A Medita
the Feast of Sts. i
fumbled for my keys with my right hand as I held my collar in my left. It was my vicarage year and I had just returned home from St. Peter’s Lutheran Church where I had performed the liturgy on Christmas Eve. My wife was in the hospital having just given birth to our firstborn, a daughter, earlier that day. I was home to feed the cat and change clothes before dashing off to be with mother and child again.
H I G H E R T H I N G S __ 4
I retrieved the keys and opened the door. I walked a few steps in the dark to the lamp by the bay window and switched it on.Turning around, I saw our cat Basil sitting the middle of the living room staring at me. He is a fine cat—big and sleek, black on top and over his eyes, but with a white face, underbelly, and legs. His nose is large and rose-tinted with a black spot. His eyes, which at this moment were locked onto mine, are a brilliant yellowgreen with the right being noticeably more yellow than the left. No doubt Basil had been watching me go through my entrance ritual. Usually after a long absence he meets us at the door with a meow, thus serving notice that it is time to eat. So I was a little surprised that he was not at the door this time and doubly so when I found him sitting in the middle of the living room looking at me with what can only be described as intent. “Do sit down,” said the cat. I was looking him square in the eyes when he said this, and I saw his white mouth open to reveal his long teeth and miraculously expressive, bright red tongue. “Pardon?” said I, fully expecting Basil to say,“Excuse me, I meant ‘meow,’” or something of that sort. “Do sit down, if you please.” At this point, I took the cat’s advice. I chose the chair nearest to me and gently let myself into it—all the while keeping my eyes on my suddenly loquacious cat.
“I suppose,” said Basil, blinking in his slow feline fashion,“that you, a man of the Church, know what today is.” “Christmas Eve, of course.” “No, no.That is today in tomorrow’s right. What is today in its own right?” said Basil, now with a twitch in his tail. “I’m afraid I don’t know, Basil.” “It is the Feast of Adam and Eve,” he said with a tone (his voice was much deeper that I would have imagined) of finality that implied that all should be clear to me now. “Oh?” was all I could come up with after a two or three second pause. “Yes. And do you know who they were?” “Of course. Our first parents – I’m not that dull.” “Good.Then you can surmise why I breach this topic with you tonight.”
