On Monday evening the yarn lady kept looking at the clock. She did that sometimes when there was something on television she really wanted to watch. This was one of those times. At a few minutes before 8 pm she tuned into channel 7 and sat down on the couch with her knitting. She called Clem to come in because there was a show that she really should watch. As it started, Clem wondered why in the world the yarn lady would want her to watch a cartoon, but then she realized what it was about. Christmas! A Charlie Brown Christmas to be specific. Clem wasn’t sure if that was different from any other type of Christmas when it started, but she stopped caring as the story unfolded.
If she hadn’t been a cat, she would have been crying by the time it was half over, but cats can’t cry. It was so sad how the other kids treated Charlie Brown. He was just trying to do the right thing, the kind thing, and the other kids either laughed at him or paid him no attention at all. But then Linus started talking and suddenly things started to make sense. Christmas was a birthday, but not a birthday where you gave presents to the birthday person – you gave presents because of the birth of a person a long time ago.
Some of the stuff Clem had read while she was researching Advent made sense now. Preparation and expectation weren’t about the presents you’d give or get, it was preparing to commemorate that miraculous birth and expecting that somehow, sometime that Saviour would return. All the information on liturgical colors and seasons, that wasn’t the point.
Clem wondered how this fit in for cats, though. She wasn’t a human, and had always believed in the Great Cat, or as some facetiously referred to her, Ceiling Cat. The Great Cat was just a spirit who looked over all cats, domestic and wild. Lemuel’s hens believed in a Celestial Turkey who had created the world. She didn’t understand all this, but she knew that all of them would encourage her to be a good kitten, and to do the next right thing, whatever that was.
If she hadn’t been a cat, she would have been crying by the time it was half over, but cats can’t cry. It was so sad how the other kids treated Charlie Brown. He was just trying to do the right thing, the kind thing, and the other kids either laughed at him or paid him no attention at all. But then Linus started talking and suddenly things started to make sense. Christmas was a birthday, but not a birthday where you gave presents to the birthday person – you gave presents because of the birth of a person a long time ago.
Some of the stuff Clem had read while she was researching Advent made sense now. Preparation and expectation weren’t about the presents you’d give or get, it was preparing to commemorate that miraculous birth and expecting that somehow, sometime that Saviour would return. All the information on liturgical colors and seasons, that wasn’t the point.
Clem wondered how this fit in for cats, though. She wasn’t a human, and had always believed in the Great Cat, or as some facetiously referred to her, Ceiling Cat. The Great Cat was just a spirit who looked over all cats, domestic and wild. Lemuel’s hens believed in a Celestial Turkey who had created the world. She didn’t understand all this, but she knew that all of them would encourage her to be a good kitten, and to do the next right thing, whatever that was.
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1 comment:
sweet little tree,
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