J.B. Wade Jan has served as associate pastor of Church Street United Methodist Church in Knoxville for the past nine years. She earned her M.Div Degree from Emory University in Atlanta, and her Ed.D from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Jan lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.

The party was a rather small affair. Actually only three of us hovered around a miniature tuna cupcake at the kitchen table last night. As the guest of honor was unaccustomed to such rituals even at high feast times, we three blew out the single white candle in his stead. The honoree was nibbling crusty morsels from his plate long before the celebratory song ended.

It was his fifteenth birthday. As we watched him munch fishy crumbs, we recalled stories of his beginning. He was born to Mama Cat during the March blizzard of 1993, the most blustery stretch of days any of us could remember. Taking pity on the kitten half buried in the snow, niece Lori had secretly made a bed for him in her apartment. But the shuffling shenanigans were soon detected by her landlord, who swiftly issued an eviction threat.

Shortly thereafter, the pet arrived at our front door, a special Easter gift. With him came a square box labeled “Frisky,” containing layers of his feline paraphernalia: a water bowl, blankets, a stuffed toy collection, and a cardboard cylinder of cat treats. The latter, Lori explained, she offered whenever he exhibited good behavior.

Eyeing the plastic seal over the lid, we noted the canister had never been opened. Oh, I know, she replied, heading toward her car. This was our only clue that our newest resident would pad to the beat of his own drum. And for months, Frisky remained true to his name, assuming the world was meant for his own personal pleasure.

Catching us unawares was his early delight. When we took the front path to retrieve the morning mail, he would jump from a secret spot behind a shrub, bare his teeth, and offer a shriek worthy of a cat twice his size. At times he managed to shove his whole body under the loose rug in the hallway, thinking the passer-by would recognize his lumpy form only after a hefty paw swat had been delivered. In that early period, four upholstered pieces were hauled away, each victims of mortal cat wounds.

Conversely, by the following spring, Frisky had given up most of his youthful antics, and had grown into a subdued, ideal companion. His maturation brought unexpected joy and comfort into our lives. And his love affair with the earth became more pronounced.

He relished his rolls in the cool earth of the impatiens beds I had upturned for spring planting, and savored the aroma of the fresh dark soil. Occasionally playing with a leaf or worm, he waited as I buried row upon row of colorful plants. Accompanying me on my evening strolls in the church parking lot across the way, the cat rested in the debris at the base of the lampposts whenever he wearied of my pace.

Despite monthly baths, his mounting love of nature gave the animal’s gray stripes a grimy chocolate cast. Following one long morning’s foraging in the yard, I baptized him with sprinkles from the birdbath and appropriately renamed him Sucio Gatto, or “dirty cat” in Spanish. Afterwards he licked away the wetness of the ritual, and sat very still in the morning breeze for a long while, letting the wind softly tickle his whiskers. With half-closed eyes, he had entered a form of cat meditation.

It seems that the Holy One knows human pride too often stands in the way of our gaining insights from peers, so he relies on animals to teach us vital life-lessons. Just so, our feline has continued to teach our family through these many years.

Sucio, totally unembarrassed by day naps, demonstrates how we humans should also stop and rest. He is not bothered about his attention-deficit disorder, nor is he anxious about what others may say about him. He holds no cat grudges, nor does he seek restitution for injustices which have come his way.

Once a speeding car grazed the left side of his body, inflicting external and internal wounds. Accepting his misfortune graciously, he lay very still on the den sofa for six days. Then we rose on the seventh morning to see him softly padding to his bowl to snack and quench his thirst. He had healed naturally, not weighed down by heavy thoughts of unfair treatment.

I’ve kept a greeting I once received for my own birthday, which comes only days after Sucio’s. The front of the card depicts six birthday cakes, each decorated in the style of a famous artist. The first reflects a sapphire Van Gogh sky, festooned with bright yellow swirling stars. A melting Dali clock oozes down the side of a second dessert. Another cake features vibrant sweeps of red, orange and yellow icing, obvious color clashes of Jackson Pollack. The final three designs reflect the shaded contrasts of Rembrandt’s work, the ethereal brush of Michelangelo, and dreamy water lilies in the manner of Monet.

Scripted inside is the ingenuous line: Birthdays are subject to interpretation. And so they are. The soft watery eyes of Sucio Gatto seem to reflect all the astuteness he has gleaned in his lifespan. He never worries about the passage of time, nor does he dwell on his youthful mistakes. He discovers splendors in the everyday, bearing arthritis pain and bladder infection without murmur. Sucio is as unconcerned with his thinning fur as he is with the fact that his head is too small for his body. His early friskiness has given way to joyful acceptance. And tomorrow, in his uncomplicated cat thinking, he can always begin again.

For now, he licks the leavings of his cupcake and purrs contentedly. Birthdays for him, and for me, are thankful celebrations of accrued wisdom. And this is surely the divine interpretation, for God is much more interested in our future than in our past. Who but a dingy cat could teach me to be so satisfied with the ordinary?

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