When you were young, did anyone ever tell you that animals can talk at midnight on Christmas?  I don’t remember who told me, but I do remember looking expectantly at our family Dachshund for several years on Christmas Eve.  For the record, he never said anything.  At least not in a human language.

A quick internet search didn’t turn up much about the origins of this legend, which is a little surprising and frustrating in this day of easy on-line research.  But it does give us the space to speculate and theologize a bit.

There is a longing in children to talk with animals.  What else explains the Doctor Dolittle stories?  What else explains the long, one-sided talks between a child and a patient dog or cat (or horse or hamster)?

I wonder if that longing isn’t the remnant of our memory of the way things were supposed to be.  Somehow as children we know that our relationship with animals is not what is should be.  A child should be able to put her hand near the wasp, and we should not have to flee from a bear or run from a lion.  As children we long for the harmony which we know is missing from the world.

That missing harmony begins to be set right at Christmas.  Long before we have the theological language to describe it, we know that when Jesus is born, God come among us, the healing has begun.  The Good News is here.  At the birth of Jesus, the incarnation, heaven and earth are joined.  Angels and shepherds sing, and legend suggests that even the animals joined in the praise.  The world was set right for a moment. 

The underlying assumption of this legend is that the animals know God and are in relationship with God.  Until we get talked out of it, many of us start with the very Biblical assumption that all of creation, everything and everyone, can praise God.  Animals, in their animal way, praise God.  And on Christmas, we humans may be given a glimpse of the reality of animals.

I’m a grown person now, well past the age of childhood dreams.  But yet, each Christmas I catch myself  looking at my cats and hoping this is the Christmas they speak.  Hoping this is the Christmas that the world is set right.  May it be so …

(originally posted 12/24/09; many thanks to Nancy, a valued contributor, for sharing "Talking to the Animals on Christmas Eve," first posted on her blog Conversation in Faith; photo copyright Beth Van Trees/123rf.com; "The Peaceable Kingdom" painting by American folk artist and Quaker minister Edward Hicks (1780-1849), via CGFA/Wikimedia Commons)

"My Life as a Turkey" tells the story by way of reenactment of wildlife artist and naturalist Joe Hutto who found a bowl of wild turkey eggs on his doorstep in the Florida Flatlands in 1991.  Hutto went on to incubate, hatch and be a constant surrogate parent to the 16 chicks for over a year, and came to understand and communicate, even bond, with them in remarkable and often moving ways.  The full episode is available to watch online, and you catch a touching preview in the following clip: 

The episode is based on a book Hutto wrote, Illumination in the Flatwoods: A Season with the Wild Turkey, and is presented in his own words though the story is acted out by wildlife photographer and actor Jeff Palmer, who had a fresh group of chicks imprinted upon him, according to this PBS Nature audio slideshow.  Like others, I've wondered about the ethics of the reenactment and how it was filmed, including how the wild eggs were obtained and some of the footage involving danger and even death (though some special effects were perhaps used). 

But the compassion and tenderness of "My Life as a Turkey" clearly ring through, and as animal advocate Karen Dawn has written, the positive impact of the film would seem to outweigh any possible negatives.  I highly recommend watching it if you have a chance.

(edited from original post on 11/24/11; screenshot from "NATURE / My life as a Turkey / A New Mother / PBS" clip posted on YouTube; thank you to Judy for the recommendation)

In the evenings you can usually find me buried deep in a theology book.  Legos, dinosaurs, and 200 matchbox cars put away, after the kids’ bedtime, it’s my time to work toward my master’s degree in theology.  Every once in a while one of my text books has something especially lucid to say about the created order and our responsibilities and response toward it as God’s stewards.  I came across such a passage the other night, and though we’ll come to Colossians later in our current series, I wanted to share it now as well:

Those who have been reconciled to God become proclaimers of reconciliation, calling others to the reconciling love of Christ.  Finally, as Paul indicated in Colossians 1:20, the scope of reconciliation is cosmic.  God wills nothing short of the reconciliation and unification of all the created order.  This is not a far-fetched hyperbolic statement.  It has strong implications for ecology.  God desires nothing less than a completely harmonious and unified world as he created it to be.  Those of us who have been reconciled to God in Christ should seek to be ministers of reconciliation on every level – among our fellow human beings and toward the natural order as well. (John B. Polhill, Paul and His Letters)

The language of reconciliation is beautiful.  No longer will everything be at odds: man against animal, animal against man, man’s interests against the environment, the environment pushing back against man, the dollar trumping compassion, compassion arresting our consciences, our consciences at war with our comfort.  All things will be reconciled.  All things will be at peace.  But we, Christians, should be the ministers of such reconciliation in the here and now, in the “already,” while we wait for the promises of God that are “not yet.”

I thought about our food production systems as I read the passage from Polhill’s book.  How do battery cages, gestation crates, force molting, feedlots, electric prods, double-decker trailers, foie gras force feeding,  veal crates, debeaking, dehorning, antibiotic overuse, and land degredation fit into our ministry of reconciliation?  How do they proclaim to the watching world a God who is compassionate and providential, who has sent His Son to die not only for our sins, but to reconcile the entire world to Himself – to free it from bondage and decay? 

How do we support industries that allow for 10% of animals to be strung up by the ankle or scalded alive in the abbatoirs, that accept and standardize the percentage of chickens that will die from crushing and heat exhaustion on the trailers, that use antibiotics to make up for sickening the animals with the grains we chose to feed them, that allow for sows to chew their mouths to bloody bits in gestation crates so small they cannot turn around, that find it acceptable to raise cattle in conditions that guarantee the presence of deadly bacteria in our meat, that starve chickens into shock so that upon breaking the fast they produce a few more eggs ...  How can we support and condone and allow these industries?  How can we turn away, plug our ears, open our wallets, and pretend we don’t see the reality lurking beneath the surface of our grocery store shelves?

