We Wish You a Purring Holiday
WE, Hili, both the Editor-In-Chief of “Letters from our orchard” and a cat, wish all our readers, whether they believe in some One and Only god or none at all, a Purring Holiday.
Naturally, I am sharing this pastoral meow-sive with all my feline sisters and brothers trusting that your bowls are full and that additional festive treats are tasty and adjusted to your very different palates.
My guess is that those who are reading words here are in homes full of warmth, surrounded by staff who read my “Letters” (unless you are among those few cats who have to sneak at night to the Internet and furtively read “Letters from our orchard”).
I’ve had a question from a young reader who wants to know whether we are supposed to purr differently during the holidays. Actually, no, purring depends on our satisfaction, and we purr if we have reasons to purr, but it doesn’t mean that on holidays others shouldn’t take extra care and give us more reasons to purr.
My beloved sisters and brothers, do not forget those who are disadvantaged by fate, those excluded four-legged creatures who are left outside the windows of warm houses. I’m sending you the card with those who look at the festivities through a window. What do they talk about peering at you, as I sometimes peer at my neighbor cat, Fitness?
My deputy, looking at these cats looking at two different celebrations, remembered a joke told before the birth of my great-great-great grandmother about a Catholic seminary student and a pious Jew on a train together. They had been reading their respective Scriptures and looked askance at each other. Finally, the Jew asked the student where was he going, and he answered that he was going to the seminary. Then the Jew wanted to know what was he going to do when he finished his education. The young man answered that he would be a priest and would try to find a job as a curate.
“And after that?”
“After that I would probably become a parish priest myself.”
“And after that?”
The young man laughed, embarrassed, and said that after that there is a bishop.
“And that’s it?” asked the Jew.
“Well, no, there is an archbishop and a cardinal.”
“But can one become something more?”
“There is just a pope, higher up”, answered the young man, astonished at such ignorance.
„And higher?”
“Nothing is higher, only God. In the Church the highest you can be is the pope.”
“But one of ours managed to become God”, said the Jew looking sorrowfully at the clerical student’s Holy Scripture.
I have to tell you that the human’s and cats’ sense of humor is slightly different so I smiled like Moggie Lisa, wondering whether it was chutzpah or hasbara on the part of the Jew, because the student’s only sin was humility.
Anyhow, remember, sisters and brothers, that you are privileged. Order your humans to take care of all those cats outside the windows. To you and your humans I’m sending a festive carol.
Translated by Małgorzata Koraszewska and Sarah Lawson