Corrie and I have cats. Our first, known as the Magnificent Maggie Pie, joined us in 1990. She passed on at the age of 19 in 2003. Before she died, we had adopted two others, Margery Kempe, whom we found making a pilgrimage between two of the chapels at Sewanee crying at the top of her lungs (Google her to find out more about her namesake). When we moved to Spartanburg, we adopted, or rescued (from Fundamentalists) Thomas Merton (whose conversion we continue to pray for daily). After Maggie’s death, Bodhi (Bodhisattva) joined our family, adopted from the Buddhist Vihara in Mauldin. At Thanksgiving, 2004, Pilgrim (she of many toes) joined the family.

At that point, I put my foot down. I said, enough is enough. But this spring, as is probably inevitable, we began to see a mother cat with kittens in our backyard. By the time we mobilized, or decided that we would have to take responsibility for them; there were just two, a mother and her kitten. We were able to catch them, get them their shots, and now they seem to be becoming a part of our family. But really, six cats is more than enough. The mother, whom we’ve named Junia (read Romans 16) is all black except for three white paws and a few white spots; the kitten, whom we’ve named Macrina (you can Google her too, to find out why we found this name appropriate) is all black. They seem to be adjusting to life indoors, and with four other cats, but if the perfect home were to come forward, we might consider adoption.

What I love about cats is their contrary nature. They are deeply needy and dependent, just like dogs, but they don’t want you to know it, so they perform all kinds of rituals to assert their independence, but in the end, they will sit in your lap, and demand that you scratch their ears, after all. And one would think, that with six cats, there would always be one in your lap, but no, they must assert their independence. But one is sitting on my wrists even as I type this.