How can we proclaim with our lives that the suffering of creatures and creation does not matter to us – and then proclaim with our mouths a compassionate, saving, gracious, holy, mighty God who is redeeming the entire world and reconciling all things to Himself through the blood of the Lamb? 

Is your God a great redeeming, reconciling God of all creation, all things whether on earth or in heaven, or a God who prefers frugality to compassion, ignorance to empathy, and a peace with the status quo to living radically for His kingdom?

My friends, God has secured salvation for our souls, but so, so much more as well.  How often we forget that!  The scope of his redemption is cosmic, the ends of his grace and mercy, limitless.  This is the Christ we know through Scripture:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through himand for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:15-20, ESV, emphasis added)

(many thanks to Lauren for sharing "Reconciliation," originally posted on her blog The Christian and Creation; "Peaceable Kingdom" artwork by Edward Hicks, via Wikimedia Commons)

I wouldn't necessarily endorse the mildly callous experiment which Spurgeon describes in the following passage from his reassuring book All of Grace, a classic of the faith which a friend recently recommended to me (available to read at Christian Classics Ethereal Library or listen to via LibriVox).  But the spiritual lesson which Spurgeon draws from the learning and self-preserving capabilities of mollusks is simple but profound, and one I hope to continue to grow into in my own faith:

Sometimes faith is little more than a simple clinging to Christ; a sense of dependence and a willingness so to depend.  When you are down at the seaside you will see limpets sticking to the rock.  You walk with a soft tread up to the rock; you strike the mollusk a rapid blow with your walking-stick and off he comes.  Try the next limpet in that way.  You have given him warning; he heard the blow with which you struck his neighbor, and he clings with all his might.  You will never get him off; not you!  Strike, and strike again, but you may as soon break the rock.  Our little friend, the limpet, does not know much, but he clings.  He is not acquainted with the geological formation of the rock, but he clings.  He can cling, and he has found something to cling to: this is all his stock of knowledge, and he uses it for his security and salvation.  It is the limpet's life to cling to the rock, and it is the sinner's life to cling to Jesus.  Thousands of God's people have no more faith than this; they know enough to cling to Jesus with all their heart and soul, and this suffices for present peace and eternal safety.  Jesus Christ is to them a Saviour strong and mighty, a Rock immovable and immutable; they cling to him for dear life, and this clinging saves them. 

(snails photo credit Andy Heyward/123rf.com; Spurgeon text courtesy Christian Classics Ethereal Library)

Things began to grind to a halt back in the Spring when I hit a pretty major wall with some administrative and potential legal concerns, and just when I thought we (including the valued input of some friends and advisors) were taking some steps toward creating a more sustainable model for Not One Sparrow, as well as a second blog I'd done some work on.  This roadblock then led into some personal hangups (I've been prone to perfectionism and an obsessive conscience at different times in my life) and what felt like a period of sustained spiritual attack.  This last period then morphed into one of the most intense times of spiritual struggle and re-forming I've ever experienced, and I'm still not sure how things are going to look exactly when the dust settles (do we ever?). 

I do know that God has had some significant work to do in my life, dealing with some areas of anxiety and need, brokenness and just plain sin, but also in showing me a new vision of Himself and His love for me.  I don't mean to say my theology has changed fundamentally, but that some longstanding barriers in my heart have begun to come down in terms of relating to God as Father, Savior and Spirit in a truly intimate way, and starting to be replaced by better understanding the depth of God's love, grace and mercy for me.  (By the way, a few of the books which have helped substantially in this journey are Brennan Manning's Abba's Child, Bruce Marchiano's In the Footsteps of Jesus and A. W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, as well as some recent sermons by Charles Stanley).  It has been an exhausting and at times debilitating stretch, but an incredibly valuable one as well.  And I am eternally grateful to the Lord of grace and mercy, in addition to my wife and a few family members and friends, for walking faithfully and undeservedly alongside me through it (thank you). 

Thank you for allowing me to share on a more personal level in this post, however incompletely.  Please know that I haven't abandoned Not One Sparrow, and have even come to understand the ministry which God may continue to have for me in it in new ways.  Ever more I see the importance of recognizing and relating to each other as people, with real spiritual and emotional needs, even around a common theme such as animals and their Creator's care for them. In this way, we really can affirm both the verse which not one sparrow gets its name from and the one that follows, which tell of God's concern for each and every sparrow, but also His even deeper concern for us His human children:

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?  Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.  Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Luke 12:6-7, NIV)

While not one sparrow's prayer and grief suppot groups have continued through the Summer, and with some very meaningful input and empathy (thank you to everyone who participated), I do hope to get back to more regular blog posts soon as well.  Perhaps we'll even be able to flesh out some of the new developments which were just starting to get in the works, such as a fresh website and some new content.

I am still waiting on God's go-ahead in some key respects, both personal and other questions which have faced not one sparrow previously, such as those alluded to above as well as a consistent funding structure.  Would you mind praying for me and for not one sparrow in these areas, especially in the next few weeks?  I, we, would be very grateful as we wait on the Lord for His guidance and provision.  I have to remember that the best place I can leave myself and not one sparrow is back in His hands, but this is a hard truth to hang on to sometimes.

