Monday, June 28, 2010

An Observation

I've noticed something a little odd and quite disturbing.

I'm much more likely to forgive my cat than I am to forgive a person.

My cat bites me occasionally. She scratches. She ignores me and hates my friends, and runs away and hides everytime we have anyone around. She also has this really annoying habit of standing in her litter tray and doing her business over the edge which leads to some serious mess that needs to be cleaned up.

And yet, I can never stay mad at her for more than about 30 seconds. All she has to do is look at me with her greeny-yellow eyes and purr a bit, and I melt. She's so soft and cuddly and cute, how could anyone not just adore her?

And yet, if some of my best human friends acted in this way, would I just put up with it because they're cute? Some of them are pretty cute! But if my best friend suddenly bit me, ignored me, hated my friends and defecated in my bathroom, would I still love her? Would it take only thirty seconds to forgive her?

Sure, it's harder to understand the reasons for a person's behaviour than a cat's. But surely we shouldn't have to understand a person's motives to forgive them. Forgiveness, like love, should be unconditional, right?

So I'm thinking the way I (and, I think, many others. I just don't want to make assumptions so I've written this whole blog post like it's just about me...) forgive my kitty is almost a model of the way God forgives us. We, being human and fallible, find it hard to practice this model of perfect forgiveness in our relationships with humans. Perhaps then it is comforting that there is still something in my life over which I can exercise God's will for me, to forgive perfectly and completely with no need for explanation.

Only, it's a cat. I'm pretty sure that's not what God intended...