Spiritual Cat People at Church

on visiting new churches; and if we should always talk to strangers; and on being more generous when things all go socially wrong

Last summer, I was chased down in a parking lot by an enthusiastic pastor in flannel. She noticed that I had tried to sneak out during the closing song, and jogged after me (“hello! hello!”), catching me right before I managed to round the final corner to the street. My heart pounded, my anxiety spiked, had I forgot my wallet, did I park in the wrong spot, was I in trouble???

No, she just really wanted to make sure I was properly greeted.

It is very hard to escape a Southern church experience without the gauntlet of small talk that fences the Holy at every church whose preferred pronouns are ‘y’all.”

I don’t want to be unfairly unkind, because those were some very very good intentions (even though all the way home, feeling silly about how much my heart was racing, I grumbling to Jesus that I don’t know how much more clear I could be that I didn’t want to talk to anyone I literally left while the last song was still playing!! I feel like I was clear, Jesus!) She was a very nice pastor. It was a very nice church. Hospitality is so important to our faith — but there are so many ways to welcome people.

Some people are spiritual golden retrievers and when they visit a church they want to be hugged and greeted and chatted with, because this makes them feel loved. Some of us, though, are wary, traumatized cats. “Welcome” looks different for us. Learning to read the room, and notice the variety of cats and dogs that are always present in every space, is also a spiritual gift.

II

They say that cats always find the non-cat people at a party. If you hate cats or are allergic to cats or just aren’t interested in cats, within two hours of your visit, there will be a cat purring on your black pants, leaving strands of grey everywhere.

This is not an accident! People who don’t like cats treat cats the way that they want to be treated—to briefly notice and acknowledge the cat (aha, there’s a cat here, not a fan), and then ignore them.

obligatory cat tax of my floofs, Wallace and Sophie

Cats experience spaciousness as love, so when you offer space, the cat comes to you. They like being permitted to be the judge of when it’s safe to come and make a friend. Friendship is on their terms, not yours. Meeting a new goldren retriever (oh my goodness who is the best and fluffiest yes it is YOU yes it is YOU oh you are SO SOFT how did you GET SO SOFT!??!?) is going to be a very different experience than meeting a new cat (#NotAllCats, some cats are very doggy, we are painting with broad strokes for this metaphor)

I thought about cats last summer, while the pastor, with the best of intentions and the greatest enthusiasm, jogged down the long length of the driveway after I tried to sneak out a little early so I wouldn’t have to talk to strangers.

I thought about cats the next week, too, at another church when I asked where the bathroom was to escape the passing of the peace, and the nice church lady walked me to the bathroom and questioned me the whole way (“how long have you lived in Atlanta? why did you move here? how did you find out about us?”) and then, inexplicably, waited outside the bathroom for me to be done so she could walk me back to my seat.

I don’t feel loved when I am trapped by well-intentioned friendliness.

III

When I first moved to the South eleven years ago, I had this conversation about churches a lot. In the Northeast, people leave you alone while you visit the church. New Englanders’ central value is privacy and autonomy. We define “love” as “leaving people the heck alone.” This horrifies Southern folks. Everyone in the South has a story of a friend of a cousin of a brother who visited a church and will never visit again because nobody said hi to them.

Church cat people have a reverse story, though, that they don’t tell as much —that I’ll never visit that cozy church where I was chased down by the pastor again, either. Not because she was a bad person, but because it felt overwhelming, and because I want to know that in whatever church I walk in to, my mind can “stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple,” without being watched, or herded, or consumed.

For me, the kind of spaciousness that we offer cats when we meet them - a nod, a respectful distance - is what I want in church. Not just because of my anxiety, or because I like to watch a bit before I leap in, but because I spent a lot of years in a cramped and anxiously needy theology that was soul suffocating, and my heart wants to rest in spacious places now. My theologies and religious practices need room to breathe, and not be watched, and not be controlled, because there were so many years in evangelicalism where we were so watched and so controlled. I also spent so many years in evangelicalism where all we ever wanted was to grow our churches and get more people in the door and sometimes, sometimes, the welcome of a new church can also feel like being a target of their church growth strategy.

This is maybe unfair. Maybe the way a pastor and community welcomes guests isn’t a referrendum on their whole theology! But our bodies are out here keeping score, relentlessly, and it is not wrong to listen to them, and know where we feel safe. When we know ourselves and what kinds of places feel safe and loving to us, we’re better able to make neutral judgments about our needs - not judgements that say this place is good or bad!! but simply this place is mine, or not mine.