Thank you again for reading, and for your patience with me.  By the way, if you've wrestled with anything similar to what I referenced in this post, please feel free to write me personally.  I'd be honored to hear from you - Ben

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14, NIV)

p.s. In a few days I hope to share follow-up post with a few animal-related stories which have touched and encouraged me through the summer ...

(sparrows & stained glass photo credit 123rf.com)

• Alexei and Evangelicals for Social Action
• Andy, Rusty and Flourish
• Anna and AnnaMClark.com
• Byron and Nothing New Under the Sun
• Colleen and Sissy's World
• Christian and Christian Eriksson
• Countryside Animal Friends
• Dani and Wishing and Hoping
• Dawn and Notes from Dawn
• Dean and Wonder of Creation
• Elaine and Elaine Smothers: Wonder in the Wild
• Jessica and Vegbooks
• Josh and Twoday I Learned
• Kristyn and Evangelicals for Social Action
• Matt and Wake Up Weekend
• Megan and the Sorta Crunchy Creation Care Blogger list
• Ruth and Christianity Today
• Sarah and A Time and a Season
• Stoyan and The Christian Post

Thank you again,
Ben on behalf of not one sparrow

(image credit 123rf.com)

I had a phase in college when I thought that perhaps I would become a vegetarian.  I had no real reason for doing so other than acting sort of hippie-ish seemed like an identity that I wanted to try on for a while.  That and a good friend at the time was a vegetarian.  Vegan was a little to extreme for my little experiment so I decided dairy would be okay, yogurt and ice-cream were close companions and I dared not part from them.

This little charade lasted about two weeks.  I was a college athlete and suddenly completely protein deficient.  And while it is of course possible to get enough protein from other sources, I was either completely unaware or happened to strongly dislike those other sources at the time.  Forget beans and nuts and legumes.  I was eating Wheat Thins and tomatoes with the occasional cucumber thrown in.  Of course there was my friend the cup of yogurt, but I was starving for protein.  So I added chicken back to the plate.

All kidding aside, there is something to be said about eating your veggies.  Us Americans have a penchant for meat.  Our meals revolve around it.  First we decide what the meat dish will be and then we dabble in the sides.  In 9 out of 10 meals, veggies are the sides.  I have to say, I am increasingly aware of how lopsided this view of the dinner plate actually is.  It just seems to me that we would be significantly healthier if we started with the veggies and then worked our way over to the cattle ranch.

My oldest son is about as picky an eater as they come.  For about three years the child ate no meat except for chicken nuggets (which hardly count as meat).  He is now 6 and has had maybe 5 bits of beef in his entire life.

But give that child a pile of fruit, a stack of carrots or cucumbers and watch him go.  He can plow through an entire pint of blackberries without taking a breath.  In a panic I once asked my pediatrician if this was okay.

I am an American mom, I wanted to see him throwing down some meat.  So I said this to our doctor, "Is it okay that all he eats are fruits and vegetables, cheese and yogurts?"  He laughed and said "Well, some people actually choose to raise their children this way, they are called vegetarians."

"Oh, right."

But all college trendiness aside, there are good reasons to at the very least, reduce your meat consumption.  According to the well loved earth-friendly classic, "Diet for a Small Planet" by Frances Moore Lappe, it takes about 16 pounds of grain to make one pound of beef?

The average grain-fed animal who is heading to the slaughterhouse will down 2.5 tons of grain and feed per year!  If you think about it for a moment, it makes more sense to just consume that 16 pounds of grain rather than stuff it into an animal that will only yield one pound of meat as a result.  Lappe tells us that those 16 pounds have 21 times more calories and 8 times the protein of that burger.

Add that to the fact that gassy livestock blow enough methane into the air each year that worldwide it is estimated that they are responsible for 15-20% of the yearly greenhouse gas emissions on our little planet.  Seriously.  Cow farts are killing us.

The UN estimates that if every American simply skipped meat ONE day per week, that we would save the CO2 equivalent of flying from NY to LA 90 million times!  Sounds staggering eh?  Methane is considerably more potent in our atmosphere than CO2, it packs a much greater climate punch.

So give it a thought . Can you skip meat one day per week?  I actually only eat meat ONE day per week.  I’m a six day a week vegetarian of sorts.  I eat yogurt and tons of cheese.  Once a month I toss in an egg.  I’m not neurotic or crazy about it.  Just conscious.

So try on the trend.  Just one day at a time.  You may find you like it and if so, another green step for you!

(many thanks to Tracey Bianchi for sharing this with us, originally posted as "Bratwurst" on her personal blog, and first posted here 4/22/10; photos copyright Olena Kucherenko & Steve Everts/123rf.com)

We looked at the juxtaposition of Keller's compassionate and biblical animal husbandry to modern industrial animal farming in the last post.  This time, I'd like to point to another contrast Keller raises between his own model of tending sheep and other far more careless methods he came in contact with personally. 

Keller first makes the point that sheep need more careful attention than any other kind of farm animal, a theme which resonates in Keller's description of sheep throughout the rest of the book, and which is constantly used to shed light on human nature as few other analogies could.  Whereas Keller sought to be the type of shepherd who, like David, was "gentle, kind, intelligent, brave, and selfless in their devotion to their stock," he remembers sadly his experience with one callous neighbor in particular:

In memory I can still see one of the sheep ranches in our district which was operated by a tenant sheepman.  He ought never to have been allowed to keep sheep.  His stock were always thin, weak, and riddled with disease or parasites.  Again and again they would come and stand at the fence staring blankly through the woven wire at the green lush pastures which my flock enjoyed. ...

