"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32 Text around this verse credits these words to Jesus.
"The truth may set you free, but first it will shatter the safe, sweet way you live," says Sue Monk Kidd in her book Dance of the Dissident Daughter.
Tuesday a man told me he had killed a groundhog. He lives amid farms, and groundhog holes can be a serious danger to wheeled farm implements. Killing groundhogs has been farmer practice for more than my lifetime. "It was a young one, and it ran into the shed. It went into the corner, it thought it was hidden there, and so it was easy. I shot it," he said.
Today on the road I came upon the crushed and crushed again body of a bunny. It was the little one I've been seeing, I could tell by the size of its skull and the sad, small length of fur. Not much bigger than my fist, it liked the quiet, mowed lawn near the end of the neighbor's longish lane. It was afraid of the tall grass and weeds, but it would hop onto the road to go feed on the tall stuff. Walking, I could get very close before I was more fearsome than that tall vegetation. Wholly innocent in its being, it didn't understand about cars.
The truth: my comfortable American lifestyle includes all the elements that demand speed, speed, speed, even for the drivers of cars on this supposed-to-be-slow-paced country road. My lifestyle includes the demands for cheap food, easily available, pure and sealed and in the market. I will sit at my table tonight to feast on gazpacho and corn on the cob, locally grown, without a morsel of animal product on my table And yet the truth is that the lifestyle of which I am an inextricable part―and you are, too―also killed those two defenseless young animals.
your neighbor sounded so pleased ...truly sad. we need to do better
ReplyDeleteThis is such a tragedy. In a world as advanced and civilized as ours, it seems more tragedies are able to occur simply and unnoticed. We see coverage on the nightly news of a man who lost his mind and shot many innocent people, but we don't see the small injustices that occur every day, for varying species of animalia. People tend to forget that we are animals too. The other day Emily's nephew told us that dogs don't feel pain -- that no animals do. We had a long talk with him about his own nature of being and his interpretation of what pain is, for himself and others.
ReplyDeleteAnd while Emily and I were in Delaware last week to visit my uncle, we saw the industrial chicken farms littered throughout its country side. At one, there were tractor trailers being loaded and unloaded with many small metal crates stacked one atop another. These were filled too full with chickens who, when they had to go to the bathroom, went directly on top of the chickens below them. I knew in the back of my mind what goes on inside these facilities. They are used up then killed, their bodies being their final resource.
What is the difference between us and the barbarians of centuries past? We can kill on a larger scale more quickly and efficiently? We can do this with an almost robotic lack of remorse? You think our global economy, with its ability to import all kinds of food year-round, would eliminate factories such as these to at least an extent. I am heart-shattered too.