She’s not gonna be our president, guys.

It’s over. She lost.

Sable #TinyTail2016 Rosenberg was not elected.

Of course, the only reason Sable was not elected is that Sable pulled her hat out of the ring. It was a difficult decision, made with prayer and consultation with her closest advisors, Spumoni and Swiffer. But Sable has decided, for the good of the nation herself, to get adopted rather than leading the United States of America.

Swiffer is still angling to be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, but only because he watches Designated Survivor and thinks it might be a good way to become President. Spumoni, meanwhile, got adopted himself, and Carrot is bummed, but he’s comforting himself by watching Gilmore Girls reruns with Chelsea, and…

…and…the election…happened. Some of youze guyze are elated. Some of youze guyze are heartbroken.

All of weeze guyze are wondering what’s next…
wanting the best…
wanting peace and justice and mercy and a world of generous greatness for all all all creatures.

And none of weeze guyze are going to be dejected. Not permanently.
We won’t. We can’t. We don’t have that option.
Times like ours call for a rejection of dejection.
The cats, the world, and the cause of kindness demand our full-sun devotion.
It’s not time to mourn or mope or smuggle down into ourselves. All of us — Democrat, Republican, black, brown, white, marmalade and calico — are called to work and love and pray for the world we want. Tweeting isn’t enough. Safety-pinning isn’t enough. Commiserating isn’t enough.*

Loving our neighbor — that’s enough.

Loving our difficult neighbor — that’s enough to heal the world.

Building bridges and spanning seas of separateness — that’s the work of the hour.

As usual, it’s work in which we’re wise to follow the cats.

While we’re doing our best to open our hearts to “the other side,” the cats are crawling to the middle, on their hands and knees if necessary, except that cats don’t exactly have hands or knees, and they would never be reduced to crawling. But I digress.

Ella and Bucca, who abhor each other and stand for completely different things, can come together around their shared devotion to the file cabinet. Mona and Lester, who have personalities more different than Blake Shelton and Adam Levine, forge a funky fusion friendship, coalescing over Kuranda beds.

Faye doesn’t like cats, but she loves sunshine, and she’s learning to share. Max once felt the need to mutilate his neighbors, but today he’s joining Paco in the push for Proposition 99, “All Day Pizza For Cats Named Max And Paco.” Boom doesn’t really give one iota of one fraction of one fig about cats, but in the name of love, he will let Rose aggressively groom his forehead.

Dare we do any different?**

Beautiful and terrible things lie ahead of us. Contrary to the million million screaming memes, 2016 is not forsaken. The narrative of decline and despair is false. The same year that saw the need to bring us Bad Santa 2 also gave us Boo: A Medea Halloween. The year that inflicted Swedish Fish Oreos also offered burritos delivered to your door by drone. Acts of unconscionable cruelty are matched and massively outmatched by labors of love.

It’s up to us to choose our moves catlike, spending all of our love every day, only to be miraculously replenished each tomorrow.

I am resolutely convinced that we all want to be OK, and we want each other to be OK, because our OKs and our lives are bound up in one another. Our differences are feeble fjords off the wild wide ocean of love. They’re real — as you know if you’ve ever fallen into a fjord*** — but they’re OK. Tabby’s Place has made a kind of art — admittedly finger-paint stuff, but art is art — of loving across differences. We vote red and blue; we prefer wet food and dry food; we are vegetarians and carnivores, and some of us even think that vegan cheese is food. We have real arguments and get really ticked off at each other, and some of us hiss and spit and bite each other in the tuckus.

But then we roll to the middle. We fight for the relationship. And the longer we do, the more the relationship fights for itself. Swords and fangs are beaten into plowshares every time we actively love beyond old limits.

So let’s do this, guys. Let’s love the world back into relationship. Let’s take up the challenge of these times, our times, the only times we’ve been given. Let’s stand up for the vulnerable. Let’s give ourselves for our neighbors. Let’s act out everything we love best about cats.

Dejection has been rejected.

Love on.

*Though all of these things are good and fine, and you are certainly #safewithme.
**Well, let’s not aggressively groom each other’s foreheads. That might be weird.
***If you have ever fallen into a fjord, please call me. I’ll come with you next time and hang onto your feet so it doesn’t happen again.

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