celebrating the resurrection of Christ with a season of suffering

Many thanks to Lauren Merritt of The Christian and Creation ~ Glorifying the Creator for shining a light on the unintended consequences many of our common Easter pets experience:

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.

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even the animals knew

Not long ago our friend Anna Clark introduced me to Christian author and poet M. Kent Travis.  Kent's blog is worth following in general, but his recent post "Even the Animals Knew" especially grabbed my attention.  Kent acknowledges he's not the biggest "animal person," but his insight is perhaps even more valuable as a result.  I'm grateful to be able to share it here at the beginning of Lent when many Christians are honoring Christ's 40 days in the wilderness ...   

Yesterday was a particularly difficult day for my second daughter.  She was being snippy and unkind to everyone else in the family, even after we explained to her what she was doing.  It was if she couldn't stop herself or didn't even know that she was doing it.

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talking to animals on Christmas Eve

It's becoming a bit of a Christmas Eve tradition to share this reflection from Nancy Janisch of Conversation in Faith, a heartfelt and hopeful complement for 'the night before' ...

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.

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feel-good Monday

We've been running a few posts on companion animals, and it seemed high time in general to share some uplifting and cute stories about our four-legged friends ...

- First, a heartwarming video of Winston the cat taking care of his canine buddy Zeke just home from the vet and a bad allergy reaction.  Winston licks him clean and then straddles on top of him to sleep (from Purina Animal All Stars).

- This is a cute video of a baby cuddling with an unbelievably amiable and patient cat, one of several clips if you look to the right on the YouTube page:

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Grady the Gray Cat

Earlier this year I bumped into Christian author Lori A. Moore on Twitter, who most recently has written a book for children called Grady the Gray Cat (Tate Publishing '11).  I don't know of many books for children written by fellow believers with a strong message of concern for animals in general, or the value of adopting a pet in particular.  So I was grateful to Lori when she sent me a copy to review for not one sparrow.

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goodbye Scooter

I was going through some childhood papers before our recent move, and came across this letter I wrote after the rather tragic death of my first hamster, Scooter, when I was about eight:

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against animal violence

A few months ago I bumped into Kurt Willems on Twitter, a writer and pastor who journals at The Pangea Blog on theology, ethics, ministry and recently even animals!  Kurt kindly offered to share a post I wrote on the theme of nonviolence which is close to his heart as an Anabaptist evangelical.  Here's a preview of "The Nonviolence of the Kingdom ... Towards Animals":

Witnessing such acts as Lincoln and Sobosan did, and the resulting agony of noble and harmless creatures, would have been hard for me to process as a child well.  I don’t know that I would have reacted more approvingly of explicit cruelty as I grew into adolescence and something resembling adulthood.  But I do know that the deep-seated fascination and heart which I had for the animal kingdom as a boy was replaced with a practical indifference to their existence, and wellbeing.

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Noah's Ark

When we were visiting my parents back in May, a book in my mom's children's collection grabbed my attention.  It was Noah's Ark, a mostly wordless telling of the well-known event recorded in Genesis 6-9, by Dutch-born American children's book author and illustrator Peter Spier, for which he was awared the prestigious Caldecott Medal. 

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animals, birds and other creatures

I'm excited to finally get our series on favorite children's books started!  We've highlighted some excellent books for children in the past, including a recent article from Karen Swallow Prior over at Flourish ("Ask the Animals") which featured the classic Black Beauty and The Black Stallion.  We have a few reviews from friends lined up which I can't wait to share, and it's not too late to submit one of your own if you're interested!

But I thought I'd break the ice by mentioning an animal book which was a favorite as a child, and which I've come to love to read with my own toddler son Jadon.  Inside my somewhat worn copy of A Comic and Curious Collection of Animals, Birds and Other Creatures by Bobbie Craig is an inscription which reads "To: Ben, From: Mommy & Daddy - Christmas 1981."  I know they must have read it to me a million times, my mom especially, as much of an animal lover as they said I was from very early on.

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the empathy connection

A few years ago, during my first happy trip out to Wake Up Weekend in Grand Rapids, I made several new friends including Bee Friedlander, managing director of Animals & Society Institute which "advances the status of animals in public policy, and promotes the study of human-animal relationships," including the connection human and animal violence.  Bee introduced me to an important booklet called The Empathy Connection, which I've wanted to highlight just about ever since.  

Originally published by Doris Day Animal Foundation (now part of HSUS), it's currently available as a free PDF courtesy of The Linkage Project, which shines a light on the "link between animal cruelty and family violence."  And while The Empathy Connection does touch on this tragic relationship, it's primary message is far from doom and gloom, and in fact is very positive and encouraging. 

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