He ignored their needs - he couldn't care less.  Why should he - they were just sheep - fit only for the slaughterhouse. (pg. 17, 21-22, 28-29)

There were moments when I wondered, from the outside looking in admittedly, if Keller could have adopted more humane practices in a few instances himself, such as when he mentions marking his sheep's ears with a knife to identify them, or eventually killing an endlessly straying ewe who was a distraction to the rest of his sheep, even "driv(ing) off or shoot(ing) other stray dogs that came to molest or disturb the sheep" (23, 34, 36).  But again, I have never been a shepherd, let alone in charge of the wellbeing of an entire flock.

Of perhaps more concern, Keller never explicitly states what his inevitable purpose for tending sheep was, other than that it was his livelihood.  I know there are some concerns about the excessive sheering of wool, though at other times it's done in the animals' best interest as Keller notes.  But I assume Keller's sheep, and David's, were in large part being raised for eventual slaughter. 

At first thought this fate seems to run completely contrary to the idea of consistently tending to the animals' welfare.  But I think it's important to remember the time and setting in which both of these men worked, one in which livestock were often necessary to survive economically and physically.  The use of animals for sustenance was hardly questioned in their contexts, if at all, and was biblically supported if done humanely.  And both David and Keller should be commended for going to such self-sacrificing lengths to be as attentive and humane as possible in their shepherding. 

I'd like to mention one more testament to their compassionate example.  With Psalm 23, Keller mentions how important the shepherd's staff is to many vital aspects of tending sheep.  Aside from guiding and gently correcting the routes sheep take in treacherous territory, it's also used for reuniting disconnected newborn lambs with their mothers, and bringing bashful sheep closer for inspection.  But I found the following use of a staff especially touching:

Sometimes I have been fascinated to see how a shepherd will actually hold his staff against the side of some sheep that is a special pet or favorite, simply so that they "are in touch."  They will walk along this way almost as though it were "hand-in-hand."  The sheep obviously enjoys this special attention from the shepherd and revels in the close, personal, intimate contact between them. (99-100)

(A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 was first published by Zondervan in '70; photos copyright Stephen Finn & Russell Duparcq/123rf.com)

But I could hardly have picked a better book to sermonize from, and was reminded of this fact when I read through the book again in recent months.  Not only is the book based on one of the most meaningful and beloved passages in Scripture, but Keller's insight into the unique and nuanced dynamics of tending sheep as a longtime shepherd himself, unfamiliar to most of us today but certainly not lost on  David, is unfathomably deep.  I can't emphasize enough how much more meaning the psalm takes on through reading it alongside Keller's personal experience and faithful commentary.

For encouragement and devotional purposes alone, I hope you have a chance to read the book.  But it also depicts a model of animal husbandry, both in the psalm itself and Keller's own example, which is so thoroughly attentive to the sheep's well-being, not to mention compassionate and biblically grounded, that I couldn't resist passing it along. 

I'll follow up with a few more passages in a second post, along with a reservation or two which you might share about the inevitable fate of the sheep themselves.  But here's a good summary in the meantime of the husbandry which both David and Keller intuitively modeled toward their sheep, and understood to be an intimate illustration of God's relationship to us:

(God) is the rancher who is outstanding because of His fondness for sheep - Who loves them for their own sake as well as His personal pleasure in them. ...

He will go to no end of trouble and labor to supply them with the finest grazing, the richest pasturage, ample winter feed, and clean water.  He will spare Himself no pains to provide shelter from storms, protection from ruthless enemies and the diseases and parasites to which sheep are so susceptible.

No wonder Jesus said, "I am the Good Shepherd - the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." (pg. 31)

Contrast Keller's words with Matthew Scully's description of a modern industrial pig farm, which we've shared before (and is only a variation of the norm for just about all animal factory farming):

The smallest scraps of human charity - a bit of maternal care, room to roam outdoors, straw to lie on - have long since been taken away as costly luxuries, and so the pigs know the feel only of concrete and metal.  They lie covered in their own urine and excrement, with broken legs from trying to escape or just to turn, covered with festering sores, tumors, ulcers, lesions, or what my guide shrugged off as the routine "pus pockets." ("A Religious Case for Compassion for Animals" (HSUS Faith Outreach), pg. 13)

By the way, Zondervan's bio of W. Phillip Keller says that he began his life in East Africa, and "always loved wildlife and the outdoors."  After working for many years in British Columbia in agricultural study and practice as well as ranching, "he later pursued careers in conservation, wildlife photography, and journalism."

to be continued ...

(originally posted 3/8/10; beautiful photo of sheep taken in Holland by my father Daryl DeVries)

The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. (Psalm 145:9, NIV, emphasis added)

The meaning of Easter has been mostly lost in our culture, dissolved into a flurry of fluffy yellow candy, hunts for plastic eggs and the ever famous four-legged, long-eared emblem of the season.

I’m not writing to debate the merit or lack thereof of these practices.  Are they of pagan origin?  Well, yes, but most believing Christians still chop down a tree (or buy a plastic one at Wal-Mart) and pull it into their living room to cover it with fake icicles, messy strings of silvery stuff, and tiny Disney characters dressed in Santa costumes to celebrate our Savior’s birth.  I’m not ready to take on all that.  So I’ll just leave that discussion for another time.

Easter time always bring me sadness and anxiety, triggered by those first chocolate Easter bunnies that show up in the stores.  They remind me that real rabbits are being bred and born for the same purpose: to make a child smile for a few moments and a few pictures, then be broken limb by limb and eventually trashed with the rest of the holiday décor.

