Pastoral Letter for the Month

 How fast the years seem to go around – they say that the older you get the

faster time seems to move. This summer I moved into my fiftieth year, and

time certainly seems to be flying.

The long hot summer of 2026 would, I think, have seemed like an eternity

when I was a child. It seemed pretty long to me this year, but all the same it’s

shot past at an extraordinary rate.

I’m not sure how this works with animals – they say that cats and dogs age

at a much faster rate than humans, whizzing through their adolescence and

teenage stages while they are still in the early single figures. By the time they

are a few years old they are shooting through middle age and on into their

senior years.

I don’t know how old, exactly, The Grumpy Cat is, but in any case it is not

exactly what I would call ‘sprightly’. When we first moved here a couple of

years ago, it was a regular sight in the garden, scowling through the patio

doors, or looking fed up next to the hedge.

This year though, sightings have been, as I’ve said before, much more

scarce. So much so that in the early summer I felt sure that the cat had died,

and was preparing to ask the neighbours, politely, whether it was to be a

burial or a cremation.

Then one day I saw a familiar whiskered face, looking at me from next door’s

front step. It looked pretty miserable, of course, but no more so than usual.

And certainly not dead. Quite the reverse.

There are two things that have changed over the summer that may have

impacted the cat’s behaviour. The first is obvious:- the weather. While all cats

seem to enjoy heat, the scorching sun seems to have kept most of the

neighbourhood moggies in the shaded parts of their homes and gardens.

One has located a handy sleeping spot under a shrub in our garden –

occasionally I threaten to get it with a super soaker, but I think it’s realised

that I don’t own a super soaker.

The second thing that may have changed the habits of our bad tempered

feline neighbour is the arrival, next door, of a new family member. A small

person with a powerful set of lungs. Of course one might think that the noise

alone would be enough to drive a cat out of the house, but perhaps The

Grumpy Cat likes to keep its new family member in sight, in case of

emergencies. It is possible, I suppose, that it feels protective of the new,

rather vulnerable, human being in its orbit.

For a new baby, the six weeks holiday is a substantial part of their life – a

substantial percentage - whereas by the time you get to my age, it’s more

like ¼ of a percent. No wonder then, that summers seem longer when you’re

younger, and time speeds up as you grow older.

But those of us who have had a few trips around the sun do, at least, know

that time goes fast. Days, weeks and then years slip past without bidding,

and soon we’re older than we ever expected.

I’m often reminded of the words of ‘Leisure’ by the Welsh tramp turned poet

W H Davies – the memorable line is, of course: “What is this life, if, full of

care, we have no time to stand and stare?”

Apart from being a line that most cats, never mind how grumpy, would agree

with – it’s also an idea that fits well with the teachings of almost all the great

spiritual traditions, including our own.

That we should learn to take time to appreciate the world for what it is, to

celebrate new arrivals and to rest in a shady spot when the sun is high – to

recognise what we have rather than worry about what we lack, these things

are part of what makes for a good life.

Simon