up and out with him in the early morning (as he always is).  

After the introductory head butts and rubs, he proceeded to immediately curl himself into a ball and present himself for his post 0300 nap (which is an important part of any cat's napping schedule).  He promptly fell asleep in an orange ball, leaving me to awkwardly finish out the rest of my reading and journaling - yes, you can journal by the light of a cell phone and with a cat on your lap, just not terribly legibly.

And suddenly, I was done with everything.  In a dark room with really nothing else to do and a cat in my lap.

On the one hand of course, it is ridiculous to think that a grown man of 12 Stone is imprisoned by a cat of 4 lbs. Yet here I was, sometime around 0500 or so, with a cat happily dreaming of chasing squirrels and birds and no intent of going anywhere in my lap and me without even a cup of coffee, just sitting.

Did I have some sort of great revelation sitting there with a cat in my lap?  Not really.  I fidgeted.  I looked at blogs I follow (which, naturally, were not updated because it was way too early, and sensible bloggers do not update until 0600 when the reading public should actually be rising, not the crazies like me).  Thought a bit about what I needed to do that day.  Briefly became irritated that "Here I am again".

And I suppose, in a way, generally calmed down.

I am not sure that "the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a cat" has any actually justification in Scripture - that I am aware of, cats never really figure into Scripture and I am pretty sure from the Holy Spirit's point of view, dogs are overall just much easier to work with and much less opinionated.  Still, I suppose, if a cat is what is available, a cat is what will do.

After all, He has used a donkey that talked in the past.  Which, I suppose, makes me grateful that at least A did not talk.  I just suspect that, like most cats, there is a cynical sort of dark humor there that would manifest itself.  

Better, I suppose, that he just slept.

Prayer request:

Many of you that are regulars may remember Friend of This Blog Linda G's husband was going through a tough patch last month (Original post here; see bottom). She posted on Sunday that he had passed away after 48 years of marriage.  With his health, a tornado that took out their home and the difficult time they had getting insurance to rebuild, and the general insanity that was three years of The Plague disrupting everyone's lives, she and her family have had a pretty tough go.  I am sure she would be appreciative of any good thoughts or prayers you might be able to offer.