by Jan Schmidt
Recently two people questioned me about whether I believed in a God. One with clenched jaw leaned fiercely toward me in a tightly-wired posture, furious that people had been badgered into lives controlled by religions, their whole happy existence on planet earth wrecked by some fantasy of an afterlife. The other was pissed off, seething about people who thank a God for the wonderful things in their lives, children, health, good jobs, or their happy marriage, forgetting that their “God” also sent some people to refugee camps, or others to be slain by disease or fellow citizens. “How can a person love a God who allow such horrors to exist?” she wailed.
I shrugged, said that I mostly think of some Power-Greater-Than-Myself as the universe as it displays itself in trees and birds and grass, in atoms and galaxies. However, I secretly hold another view of a God I have no real belief in, yet I frequently enjoy imagining.
Picture a God-figure in a white robe with long gray hair walking on clouds that magically also support huge trees with thick trunks and branches glittering with green leaves. This figure strolls along his frothy white path—though there is no path, nothing to follow, no destination, no past or future—so He’s just wandering and, suddenly, our plump tuxedo cat startles Him by landing on His shoulders, making God jump. Badu, our handsome, black and white cat Badu with the fluffiest tail and a half-pink, half-black nose, who died about three years ago, had been lying in wait on a tree branch.
While living, Badu would often jump onto my shoulders from the kitchen table when I came home from work. If I had a coat, his nails would pierce the fabric or leather. If I didn’t have a coat, his nails would pierce my flesh. Then I’d shift him, as God-in-the-clouds also did, in order to carry him like a twelve-pound baby with his head on my shoulder and body pressed onto my chest. A great and wonderful pleasure. Heavenly.
Before Badu came to live with us, we had a gray cat named Ratcat. She was mostly feral and scared our grandchildren, who hollered when they spent the night that they couldn’t go to the bathroom because Ratcat was watching them. She had a broken tail, so, when she patrolled around our bed, all we could see was her bent tail like a periscope spying on us. Now she’s up in those clouds, only the crook of her tail visible, moving swiftly in the soft effervescence as she monitors God’s activities.
We still have a cat in this world —Sade. She was a rescue with Badu, but they weren’t siblings, simply spent the first few weeks of their lives together. As cuddly as Badu was, Sade was/is the opposite—there’s no picking her up, no holding her. However, should she want her head rubbed or her dinner served, we best get busy. If we don’t act fast enough, she threatens us with law suits from the lawyers she has on retainer. But, as we do her bidding, we say she is an excellent cat. Excellent. She is so stand-offish with us; I wonder if she will let God pick her up when she’s finds herself in the clouds.
This heaven—with a God who strolls calmly through a raging river of furry beings flowing between and around his legs, tripping Him up, startling him—comforts me. And I feel, whether I believe it or not, that the world is a heavenly place. At least for a moment.
By the way, shhhhhhh about this. I don’t want anyone to know I’m such a creampuff. Besides, if you have a heaven, you gotta have a hell and I’m probably slated for a number of them: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Half-assed Recycler, even Atheist. So, I’m hoping to make it to this place that holds bad, rebellious, self-centered kitties.
Come on, join my Church of the Bad Kitties. We tithe in treats.
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