Lessons from my cat: Community.

People have been great about Mookey being missing, everyone's got their cat story which they tell about cats' miraculous reappearances (i could do with less of these now, i can't keep on looking and thinking 'is this the day she comes home?'. I'm trying to move on and if she shows up it's a bonus) though these stories were good to hear at first. We've relied on our neighbours and they've been brilliant, we put leaflets through doors getting people to check their garages and outbuildings etc to make sure Mookey wasn't stuck inside. We did two rounds of these. We put up posters which people let us put in their shops and stuff. We've both been stopped in the street and asked by people showing concern whether she's turned up. One lady chased us down the road to see if there was anything she could do, another called on our house to see if there was news - you only hear of 'crazy cat ladies' don't you, never 'crazy cat men', funny that. Anyway, people have been brilliant, i've been most impressed by people's efforts, but that's not the point i want to make.

Last Sunday i spoke on Jonah as part of our series exploring the minor prophets 'Mining the Minors' (which Kez is loving). It's a book which isn't actually about a whale swollowing a man (it wasn't a whale, it was a big fish, there aren't any whales in the Med. Oooh ooh ooh how do you get to Wales in a mini? One in the front, one in the back, easy.) it's instead about God's grace being unbounded. Jonah accepts God's grace for himself, but can't accept that God would be gracious to others also, he would rather put limits on it. The point is that if we accept God's grace we also have a part in it not stopping with us, but instead, passing it on and spreading it around.

So, what does Mookey have to say about the book of Jonah? Well, apart from not liking the idea of being thrown in the sea, but quit fancying the idea of a big fish, she has one point to make. If we're discouraged from drawing boundaries around the reach of God's grace, we as people end up seeing one another in a much less partisan way, we become more wholly 'community'. We belong to one another. So, if, when my cat goes missing, i look high and low for her, disturb all my neighbours twice with door to door leaflet drops, comfort Kelly, comfort Mav, design and put up posters everywhere, phone all sorts of animal rescue places and vets and database holding organisations and feel generally gutted - all because Mookey is my cat, how much more do i need to respond to people around me as though they are mine. It means that i ought respond, in a continuation of spreading God's grace, to your needs as though you were mine, as though you were my brother or sister or mother.

She can be pretty challenging can Mookey.