Mackin Knows Best

Yesterday, one of you mentioned to me that you learn some of your greatest life lessons from your animals. If you’ve read any of my blog posts, you’ll know that I agree—I learn from our three cats all the time. Our cat Mackin is my biggest teacher, probably because I relate to him on so many levels.

Mackin is his own unique little self. He doesn’t just march to the beat of his own drum—he be-bops along to his own inner saxophone. He’s completely different from our other two cats, Seamus and Carrick. They love to drink out of the sink or from their fountain. Mackin sits in the sink and licks the drain or stands next to the fountain while paddling his paws as if he were swimming. Seamus and Carrick chase flies and moths. Mackin watches, then runs to get a ball which he then puts in his food dish. Carrick tries to play hide and seek with Mackin, but Mackin never remembers how to play, so Carrick does the hiding and the seeking. Mackin also seems to have trouble remembering simple things like how to chew his food so that it doesn’t come right back up or how to jump onto a counter using his feet and not his head.

Mackin finds the world to be a terribly scary place. His own sneezes frighten him. If he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he’ll duck below the mirror and sneak out of the room—backwards. When I wear a hat or sunglasses, Mackin looks at me, folds himself to the floor, and slowly backs behind the couch, his tail bushy, his fur bristling. He won’t come out until I’ve talked to him enough to convince him it’s me and not some random intruder.

Mackin has a solution for his fears, though: his daddy. When Mackin met Monty on the night we brought him home as a kitten, it was love at first sight. Mackin never took his eyes off Monty that night. And to this day, Mackin worships Monty. He follows Monty everywhere. Every morning, when Monty goes downstairs to his office to work, Mackin runs full speed down the stairs, then settles himself on Monty’s desk. When Monty is with me, or too busy to sit down, Mackin sits and stares at Monty with utter devotion. And when the scary world intrudes, Mackin runs to Monty. Monty holds him, and Mackin settles into his arms in complete peace. He trusts Monty implicitly, never doubting that Monty will protect him and keep him safe. When Monty goes somewhere, Mackin sits by the front door until he comes back—no matter how long it takes. Mackin knows his daddy will always come home.

As I said earlier, I relate to Mackin. Like him, I often find the world to be a big and scary place. When I was a little girl, I did what Mackin does when he’s scared: I ran to my dad. Dad would talk to me to calm me down or twist my ponytails in a way that always made me laugh. And just like that, the world would right itself, and I’d feel safe and protected. I never doubted that Dad would be there, and I never doubted that he would make everything okay. Now, as an adult, my trust is in God. But that trust doesn’t come naturally to me: I have to remind myself multiple times a day to look up and trust the One who made me. Mackin reminds me to run to God and lay my fears at His feet. To wait as long as it takes for God to fulfill His promises to me. To know without a shadow of a doubt that God loves me and will never leave me. And to love Him in return with reverence, abandon, and utter devotion.

The other lesson I continue to learn from Mackin is in this quote, attributed to Albert Einstein: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” To Mackin, everything is a miracle. I’ve given treats to Mackin and his brothers every single day since we brought them home. Seamus and Carrick expect them. But Mackin is surprised anew every time he gets them. He looks from the treats to me and back again, then chirps a joyful little birdlike noise before he eats them—he’s astounded at his good fortune at once again getting treats. Mackin also finds miracles in sunshine: if he’s walking across the living room and a ray of sunshine lands on him, he stops, looks up, and then sits down in the sun, complete bliss on his face. And boxes? Those are a world of miracles unto themselves. I’ll set a box on the floor, knowing that Mackin will come across it. And when he does, he stops short, chirps his little noise of delight, and hops in as if it’s the first box he’s ever seen. Then of course there’s the ongoing miracle of his daddy. Every time Mackin sees Monty, whether it’s been five hours or five minutes since he last saw him, he falls head over paws in love with him again.

I used to watch Mackin and yearn for his kind of joy at all the miracles he found. I wanted to find those kinds of miracles, too. But I’d always thought of miracles as epic acts of God–parting the Red Sea. Giving sight to the blind. Raising people from the dead. But then I read this quote by Virginia Woolf: “There were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.” My brain lit up like a Lite Brite when I read that. How brilliantly beautiful—the concept and image of little miracles flaring into sparks that break up the darkness and drudgery of everyday life. I did wonder, though, if “little miracle” was an oxymoron—could a miracle be little? I looked it up and found that it comes from the Latin word “miraculum,” which means “object of wonder.” Miracles can be big or little–it’s our reaction to them that defines them, not their size. Once I started looking for them simply as objects of wonder, I found as many as Mackin does.

In the last two hours, I’ve experienced miracles. Seamus and Carrick have been playing together—not hissing or boxing, just playing. I noticed that Monty’s orchid just bloomed, and its flowers look like daffodils. Against the gray background of January snow and slush, I have a spot of springtime. And when I reached into the cupboard to get a coffee mug, I “happened” to grab one that was given to me by a friend, which reminded me that she was praying for me today. To me, those were miracles. And they brought me the kind of joy that Mackin gets from his miracles.

I’ve discovered that if I look for miracles as a deliberate, intentional act of faith, I find them everywhere. And I would far rather spend my days in wonder, astonished at the blessings of all the treats God gives me, than just trudging through one day after another. As I’ve written this, I’ve been thinking of the miracle of Mackin. God put him in our little family, knowing exactly how much he needed us and we needed him. And I’m starting to think that even with all his quirks, fears, and memory “problems,” Mackin may just be the smartest of our boys.