Thousands of animals are bred for this purpose alone, to be purchased by impulsive parents to put as live toys in their children’s Easter baskets.

Two months ago they were born under greedy eyes.  A few weeks ago they were shipped in crates all over the country to meet their fates.  Some of them have been dyed pink and purple to appeal to the market.  Look kids!  It’s the fluffy friends of Easter!  They’ve landed in pet stores all over the US: tiny bunnies, soft little yellow ducks, itty bitty chicks.  Now they’re about to face legs broken, wings snapped, eyes gauged, ribs crushed, neglected health, unintentional starvation, and behavior-altering anxiety.

That is the price paid to watch a child squeal with delight for 20 seconds when a baby animal hops out of the plastic Easter grass (if it hasn’t choked on it yet).

Mary Cotter, vice-president of the House Rabbit Society, says that “many of the rabbits purchased as Easter pets will never live to see their first birthday.  Some will die from neglect, while others will be abandoned in local parks or left at animal shelters.”

As the House Rabbit Society Easter campaign slogan goes, “He’s not a child’s toy.  He’s a real, live, 10-year commitment.”

The reality of pet ownership skips parents minds when they impulse-buy these baby creatures at the store.  But it comes crashing down quickly, first when their child loses interest, then when the animals begin to mature and demand attention, care, specialized feed, and in general, turn out to be not so cute and cuddly.

And those tiny little bunnies - sure they’ll stay soft and fluffy, but that doesn’t guarantee you an appropriate child’s pet.  Most rabbits hate to be held.  They have a natural fear of having their legs leave the ground, and kick out in panic when lifted, especially if not lifted correctly such as when a small child grabs them from the middle.  I have more than a few scars from handling scared rabbits at vet clinics, even though I’ve been well trained.  These cute little critters are incredibly strong for their size and difficult to properly restrain without someone getting hurt.  How about that 12” by 24” cage they’ll sell you at the store?  Not big enough by a long shot, but considering that most Easter rabbits don’t live past one year of age, I guess it doesn’t turn out to matter.

Rabbits are not the only animals to suffer in this season.  Even more inexplicably to me, some parents purchase ducks and chickens as Easter basket stuffers.  But they pose perhaps even more problems than rabbits, for some very practical reasons. 

That 4” tall yellow duckling in the pet store will be 2 feet tall and adorned with powerful wings, sharp claws and a snapping beak in a matter of weeks.  He’ll lose his baby down and sprout full adult feathers (the in-between stage is not very pretty).  To add to the confusion about what type of animal you are really purchasing, I’ve never seen a pet store that sold duck food.  Because they’re not pets.  And of course, the stores fail to mention that in most areas you have to live in a properly zoned area to keep livestock.  Ducks are livestock.  So why are they in suburban pet stores?  Can you say “ca-ching!”?

Then there are the baby chicks.  Oh chicks ... let me tell you a secret here.  I love animals; I do.  I have compassion on them all.  But I really, really don’t like chickens.  They smell, they’re loud, they’re ugly ...  I would never want one.  That’s because I’ve been around adult chickens.  But how easy it is to forget that the fluffy yellow chick that fits in your palm the week before Easter is the same animal as the one you put on your plate that night.  All those impulse buyers are in for a big surprise when in 10 days those chicks have doubled in size and sprouted ugly adult feathers.  They get tall, gangly and ornery in no time at all.  And again, good luck finding chicken feed at a pet store.

The average lifespan of a rabbit is 10-16 years.  The average lifespan of chickens and ducks is about 10 years.  The average attention span of a three-year-old ... probably only a few minutes. 

Yet year after year after year, they are bred, bought, sold, bred, bought, sold.  To die, die, die.

Why?  Why are we celebrating the coming of spring, the resurrection of the Savior who has compassion, by breeding and buying disposable life?

Sin comes into full view here.  These animals are bred for a market.  The producers know that these animals are sentenced to short, fairly miserable lives.  But they breed them anyway, because we keep buying them.  In a personal conversation I had with a local pet store manager, he freely admitted that he was certain about 90% of the Easter animals he sells die in a short period of time with their new owners.  I asked why he would continue to provide them for sale.  He answered with a nonchalant shrug, “It’s a good profit.”   

Another pet store nearby has a large sign on the walls that reads, “We care for the well-being of pets.”  The same pet store was selling ducklings.  But not duck food.

Suffering is everywhere, always.  But Easter magnifies it for me.  The contrast, the confusion of a culture that celebrates life with death, flinging living beings away with all the sentiment of disposing an empty candy wrapper.  For God’s sake, just buy a chocolate rabbit.  Choose compassion.

(orginally posted April 2, 2010; "Celebrating the Resurrection of Christ with a Season of Suffering" was adapted from Lauren's original post at The Christian and Creation ~ Glorifying the Creator; photos credit Sebastian Duba & Eric Isselée/123rf.com)

"Say to Daughter Zion, 'See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'" (21:5)

I recently came across a gentle and beautifully illustrated children's book which tells the story of Little Colt's Palm Sunday, and shared a review on Vegbooks.  It's a wonderful way to help the children in your life engage with the events of Palm Sunday, and to understand what a unique service the colt provided to Jesus, and what an honor it was to be with Jesus and be part of that special day.  As I wrote in the review, "The description and image of Little Colt being introduced to Jesus, who kneels down to softly to acknowledge and pet him, is especially tender."

