Getting Up Early, For Cats and Church

I WAS UP EARLY on Sunday morning, for several reasons. Among them, I am habituated to pre sunrsie rising, and the cats, indoor, outoor, and stray, are hungry before dawn. In the heat of a blistering summer, getting outdoor cats fed before daybreak is crucial. Precisly why I don't know, but I sense it. I always feel better when the cats are fed, including the uninvited strays. Knowing that this vital task has been accomplished makes my morning coffee taste batter, as if I am being rwearded for my devotion to duty. I knew that my ride to church would arrive right around eight thirty,and I hate being late, or unprepared. The fact that I am not a Christian per se renders church more, not less valuable to me,the way exposure to a foreign culture does. What I get from church is expansion of the mind and soul, not reinforcement of existing religiosity. A sermon with an original, thought provoking message or unique style uplifts and elucidates me. There is a limit to how much I can do this, elucidate myself, on my own. Reading, study, and meditation, all valuable beneficial tools, fall short. Perhaps I could sit quietly in a cave for hours or years and meditate my way to enlightenment, as others have reportedly done. Somehow I sense that I could not. Whereas it may be that all I really need is already within me,I'm not taking any chances. I have always relied on books and teachers for my education, and I am doubtful as to whether I could at this point in my life, at this late stage, break free from my reliant addiction to and dependance on others for my learning. I readily acknowledge that I am not an island unto myself. Thought, prayer, and meditation, valuable tools that they are, are no substitute for learning directly from other people, people with knowledge I don't have but badly need. To whatever extent my independence of mind is compromised,I accept and embrace it. Mind foreruns all conditions, mind is chief, as the Dhammapada begins. But mind is more than my immediate mind contained within my cranium, and to whatever if any extent my immediate mind is part of a greater intelligence, my mind is closer and I am closer to God, and my being is part of God. or so I believe.