Gooseberry is a rather eccentric old cat, and a bit hard to live with.

I'm not going to say he's dumb, but I will say that he is - well - "intellectually challenged."

During the rains a few weeks ago he almost drove me crazy. He wanted outside. He insisted on going out. I had to open the door and show him that it was raining. He still wouldn't believe me until he got out far enough to get his nose wet.

With this proof he would always run back in. He hates water. He is very much a Methodist.

I have discovered that Methodists will not go to church if there is the slightest chance that they will get wet. If the weatherman in our city mentions rain as close as Oklahoma, some of my members will stay home that Sunday.

So Gooseberry is a Methodist and he doesn't like water.

But here's what gets me - three minutes after Gooseberry comes back in and settles down, he is hollering again to get out. He has forgotten the rain. So I have to open the door and let him see the rain and stick his nose out in it again.

This can go on for hours.

Gooseberry doesn't get tired of it, but after only a few minutes it loses its appeal for me.

Gooseberry simply has deplorable short - term memory - which really cuts down on his enjoyment of television! He can't follow anything longer than an Alpo commercial.

He does seem to be able to read a little. I swear he can read the price on the cat food can - and if it isn't high enough - he won't touch the stuff!

Still, Gooseberry is limited, and I was thinking just the other day how I would hate to be Gooseberry.

I looked at him, piled up on the sofa in his innocent bliss.

And that's when I thought of the Christ child.

I wouldn't be Gooseberry, but in Jesus, God did become one of us - at first a child unable to feed himself, put on his shoes, or find his way in out of the rain without Mary's help.

Because we could not reach to God, God came down to us, taking upon himself our weakness, that we might live forever in his strength.

I wouldn't be Gooseberry for all the world - but for the world the God of all became a baby.

Such is God's Christmas love for you and me. Let us give him praise.