Classic British and Christian author G. K. Chesterton wrote a poem about the donkey and his glorious moment carrying Christ, though it is much more grown-up in tone and even grotesque in its description of donkeys as a species.  A helpful commentary on the poem is available from Andy Kester Sawian, and here is the latter half of "The Donkey":

The tattered outlaw of the earth, 
Of ancient crooked will; 
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, 
I keep my secret still. 

Fools! For I also had my hour; 
One far fierce hour and sweet: 
There was a shout about my ears, 
And palms before my feet. 

Francis Jammes, another Christian poet from the same era but this time from France, also wrote a poem about donkeys, but a tender tribute to their humble nature and their place with their Creator.  Here are just a couple of lines from "A Prayer to Go to Paradise with the Donkeys," translated by Richard Wilbur:

Let me come with these donkeys, Lord, into your land,
These beasts who bow their heads so gently ...

I wonder, have you come across any noteworthy tributes to the donkey colt which Jesus rode into Jerusalem, or donkeys in general?

(first photo of passion play in Bavaria, Germany (1900) from the George Grantham Bain Collection/The Library of Congress, via Wikimedia commons; donkey photo courtesy Daryl DeVries; thank you to Jonathan Samuelson for sharing the Jammes poem)

I’m not sure how many churches today still incorporate in their worship the traditional “Doxology” sung to the tune of the “Old Hundredth.”  It was so common in the past and familiar enough now that in almost any crowd gathered anywhere in the English-speaking world, if you started singing it, you’d likely be joined by the majority—much like the singing of “Amazing Grace.”  I’ve always loved it:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The thought of “all creatures here below” praising God captured my imagination as a kid.  But it was not until I was older that I realized how much the Bible says about animals (even trees, rivers, mountains) worshiping God.  The most direct instance is this passage in the book of the Revelation:

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13-14, Today's New International Version).

This heavenly praise to Christ who is about to ascend the throne of the Kingdom comes after the wonderful truth rendered so poetically in the previous chapter: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (4:11, TNIV).  The KJV says, “For thy pleasure they are and were created” (emphasis added).  I like that translation.  From Job 38-41 we know that God takes delight in even the most ferocious and quirky creatures.

Most important, however, is that “all creatures here below” offer their praise in response to the fact that Jesus, the Lamb, died to redeem fallen mankind—those who were initially supposed to be their righteous caretakers—a task we have mostly failed at.  Our becoming once again what God made us to be is, in fact, just what Paul hints at in his letter to the church in Rome about nature: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19-21, TNIV).

This post is part of a series on pets, but in reality we shouldn’t forget that our pets are merely the animals closest and most dear to us.  But in some mysterious way, all living creatures—in their own natures—have a capacity to respond to their Creator.  The response we read of most frequently in Scripture is that of praise.  We believe that they praise God by doing the work God gave them to do.  However else they may praise Him is beyond us—and between them and their Creator (and where we should not interfere).  Here’s a thrilling truth about our pets—about all animals: we are all worshipers together!  And nature itself is looking forward to our once again becoming, as redeemed “children of God,” not just righteous caretakers, but righteous caregivers.

Theologian Richard Bauckham in his recent book, Living With Other Creatures: Green Exegesis and Theology, has given us some important words to consider:

It is much more obvious that other creatures can help us to worship God than that we can help other creatures to.  In the order of praise in Psalm 148 ... all other creatures are called to worship before humans are called to join them.  The creatures help us to worship primarily by their otherness that draws us out of our self-absorption into a world that exists not for us but for God’s glory. ...  The more we praise God with the other creatures, the more we shall want to resist the relentless trend towards total humanizing of the world in which the rest of creation will have become no more than the material from which we have fashioned a world of our own creation. ...  It is not our vocation to absorb the whole created world into our own human life this way. ...  At the present juncture of our history with creation, it is probably most important to emphasize that we need, much more than we have done, to allow creation’s praise by letting it be [pp. 154-155, link added].

We all take “road kill” in stride, not being bothered much about animal slaughter on our highway—unless, of course, it is a pet.  But I don’t think their Creator “takes it in stride.”  We might be benefited by allowing the sight of such “collateral damage” of human technology to be a reminder to pray again for God’s will “to be done on earth as it is in heaven” when animals will no longer fear us but stand side by side with us in praise and worship of our mutual Creator and Savior.

("Creature Praise" was originally posted at The Wonder of Creation; photos credit 123rf.com)

“Indeed, but are they truly incomprehensible?  In my experience communication is a matter of patience, imagination.  I would like to believe that these are qualities that we have in sufficient measure.” (Captain Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Episode 102 “Darmok”)

It may surprise you to learn that the thing I associate most strongly with that quote is a chicken.

Even among bantams, she was a runt – the smallest of the batch of chicks we had purchased from the local farm supply store.  So she became known by default as “Little Chickie.”  (I tried to give her a more dignified name when she got older, but it never stuck.)  Ironically, though, she had one of the boldest personalities in the flock, even from a very young age.  While the other chicks nervously crowded under the heat lamp, Little Chickie went exploring.  If I left the door to the coop open, she would march right out into the feed room to eat the wheat spilled on the floor.  Once she discovered how appealing the feed room was, I could hardly keep her inside; I was forced to pick her up, put her back in the coop, and hastily shut the door before she sprinted out again.  This unique behavior earned Little Chickie quite a bit of special attention from me and other members of my family.

