Throwing rocks at cats

I sat down outside the bakery with my five year old girl for a spot of morning tea. A kitten lingered on the kerb, perhaps waiting for a morsel to be thrown its way. My daughter confessed she loves cats, but I didn't have the heart to tell her I don't love them. In fact, I had looked around for something to throw at it - not to hit it, just to shoo it away. 

As the thought was forming (and no projectile to hand) I remembered the story of Sasha, the Horse and his Boy, and the great story teller Lewis recounting a similar experience. Sasha encounters the great lion, Aslan, the king of all Narnia. In remembering his adventures Sasha recalls a cat standing guard in a time of loneliness. It had rebuked him for once throwing rocks at cats. As it turned out, the cat looking after the boy had in fact been the great lion himself - in a similar but unfamiliar form.

But the kitten at the bakery wasn't a representation of Aslan. After all, that was Lewis' story. So maybe not throwing something at it is just about not being cruel or petty.

The thought still nagged - what was Lewis really getting at in his story?I hadn't ever really stopped to consider it beyond its place in the narrative. And yet it came so clearly to mind as I remembered the great Lion of Judah who became a true human, and in doing so made sure that every person was worthy of not having rocks thrown at it. Being made in the image of the creator was doubly reinforced when the creator took on the image of the creature and filled it with glory where there had been so much shame.

Whatever you do to the least of mine, you do to me. That's what he said. Yet sadly we people too easily distinguish between a person to respect and one who can be shooed away with a handy rock.

I'm still not sure how I feel about cats, though.