Please click here: ‘Animal Care Certified’ eggs

I found this tonight on a veg restaurant poster on Food for Life Global’s website:

October 15-21 marks the annual observance
of Feed the World Week (FWW).

<snip>

Feed the World Week is a call for action, for
the world to move away from the meat-based dietóthat
robs the earth of vital resources and leaves billions homeless
and hungry. ìMost non-vegetarians are unaware,î explains
Paul Turner, Global director of Food for Life, ìthat more
than 70% of the worldís grain production is fed to livestock destined
for slaughterhouses. That same grain could feed humans. Every
year, millions of children in the developing world die from hunger,
alongside fields of fodder destined for the Westís livestock.î

Does anyone in the West care enough to change the way they live? (Maybe that bishop who mentioned “Western privilege” as an argument to dismiss GC2006 Resolution D041 should. Should I ask him? How about the MDG advocates? Here’s my argument for supporting cruelty-free relief and development charities: Go veg, so you aren’t taking food away from the people you want to help. And stop funding the spread of animal agriculture in poor countries for the same reason.)

I sent this to the people on one of my listservs today:

At the last minute, I decided to go on my annual relatively vegan-friendly “wildly silent” meditation retreat this weekend. This is “mildly off-topic” only because you’d have to dig for an animal connection. (It’s there, historically. And I know the connections, even if it is only in the sound of the birds in the midst of the silence, bearing some message I’m “supposed to” get, when opening myself up, and memories of past influences. Those who know me well and for a long time, have been “victims” of past sharings, too.)

Oh, down by the bookstore on the reading rack were brochures for H.O.P.E. Safehouse . So that was cool. (I forgot to take my ASWA/ENAW “propaganda” this time. But interestingly, there were non-religious books on diet, too. So they seem open to a variety of information for their wide variety of guests. And if any of you authors have a book to promote, they get quite a cross-section of visitors over a year’s time. It might be a good place to donate a copy.)

I want to share a quote from the inside jacket of a book I found in the bookstore (if I can read my writing, and if I copied it correctly), some prayers, and a poem I wrote last night for “show and tell” today [where we shared art, poetry, or thoughts about the weekend].

We weren’t supposed to “read other people’s words” this weekend, because it would break our silence, so I just sneaked a quick peak on the inside cover of Flying Changes: Horses as Spiritual Teachers, by Carter Heyward+, which said,

“Other creatures of the Earth are asking to be our spiritual [teachers?] says Heyward, and learning from them is a source of hope for the world….”

After brunch, Sr. Dorcas… wrote out a prayer for me, that she said before the Eucharist today. (She’s a dancer, did or still does teach folk dancing…, and is the person who leads our movement meditations between the sittings at this yearly retreat.) She gave me permission to share her prayer with you, because prayers should be shared and prayed — as opposed to being copyright, for example.

“Heart of the great dance of the universe,
tune our ears to the music of the Dance;
open our eyes to the patterns of the Dance;
fill our hearts with the Spirit of the Dance and
quicken our feet to the measure of the Dance.
Lord of the Dance, let our lives be danced by Your Love.”
(What I like about this, other than the message that reflects a positive view of God that some may not have, is that it illustrates a way to form a prayer around some attribute of God that we can identify with in our lives. That’s helpful for someone like me, who doesn’t know how to “pray right”, so avoid doing it in public like the plague.)

I think the liturgy we used for the Eucharist, called “Summer” might be from a Scottish alternative prayer book. But on the back of the sheet we were given were 4 versions of the Lord’s Prayer. The one I’m including comes from the New Zealand Prayer Book (1), and then the post-Communion prayer (2) probably comes from the Scottish liturgy. I’m offering these, because retreat Eucharists tend not to be as “by-the-book” as our weekly congregational worship. So these might be new words for some of you that might give a different meaning to prayers we repeat all the time by memory, without thinking a lot about them, other than their familiarity.

1)

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-Maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and shall be,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of
the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our
hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever. Amen.

2)

Generous Giver of Life, you supply us with
all good things. May this bread and wine be
the nourishment we seek, and may it
transform us into disciples who serve in
your creation. Amen.
Although I’m making a life project of trying to create something a little “DeKoven-like” in my yard (a sacred “place apart”) and spend too much time as it is in silence (except when I’m on the Internet), it was important for me to make my yearly trip because I needed to be with the people that I associate with there, and to relive one of my favorite weekends of the year in the “Brigadoon” of Southeastern Wisconsin. My poem is something that could be taken at face value (even the part about the dog fence, since I just have a cheap wire garden fence, that even my old cat knows how to knock down), but has some hidden meanings, too. I drew a picture of the statue of St. Fiacre that is in one of the gardens, after sitting in front of it for quite some time, having a silent conversation with a “graven image”, asking for advice about what to plant in my yard. (He really looks a lot like me, except for the beard and the monk’s attire.) So here’s my poem, for your entertainment, or whatever:

O, “garden god”, Fiacre,
(you could be my brother
if you weren’t made of stone):

I want to stop
at a garden shop
so I can take you home.

To bring a little memory
of my DeKoven stay,
a pine cone and a lilac seed
that might grow tall someday.

The season’s short.
I’m getting old.
Seeds take too long to grow.