Once the chicks grew older, we let them into the outdoor run that adjoined the coop.  While passing through adolescence, they entered a very friendly phase, during which they seemed to enjoy using me as a roost.  If I sat in the run with my knees drawn up in front of me, various members of the flock would take turns sitting on them.  Occasionally, one would even attempt to fly onto my back if I was bent over.  Little Chickie continued to be very personable, and learned how to beg.  I referred to her and another hen (dubbed Speckles) as the “queens of complaining,” because their voices were generally the loudest and most frequently heard when the flock called to me.  (The sound I identify as “complaining” is a loud, drawn-out, repeated squawking, which generally means that the chickens are discontented and want something.)  The chickens learned to recognize me by sight, and perhaps even by voice; either indication of my presence could provoke a burst of complaining from the direction of the run.

Once they became adults, the chickens were no longer as inclined to sit on me, and some grew more wary and reluctant to be approached.  Little Chickie remained very tame, probably because of the frequent handling she had received as a youngster.  She was undoubtedly one of my favorites in the small flock, and was perhaps rather spoiled.  Like the others, she especially enjoyed being let out of the run to wander and forage in the back yard.  I did this often if the weather was good and I could give the chickens a modicum of supervision.

I vividly remember one day in particular; no date is attached to it, but it must have been in the fall.  I was walking along the path outside the back yard when I spotted Little Chickie on the other side of the fence.  When she saw me, she came up to the fence; I stopped briefly to watch her, then continued down the path, passing out of sight behind a large salal bush.  Little Chickie immediately began to complain loudly.  I stopped and called to her, waiting to see if she would follow the sound of my voice around the bush.  As soon as she came in view of me again, the complaining stopped.  I was used to having the chickens complain to me when I was present, but this seemed different.

My curiosity piqued, I resolved to get into the back yard, and took off at a run for the gate at the bottom of the hill.  Again, Little Chickie became plaintive when I passed out of sight behind the garage; when she saw me coming up the yard, she hurried to meet me and became quiet again.  I squatted in the path and stared at her.  “What do you want?”  She milled around my feet, emitting the endless stream of small muttering sounds common among hens.  She couldn't tell me exactly what she wanted, but she seemed confident in my presence.  I waited there for a moment, but she didn't leave.  All I could think of was the fact that, when I let the chickens out that day, I had shut the run door – preventing them from getting back in.  It occurred to me that she might want to get back to the nest boxes.  (Chickens can be a little obsessive about where they prefer to put their eggs.)  I headed for the run to see if opening the door would make her happy.  Little Chickie tagged at my heels, hustling along on her short legs if I ever got too far ahead.  Sure enough, when I opened the gate, she bolted inside and made for the chicken house.

Maybe a chicken trying to tell me that she wanted to go back in her run – and not being very obvious about it, at that – doesn't seem like much of a feat.  A dog probably could have done it better ... but that's just the point.  One doesn't expect to have that sort of interaction with a chicken.  Bridging the communication gap took both of us.  Little Chickie identified me as the one who was able to meet her needs, and came to me.  I deduced what she wanted.  This understanding may have been rudimentary by human standards, but it was special.  I felt as if we had achieved something new; a barrier of some sort had come down.

I think it was only a few weeks later that she died.

Little Chickie abruptly fell ill with something that gave her terrible, yellow or green diarrhea.  We had some chicken medications on hand, but my mother warned me that she had seen this disease before, and it did not respond to treatment.  I couldn't do much except try to make Little Chickie comfortable and see if she got over it.  On the fourth day, I came into the chicken house and found her in one of the nest boxes, head lying limply over the edge.

On the day I buried her body, it was pouring down rain.  I did it anyway, because if you wait until it isn't raining in western Washington, you'll never get anything done.  I dug the hole in the low part of the woods behind our yard, where we buried all our pets.  The ground was so saturated that it rapidly filled with water, like a tiny well.  I had to place rocks on top of Little Chickie's desiccated body to get it to sink to the bottom.  At the time, it seemed rather undignified, but in retrospect, perhaps it wasn't.  Though famous men of old were fond of their funeral pyres, there seems no more fitting tribute for a creature of the Pacific Northwest than to be buried in water.

As for me, I cried a little, quietly, and got over it.  Or so I thought.  A curious sense of emptiness filled me.  Christmas came and went, but I didn't enjoy it properly.  I even found it difficult to pray.  Life wasn't what it had been when Little Chickie was in it.  In the end, her death produced the longest and most profound grieving period I think I've experienced over anything.  I said little of it to anyone.  Who was supposed to feel depressed over a chicken?  In time, things began to feel normal again.  But I can never forget her.

Years later, I discovered that perhaps all of this shouldn't have been such a surprise, after all.  Chickens are remarkably sophisticated communicators; rather than simply representing their emotional state, some of their calls express definite information about the environment, and other chickens respond to them in a non-reflexive way.  As of 2006, such a feat had yet to be verified for any other non-primate species.  In fact, one researcher says he likes to trick conference-goers by presenting the mental abilities of chickens without mentioning the species.  They often suspect that the animal being discussed is a monkey.

For me, though, the ability of chickens to communicate and form social relationships is not simply book knowledge.  This, then, is a tribute to Little Chickie ... a creature no doubt beautiful in the eyes of God, as you were in mine ... for giving me a better glimpse into your world, and showing me that barriers to communication can be overcome if we try hard enough.  Even if the one on the other side is a chicken.

(sincere thanks to Jenny, who has shared other excellent posts with us, for this tribute; photos credit 123rf.com)

I'm so tired of talking about me all the time that I've made a list of random things about my favorite animal: the chicken!  I'm willing to make huge sacrifices for these little guys, so I felt I should tell you why.  If you want to know more, check out my movie Fowl Play:

1. Chickens were domesticated from the Red Junglefowl of Southeast Asia.  Junglefowl are social forest-dwellers who perch, make calls, and look much like modern chickens. U nlike the ancestors of cows (the beastly "aurochs," the last of whom were killed hundreds of years ago), Junglefowl still co-exist with humanity, but they're thought to be facing extinction through interbreeding with domesticated chickens.

