And they call it 'Kitty' Love

This morning I had the opportunity to take a senior member of my congregation home following knee surgery and a period of recuperation in a nursing home. She had been away for about 20 days and was very ready to get back home. She was looking forward to her normal surroundings, being back with her neighbors and friends and, perhaps most importantly, her cat.

When we got to her home she almost jumped out of her wheelchair as she looked for her cat which, in her absence, had left something of a mess...but that didn't matter at all. Suddenly this lady started to talk in a kind of baby talk as she rejoiced over seeing her cat. It was like a mother talking to her newborn baby, and a little too over the top for me.

I guess the need to have something or somebody to love is in all of us. For me, it's my wife and children. My children bring reactions out of me that nobody else can, and my love for my wife causes me to say the silliest things sometimes, things that I would never allow other people to hear. For the outside world, I must be seen as this Englishman that has it all together with a keen, if corny, sense of humor. For those I hold closest there is a love that feels so natural that I forget about myself and what they might think of me, and replace it with raw love. Watching this dear lady and her cat is another example of raw love. It didn't matter whether I was there or not, she was going to love that cat.

We have now entered the Lenten Season, leading up to history's greatest example of raw love. On that first Good Friday, Christ didn't care about what people thought of Him. Christ wasn't thinking he looked foolish, despite the crown of thorns, the sign above His head and people mockingly asking "...Why don't you save yourself?" His language was love, and He was going to speak it regardless.

As I reflect on my Christ, the sacrificial Lamb, and think about my lady and her cat I wonder if, in some small way, I heard the language of Christ today. When I am silly with my wife, just enjoying her company, is it the language of Christ? When I just love my children, perhaps one of those times when you just look into their eyes and get lost for a moment, is that the language of Christ? Pure, natural, spontaneous love...oh that we might all speak the language of Christ.