By Sarah Carter
It’s a beach-worthy Saturday morning as they often are here in San Diego, even in the winter. But instead of soaking up some rays, I’m with a friend at church learning how to catch feral cats. We put out metal traps, line them with tuna, hide them in the tall brush and watch from a distance. Part of me has that rush of adrenaline when hunting something, and the other part of me is wondering…”What the heck am I doing?” (This thought becomes especially acute when I catch the cats, and then have to keep them overnight, lug them to a vet, and stand in a line to get them fixed. Lest there are some worried cat-lovers out there, we are partnering with a very humane organization.)
The reason I’m spending my Saturdays catching cats is because our church property has become a breeding ground for wild cats, with litters of kittens in the bushes, pooping all over the property. It might not be that big of a deal, if you can stand stepping in cat poo every now and again, and avoid the cats criss-crossing the church grounds.
But we’re trying to start an urban farm on the back of our property, in a vacant part of our church lot. We’re hoping this little farm will provide jobs for teens and give fresh produce to our neighborhood. And we can’t grow a garden with a bunch of cat feces all over the place. So, I borrow some traps and get some instructions, and do my best at controlling this unwelcome community of felines. I prefer to think of my cat-catching as Kingdom work, transforming our neighborhood one feral cat at a time.
I’ve found that when you release the A.P.E., in yourself or others, you will find yourself doing some strange activities. They are usually jobs you will wish someone else would volunteer to do. But most of the time you’ll look around to see who else is in line, and then you’ll take a deep breath, pick up your cat trap, and get started.
As we’ve dreamt about this urban farm, drawn up plans, and began to interview youth for the jobs, there have been lots of unexpected tasks to get done… like catching feral cats. These jobs have tested my commitment to see our program get started. They have confronted my (arrogant) view of what kind of work I feel like I, with all my grand gifts and experience, should have to do.
This is the challenge for all of us as we follow God’s call on our lives into both amazing, and not-so-amazing work. It is, especially for the apostolic types, a call to not just do, but appreciate the hard work of seeing something start. This call will inevitably lead to mundane, boring, repetitive, or sometime downright messy tasks. Will we be able to see the Kingdom work in these tasks? Could we choose to value these jobs just as highly as the more flashy, “important” ones that often end with a lot of applause?
I love that throughout scripture, we get glimpses of the mundane, embedded into stories of the miraculous. Filling up stone water jugs, passing out bread (and collecting leftovers), building walls, planting gardens. Each small thing brings the Kingdom closer to earth, and opens up more space for people to encounter God.
In the words of Brother Lawrence,
“We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.”
We both work for dreams we want to see happen… the churches we want to build, the programs we want to see grow, the people we want to come to faith. We also work hard, do the small jobs with joy out of a love and worship for Jesus, who is worth any effort, big or small. And the small, unpleasant tasks are often what shape us the most: keeping us humble, growing in us patience and checking our attitudes.
I will try to remember this the next time I tromp to the edges of our property, set traps full of stinky tuna, and attempt to catch some cats. May Your Kingdom come, your will be done… maybe with less stray cats?
What are the tasks in your life that try your patience? How do you practice the presence of God in the midst of the mundane?
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I love this post! And yes, catching feral cats is not fun. We had a “cat house” in our neighborhood and sought to help catch some of them as well and bring them to a humane shelter. Sometimes planting a garden means cleaning up the poop first! Jesus has a funny way of humbling us and making us depend on him for all the details that need to happen for his beautiful kingdom to be built!.