IV

I come across as a doggy-type person in —big and explosive and ridiculous and extroverted and very noisy and very people-oriented. (EXTREMELY EXTRA!) Spiritually, though, where the holy things are, where things are more tender and more easily broken, where tiny new shoots are sometimes growing in the dark and are anxious of being crushed under heavy boots or careless words or sloppiness of holding vulnerability - in these spiritual places where I more soft and maybe most afraid, I am more of a cat. I’m scared of being absorbed or invaded. I’m scared of a religious leader who will swoop in and try to define me or my spirituality or my gender or my sexuality or my vulnerability with God on her terms.

Me being such a general golden retriever in all areas of life except spirituality is an unfortunate testament to being raised in a high control religion, in a fundamentalism so tight it could not breathe out. Yes, yup, now I would like to breathe out all the time, big breaths, and I’m a little jumpy, and that is OK.

V

I love that our God is not a god of only one type of person, or one way of being religious, or only able to be present to people who don’t have spiritual wounds, or only a fan of introverts or extroverts or people who like liturgy or those of us who want to shake it out in the back with Pentecostal fervor. God knows how to love spiritual cats and spiritual dogs and doesn’t ask us to jam ourselves into another shape in order to come into God’s presence.

For all the doggie types, God swoops in like a mother hen gathering her chicks. For the doggie types, God is Christ yelling at Zacchaeus, we just met but I’m coming to your house for dinner, right now!

For the rest of us, God nurtures a spacious place for the anxious and wary. God is the rock that is higher, that we can run to and climb for safety, but will never run to us. Rocks don’t move, which is the whole point. Jesus preaches to us on big wide open hillsides, not anxious we’re going to follow him or not, but always inviting in a space without walls so we can make a fast escape if we need to.

God knows whether we want to be chased down with enthusiasm and hugs and homemade apple pie and a long conversation about growing up homeschooled; or whether we’d like God to just leave the lights on, and nod at us when we come home, then leave us alone until we’re ready to creep into the kitchen a few hours later and pour ourselves a drink and finally say out loud—phew, what a week.

God is making space for whatever Love looks like for us, with the variety of trauma and personalities and preferences and places of safety that we all carry with us.

I don’t want all churches to stop greeting people enthusiastically because that would be absurd. I would like churches to learn a little bit about the kinds of people that may be showing up in their four walls, and have a little more space for all of us, and practice a bit more situational awareness.

If someone sneaks out during the final song, perhaps they did not want to be greeted, and perhaps it is loving to let them go.

VI

A lot of people do want to be cornered with their cup of coffee and asked questions about their lives, so a tremendous blessing on that work and keep it up!

But even knowing that there are people with spiritual wounds, or just anxious introverts, exist and are maybe visiting your church, means that you’re more likely to notice if you’re talking to one of them. Adding “cat spirituality” to a list of skills means knowing that some people will always feel safest in a church where they can come to you.

And finally, maybe all of us, myself included, can be more gracious when it all goes wrong.

I am not actually a cat — I am a human person with rational and gracious capabilities, not just evolutionary urges, who knows that we are all trying our best. I can be more gracious (I think. I hope), and know that people trying to be welcoming and kind, even if I felt the opposite. Maybe I can hold experiences of uncomfortable welcome at new churches more gently and with more grace, and say, ah, well. It didn’t feel good to me, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad thing.

This goes for the other side, too. When Spiritual Dog People visit a church and only get polite handshakes, Spiritual Dog People can hold a more generous possibly interpretation, too, and remember that space and privacy are also virtues for some people. That might not be the church for you, but it doesn’t mean they were unkind. Maybe their community is made for cats, not dogs.

This learning grace is its own skill set, just like learning how to welcome cat people, just like learning how to read a room. I can only be generous with people who accidentally stomp through my picket fences, though, when I’ve learned to honor and acknowledge what I actually need.

The sooner we understand what feels loving to us, and learn how to ask for it and receive it, the sooner we will be more gracious with people how are loving in different ways, who receive love in different ways.

The more we are aware of our own needs, and gently and firmly making sure they are met, and honoring the spaces the feel safe for us, the more able we are to offer generosity and grace in spaces that aren’t quite a good fit. We aren’t trying to jam ourselves into them anymore, ashamed of ourselves, or trying to demand that other people fit themselves around us. We just know it’s not for us, and we find a place that is. And we honor the people who belong there, because their way of knowing God and loving their neighbor can be holy, too.