happy turkey day?

I've been admittedly reluctant to write a post on this subject in recent years.  I have many happy memories of Thanksgivings past which prominently featured a turkey as the main course, and multiple turkey sandwiches afterward.  Thanksgiving traditions run deep in our society, and it's a time for remembering all we have to be thankful for, including the family and friends who share our tables, and the food upon it.  Please know I don't mean to detract from the day in the least.

But in honoring this special day and its traditions of gratitude, it's important that we're able not only to give thanks for the bird at the center of our meal, but for the life which God gave it, and for the way it was raised and slaughtered.  As someone once poignantly put it, are we truly able to say "grace" over the food before us, even a Thanksgiving turkey?

Click to read more ...

Christian reflections on Ohio tragedy

By now there's a good chance you've heard some news of the awful events which took place in Central Ohio early last week.  Terry Thompson, previously convicted of animal cruelty and other criminal charges, set 50-plus animals free from his private exotic animal collection at Muskingum County Animal Farm in Zanesville, including lions, leopards, bears, wolves, primates and 18 endangered Bengal tigers.  Thompson then tragically took his own life, and 49 of the free-roaming animals were killed by local police, naturally untrained to deal with such a crisis involving so many foreign and dangerous animals.

You can get a good overview of Thompson's history with animals and Ohio's lax legislation with respect to exotic animal possession, and failure to require Thompson to relinquish his collection, in a CNN.com article and accompanying video "Friend: Animal farm owner under stress" (from which the following screenshot is taken).

Click to read more ...

a call to compassion

Kendra Langdon Juskus, a good friend at the creation care group Flourish, wrote an excellent article for the July/August edition of Prism, the magazine of Evangelicals for Social Action, titled "A Call to Compassion from our Brothers the Animals."  The piece begins with the happy story of Stella, a pig rescued from an industrial farming operation by Elaine and Dale West, both Christians, of Rooterville Sanctuary, and it concludes with a great quote about the same:

At Rooterville, West’s days are filled with compassionate stewardship and our other calling: to name the creatures delivered into her care and to call the most emaciated and wounded, the ones who struggle back into right relationship with their caretakers, beautiful names like Stella, star.

Click to read more ...

ask the animals

Good friend and not one sparrow contributor Karen Swallow Prior recently wrote a compelling reflection for Flourish's online magazine on the important role fiction has played in developing her appreciation and concern for animals, "Ask the Animals, and They Will Teach You."  As chair of the English and modern languages department at Liberty University, and with a forthcoming memoir woven around her interaction with various works of literature, Karen is ideally suited to tackle this intriguing theme:

Literature—from the simplest of children’s stories to the greatest classics—is filled with animals.  But just as our relationship with animals in real life is complex, the roles animals play in literature are likewise varied and inconsistent. ...  Animals fall along the entire gamut in literature, from vehicles for communicating human interests to beings in their own right, worthy of care and compassion.

Click to read more ...

animals and evangelicals

My mother first passed along this rare article to me from Karen Swallow Prior, professor of English and chair of Liberty University's English and Modern Languages Department.  Karen has since become a good friend and always-welcome contributor to not one sparrow, and she originally wrote "Animals and Evangelicals" for Liberty Journal in response to the Michael Vick dogfighting headlines of three years ago (10/18/07):

The spotlight shone by the Michael Vick case on the issue of dogfighting and other forms of animal abuse has bemused many conservatives and Christians, leaving them to wonder where to place this barbarism on the scale of evils plaguing society today.  But our Evangelical ancestors in the reform movements of 18th- and 19th-century England would not have been so baffled, for even in the midst of their fight against slavery and other ills, they viewed animal cruelty as one of the most important moral issues of their day.  By fighting barbarism in all its forms, these Christians sought to cultivate universal benevolence throughout all of society.

Click to read more ...

three dog nights

A 'warm'-hearted bedtime story from good friend Karen Prior ...

I married rather young.  But even at a tender age, I knew precisely which values it was necessary for a man to share with me in order to share also my bed and my life.  These deal-breakers fell into four categories: religion, politics, dogs, and temperature.  Putting aside religion and politics (which are pretty self-explanatory), let me explain the latter two.

Click to read more ...

peeking at animal cruelty

As promised, here is Karen Swallow Prior's poignant and honest post from last Summer at Jason Clark's blog: 

I grew up on a gentleman’s farm in rural Maine, the daughter of the daughter of folks who lived—literally—off the land.  My father being a white collar businessman, we raised animals for food and companionship by choice rather than necessity.  But we executed that choice knowledgably, responsibly, and—I think—biblically.

Click to read more ...

kids at play

I couldn't resist passing along this adorable video from Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in New York.  It features Fern the goat kid, who was rescued this past Spring by a caring passer-by from a goat milk and meat farm, suffering from bad frostbite and a broken leg which the farmer was unwilling to treat:

Click to read more ...

it takes a village ...

Karen Swallow Prior of Liberty University originally posted this hopeful note on Facebook, "It Takes a Village ... to Care for Creation":

I was sitting at my desk one recent afternoon when I received a panicky email from one of my former students, Bryan Rhodes:

I’m e-mailing this to you because I’m not sure who else to talk to about it.  Today, I was sitting in my home working on my thesis and at about 3:00 (about 10 minutes ago) I heard a horrible screeching sound, that sounded either like an animal or a child.  So I stepped outside (I was only in pajamas—it’s a thesis day) and I heard the sound coming from the house across the street.  It was getting worse and then I heard a woman yell “I will call the police on you.”

Click to read more ...

eat and be eaten

The following essay was graciously made available by Jonathan Samuelson, a talented writer and recent student of Karen Swallow Prior's at Liberty University (see her posts "Animals and Evangelicals" and "Peeking at Animal Cruelty").  It's a bit more challenging read, but a great change of pace, and an excellent perspective on the connection which needs to be made between the issues of abortion and creation care, including animals: 

When environmentalists describe the ravages and trespasses of mankind against nature, they sometimes use the language of rape. Rape is a stark and powerful image, and thus comes in handy to anyone seeking compelling and arresting language with which to ground an appeal to conscience. But I have often thought that a better metaphor than rape is that of abortion. For by violating nature we destroy what is within us, not merely what is without.

Click to read more ...