2. The disparaging term "bird brain" is based on outdated science.  Researchers, in recent years, have learned that chickens and other birds are intelligent for their comparative brain size because they use more of their brain for higher-level thinking than previously expected.

3. As social animals, chickens can recognize each other by their facial features, communicate with dozens of distinct calls, and solve problems as a group.  "As a trick at conferences I sometimes list these attributes, without mentioning chickens, and people think I’m talking about monkeys," says animal behaviorist Dr. Chris Evans.

4. Even though they've evolved to communicate vocally instead of through gestures or facial expressions that humans understand, chickens are every bit as capable of feeling joy, pain, relief, and distress as dogs and cats are.

5. The "Bird Flu" craze may have calmed down for now, but modern research shows that the Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed more people than World War I, came from an avian source.

6. About 9 billion chickens are slaughtered each year in the US alone.  This includes egg-laying chickens who are slaughtered when their egg production declines.

7. Chickens have been domesticated as egg producers and occasional meat sources for thousands of years, but they weren't raised specifically for meat until the 1920's.  Now they're the most commonly raised and slaughtered meat animals worldwide.

8. This sounds obvious, but chickens must be raised and killed in such large numbers because their bodies are comparatively much smaller than those of cows or pigs, and so have only a tiny fraction of the meat on them.

9. Meat-type chickens are bred for maximum growth speed, and reach slaughter weight in 45 days, twice as fast as they did a few decades ago, and so young that they're still chirping when they're sent to slaughter.

10. Although the federal "Humane Methods of Slaughter Act" requires that animals be rendered fully unconscious before slaughter, all poultry are exempted from the law.  The vast majority of chickens slaughtered in the US are electrically stunned but remain fully conscious as their throats are slit.

11. Chickens occasionally miss the blade at the slaughter plant and are scalded alive in the defeathering tanks.

12. Experts have developed systems that would kill chickens painlessly (and much more efficiently than current systems), but US chicken processors do not yet feel the pressure to invest in the new systems.

13. The genetic selection of egg-producing birds is now so advanced that the birds are marketed by their numbers (like the "W-36" or "W-98").  These birds lay twice as many eggs as hens did a few decades ago, and ten times as many eggs as Red Junglefowl.

14. Chickens can live for 20 years, but the lifespan of modern egg-laying breeds has not been studied because the industry kills them at such an early age anyway.

15. Battery cage egg production, the most common form of egg production in the US, is so inhumane that it has been outlawed in parts of Europe and will be illegal across the entire European Union by 2012.

16. This past fall, Californian voters got to decide whether battery cages and other forms of farm animal confinement should be illegal.  They outlawed battery cages by an overwhelming margin.  In fact, the ballot proposition did better than Barack Obama did in California.

17. Modern egg production has become so automated that one worker is expected to "care" for hundreds of thousands of animals.  Animals are left to die if they get sick or stuck in their cages.

18. Cage-free eggs are a far better option than battery cage eggs, but just like their caged sisters, cage-free chickens are generally confined in giant sheds without access to sunlight, have the ends of their beaks seared off at a young age to reduce the damage caused by stress-induced aggression, and are slaughtered or gassed at about 18 months because their egg production declines.

19. CO2 is the gas used to kill "spent" laying hens at the end of their useful lives.  Unlike the "passing out" that one experiences from breathing an inert gas like Argon, CO2 is a very painful way to die, but it's also cheap for the industry.

20. Sometimes the hens survive the gassing process and must struggle to survive in a landfill.

21. Male chickens are useless to the egg industry (they don't grow fast enough to be raised for meat) so once they've hatched, they're ground or smashed alive, or even worse, suffocated in plastic bags or garbage bins.

22. Even chickens kept in backyards usually come from hatcheries that kill off male chicks.  Therefore, if painfully killing baby animals is inhumane, it's hard to imagine how one could produce a "humane" egg.

23. Meat-type birds who get to live out their lives on a sanctuary face major health problems from their overweight bodies, including broken or infected legs and heart attacks.  Egg laying hens are bred to be small and thus avoid those problems, but do develop infected vents from laying so many eggs.

24. Both chicken meat and eggs are high in cholesterol, and neither are necessary to live a long and happy life.

25. If you care about chickens, you can start helping them today by joining the growing group of people who refuse to eat "products" that come from them.

For more on not one sparrow's approach to eating compassionately, which includes vegetarianism and veganism among faithful options, please see this FAQ and blog series.  By the way, I highly recommend Adams excellent documentary Fowl Play, co-made with Mercy for Animals, for learning more about how chickens are raised for food on factory farms.  Here is the film's trailer: 

(sincere thanks to Adam for sharing "25 Random Things About Chickens," originally posted as a Facebook note; photos credit 123rf.com)

You can read more at Leshko's "Elderly Animals" project artist statement, and view the photos here.  In black and white, they really do capture a unique beauty and dignity of some of the more venerable members of God's animal creation.  Leshko mentions fighting back tears at some of her shoots, in the following short from Walley Films about the project, which in itself is very moving:

(sincere thanks to Mark Lentz for sharing this project with me, via Feature Shoot; screenshot below from "Elderly Animals: Photographs by Isa Leshko" by Walley Films)