Kittenzen: Stuff

My nephew Scott gave us a book Everything Here is Mine: An Unhelpful Guide to Cat Behavior which has been invaluable in understanding how we are now to think about our "stuff." That includes, among many other things, our favorite chairs (now occupied by cats), our plants (most of them gone since most aren't good for cats), and Mark's homework (yes, the cat ate it).

I was asked to give the sermon at church last week as my brother (the Pastor) was going to be away. The topic was the first commandment "you shall have no other gods" and Luther's commentary on the commandment from The Large Catechism. Turns out Luther has pretty much the same idea as the cat book: none of this stuff is ours! It is all God's and we are merely channels through which God's stuff and God's goodness and God's money flow to others. We are to operate solely as stewards do: we are managers of another's property. This avoids that all too frequent cause of friction between us when we either think somebody else has taken our stuff or that somebody doesn't appreciate the stuff we have given them. It relieves us from having to protect our stuff. It gives us freedom from dependence on the false security stuff promises. It frees us for the adventure God wants for us in our living here on earth: we are pilgrims who are only using the stuff we are given along the way. We are only stewards who get to dole it out sometimes, and that according to God's purpose.

So once again, the cats have been teaching us the Way: this isn't our stuff and they, the cats, certainly don't belong to us either! As one cat magazine writer put it, we do not own cats. We are only their guardians. We are to take very good care of them, as good stewards, and we are to take good care of the stuff in our lives, but always, as the cats know, to remember that it is only stuff and we are only channels to use it to bless the cats. Oh, and others.