porch sitting

As the weather cools you might be given to a spot of porch sitting (just at the point at which our northern neighbors are watching their leaves turn and contemplating shutting up their porches for the winter). There is something quite magical about the cooler air and even if you are not sitting on the porch taking note of the change of weather as you step out to the car or take out the trash is a good reminder that times and seasons keep moving around us.

The poet,  Christopher Smart, wrote a poem about his cat, Jeoffry, in the 18^th century which began, thus:

“For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.”

Benjamin Britten put this to music in his “Rejoice in the Lamb” (watch here  - the poem is at 4:44)

Britten’s work is at time a little esoteric but it does seek to remind us, like Smart’s poem and changing seasons of an adoration which goes beyond words. A reality of divine imagination which exceeds our expectation and conquers our fear – if only we will pause long enough to notice the twining cat, breathe the cool air and listen to the whispers of God’s voice in the autumn mist.