Spirituality

I have taken on a new morning spiritual practice: the daily feeding of the strays. I've noticed people feeding the cats in the afternoon--Mrs. Law Librarian seemed pretty set up the other day--but I haven't seen anyone feeding them in the morning. Since I tend to get to campus about ten minutes early, I bought a small box of cat food and started feeding the cats who live in the Humanities Building courtyard. They seem to really appreciate it.

The reason I call this a spiritual practice is how calming the process is for me. It doesn't involve much, just throwing some handfuls of dry cat food on the ground. Cats come running; I put more food in front of the new cats, and then just sit down and watch. I don't do anything, just watch, and it's very calming. Of course, Naftali wants to do more than just eat and watch others eat; twice now he's climbed into my lap and tried to stick his head in the box of cat food. He's very disappointed when I have to force him off to go to class. The rest, though, just eat. I like it. I don't necessarily need to pet the cats; just having them around me, happy, is an amazing experience.