House cats and wild cats

While I liked going to church as a kid, my family didn't. Neither did a lot of my friends or their families. They'd turn up for baptisms, weddings, funerals, and at times of major life crises. I know that a lot of people disapprove of that approach but it never bothered me.

The way I see it, in God's household there are house cats and there are wild cats. The house cats wouldn't even think of foraging for food in the open countryside when they are being so wonderfully cared for in-house. The wild cats sometimes tip-toe around the house and grab themselves the meal that is being laid out for them.

I know this well because I'm a recovering wild cat.

At some point, I did make the conscious decision to start behaving like a house cat. My reason for doing so is that the house cats have a duty to keep the house looking good and welcoming so it can be there and visible for when the wild cats are starving.

And yes, it's daunting. I'd rather not have that responsibility. But I also don't feel like I have a choice. It's like being dragged into a sports team when you're useless at that sport but you keep getting asked because without you there, there wouldn't be enough people for a team, and nobody would be able play. I feel I've been recruited to be on the house cats team and that I can't say no.

As grieved as I've ever felt that I did not have a sense of "calling", this is as close as it gets. I'd rather not have to be the face of the church because I wish the church looked better than me, but there you have it...

Unsurprisingly, the thing I'm best at is outreach to the wild-cats. Quite a few times I've amazed myself providing exceptionally good pastoral "answers" that I'd never even thought of before and didn't even know I had in me.

I've seen faith, hope and joy burst forth from chance conversations which people have initiated with me because of my notorious status as the "religious one". In most cases, the questions seemed to have been harboured for years but nobody "religious" was approachable enough for the people to explore them.

Let's face it, if you're a wild cat, you're not going to bare your soul to a formal religious figure whom you've never met before (although this can happen of course, usually at times of great crisis). Still a lot of the real pastoral stuff is done by the average house cats on the train, in the pub or after a late dinner.

Hence, the duty of the average house cats is at once incredibly simple and incredibly daunting. Just be who you are, go to church and don't be ashamed of it. No need to talk about it, just don't hide your faith. You're going to get saddled with some of the most deeply meaningful conversations ever.

And if the church hierarchy wants good outreach to occur, they'd better make sure you're the most beloved, well nourished and tenderly cared-for house cat you can be. One of their key jobs is to fill the house cats' heart with song.

So, on a more practical level, how do you ensure that the wild cats get some sustenance when they need it?

By being there, by being visible and by laying out the cat food at a place where the wild cats might find it. I mean even Simone Weil, the queen of all wild cats, was drawn in by Portuguese hymns sung in the street...

That's something Portugal, Spain and Italy do quite well. Church people are visible, their churches are open, and they often provide a table at the entrance of the church with some really good black-and-white flyers and small aterfacts such as holy cards and plastic rosary beads.

All of these fulfill the purpose of keeping the rumour of God alive in the world, and it's the wild cats who most eagerly pick them up.

I've picked up some seriously good, incrediby pastoral flyers in my time backpacking around in these countries. Some of them were nothing short of life-changing, the work of local priests explaining in 15 lines that God loves you and that you're not "going to hell", how to make a confession, how to pray for someone who is sick, how to pray when you're not even sure that there is a God.

So I wonder if one of my next endeavours will be to retrieve some of them, translate them into English, get them printed on some gritty A4 paper, and see if the parish council wants to let me put them on a small wooden table near the entrance.