Photograph by Amy Hart
I have been in cathedrals, and I have been at the cat shelter, and I am telling you there are saints who would rather hide between the gargoyles than have their cover blown, so they wear gray hoodies with stains of unknown origin, and they swear like prophets, and they tell you to your face that they do not like people, and then they love you so hard you fall on your knees, and sometimes they even bellow “I love you more than Lexapro” across the lobby, and they give you the last of their peanut butter crackers, and they cover your shift, and they buy you a tape dispenser shaped like Pegasus because it looks like you, and they drive in Winter Storm Warnings to take each other to urgent care, and they go hear the guy who mops the kitten room preach at his Bible Church, even though they don’t buy into that stuff, because he is old and his wife died, and they fill two pews with purple people, and they hug the deacon, and they find a kitten in the parking lot, because orphans manifest wherever they go, even if they flee to the far side of the sea, and they will not disclose the precise quorum of cats in their condo, only that they weren’t about to let any of them die, and if you show up at the shelter with your eyes swollen they march you into the bathroom and wash your face with trifold towels, and they tell you that you don’t have to tell them anything, but if they ever see that man in public they swear they will go so feral no one will be able to identify him even from the dental records, and you catch yourself laughing for the first time in a long time, and you thank God for them, and they roll their eyes, but I am telling you they are saints with sardines in their glove compartments and cat hair in places only the Holy Ghost knows, and mercy enough to buttress every broken thing that ever flew, which should cover all of us, if only we would show our faces.
Angela Townsend works for an animal sanctuary, where she gets to bear witness to mercy for all beings. This was not the path she expected after divinity school, but love is a wry author of lives. She has lived with Type 1 diabetes for over 35 years and laughs with her poet mother every morning. Twitter/X: @thewakingtulip, Instagram: @fullyalivebythegrace, Facebook: @angelina4444