Good morning…

I googled the question popping into my mind: “What does the Cat in the Hat try to balance?” These familiar Dr. Suess words, captured in the children’s book The Cat in the Hat, both tickle me and challenge me at the very same time. They are absurdly ridiculous and, sometime, so am I.

“‘Now! now! have no fear. have no fear!’ said the cat. ‘my tricks are not bad,’ said the cat in the hat.
‘why, we can have lots of good fun, if you wish, with a game that i call up-up-up with a fish!’
‘put me down!’ said the fish. ‘this is no fun at all! put me down!’ said the fish ‘i do NOT wish to fall!’ ‘have no fear!’ said the cat. ‘i will not let you fall. i will hold you up high as i stand on a ball.
with a book one one hand! and a cup on my hat! but that is not ALL i can do! said the cat…
‘look at me! look at me now!’ said the cat. ‘with a cup and a cake on the top of my hat!
i can hold up TWO books! i can hold up the fish! and a little toy ship! and some milk on a dish!
and look! i can hop up and down on the ball! but that is not all! oh, no. that is not all…
‘look at me! look at me! look at me NOW! it is fun to have fun but you have to know how.
i can hold up the cup and the milk and the cake! i can hold up these books! and the fish on a rake!
i can hold the toy ship and a little toy man! and look! with my tail i can hold a red fan!
i can fan with the fan as i hop on the ball! but that is not all. oh, no. that is not all…’
that is what the cat said… then he fell on his head!”

Writing on the very same wavelength, Anne Morrow Lindbergh penned these wise words over sixty years ago, in 1955, “What a circus act we…perform every day of our lives. It puts the trapeze artist to shame. Look at us. We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now! This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise…warn us of. It leads not to unification but to fragmentation. It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul,” (p. 26-27, Gift from the Sea).

A cross between the Little Red Hen who will “just do it myself,” the Cat in the Hat balancing everything in sight, and trying to win by touching multiple dots of various colors in a game of Twister, we exhaust ourselves with self-sufficiency, while God shakes His head and His enemy nods. How many times must we fall on our head into fragmentation until we learn to simplify, to prune back, to do well only the things on God’s to do list for us today?

Pile your troubles on God’s shoulders— he’ll carry your load, he’ll help you out. He’ll never let good people topple into ruin, Psalm 55:22-23 (MSG),

Sue