I’ve wandered ’round
DeKoven’s grounds.
And this is what I know:

My lilies need more sunlight.
The weeds’ lives are worthwhile.
I’ll line my yard with potted plants
to fence my dog in style.

We may be “seeds”, or
we may be “plants”
(both are silent and still)
Both contain the power of life
and a strong internal will.

But planting seeds is not enough
to change the world around us.
Planting plants will fill the gaps
in dirt, and will astound us.

VIGEAT RADIX!

(I’ve heard that translated as “May the Root thrive”, but I translate it jokingly as “vegans eat radishes”.)

I stopped at a garden shop on my way home, and now have the “St. Fiacre of my dreams”.

Sue
(the “Dandelion”, who’s always looking for more to share our turf)

---

Click here for pictures I took at DeKoven last year.

---

[Today's posting bumped Open Letter to Episcopalians on choosing cruelty-free charities to reach the MDG goals from the home page.]

The following excerpt was sent my way from an article by a professor of the Old Testament, W. Sibley Towner, “Clones of God: Genesis 1:26-28 and the Image of God in the Hebrew Bible,” in Interpretation 59 (2005): 341-56. It reflects my view of what it means (for animals) for us to claim to be “created in the image of God” — not the “predatory dominion theology” touted by Christian hunters and others who like to justify humankind’s exploitation and killing of animals on biblical grounds — and those who don’t have a theological (or political) problem with the recent innovation (of this century) of sacrificing animals as part of the liturgies of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in South Africa, even though it isn’t done for the same reasons the ancient Hebrews did it, and even though beer would work as well as blood for their purposes of enculturation.

The excerpt also describes for me the philosophy and work of Fellow Mortals, which influenced my beliefs and my spirituality; made the gap between God and Church noticeable on a couple of levels; expanded my concept of animal care beyond “pets”, and my concept of the value of a single life — even the value a common life (as opposed to an intangible “endangered species” or “the balance of nature” (a step beyond the philosophies of conservationism or environmentalism); began my mission to close the gap; and ultimately inspired my chosen lifestyle of “least harm” — to name a few things off the top of my head. (The Robert Burns quote on their home page eventually inspired me to go vegan.)

---

“What is the implication of the relational concept of imago dei for animals? The Bible gives many tender and wonderful glimpses of the Sovereign’s own care for the world, from which we lieutenants can extrapolate our own best behaviors toward our fellow creatures.

Four things on earth are small,
but they are exceedingly wise:
the ants are a people not strong,
yet they provide their food in the summer;
the badgers are a people not mighty,
yet they make their homes in the rocks;
the locusts have no king,
yet all of them march in rank;
the lizard you can take in your hands,
yet it is in kings’ palaces. (Prov 30:24-28)

The entire Wisdom tradition of Israel is full of observations of nature, as was wisdom literature throughout the ancient Near East. Onomastica — lists of natural phenomena — occur in Egypt, Babylon, and even in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Prov 30:18-31). The biblical writers were keen observers and appreciators of natural phenomena. They saw excellences even in the lowliest of creatures: in the ant’s prudence, the badger’s survival instincts, the locusts’ social organization, and the neat way that the little gecko lizard with its big black eyes has of sneaking into the royal precincts. The message of the sages to us is this: If you are going to reign on God’s behalf in the world, as God’s chief ministers, then for pity’s sake, do it the way God would do it. Display the image of God in you. Do it with wonder and pleasure and tenderness. Do it with respect for the creatures and their individual competencies. Do it aware that if they cease to exist, we too are impoverished and maybe even we cease to exist.

In the speeches that Yahweh delivers to Job out of the whirlwind (Job, chs. 38-41), the Lord presents a list of animate and inanimate creatures. The Lord first claims divine sovereignty over rain and snow, light and darkness, clouds and dew, constellations and the orders of the heavens. Then Yahweh focuses down to the wilderness familiar to ancient Israel and speaks admiringly of mountain goats, wild asses and oxen, hawks and eagles, and even the incredibly stupid ostrich who crushes her eggs as she bungles around and yet, ‘When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and its rider’ (Job 39:18, RSV). Climactically, Yahweh then directs Job’s attention to the monsters, Behemoth and Leviathan. All wild creatures pose threats to humankind, but these are the wildest of the wild. Though their footprints lead out of the swamps of myth where they were doubtless enemies of God, in Job they are simply the most grotesque and unlovable monsters of the land and sea respectively. But Yahweh loves them, ‘Shreks’ that they are, for they are the most fearfully wonderful of all the works of creation.

Aware that the animals experience us as gods, our task is to enact God’s image in us and to announce to the natural orders of the world, to the water and the air and the wild things, ‘We bring a new respect to our relationship with you. We seek with you a genuine encounter.’ We owe the creatures an outpouring of charity, providential in the sense that it knows no bounds, is out of control rather than selective, and does not know where to stop until it includes all of creation. We seek the long-term discipline of stewardship, which learns how to do things right so that our skills really enhance life round us.

What does the concept ‘image of God’ say about biblical anthropology overall? If the image inheres in all of us as a gift of the Creator and distinguishes us from the other creatures of the world, . . . then we are dealing with a very high view of human nature indeed! . . . But primacy is no cause for arrogance, as the Priestly writer and the psalmist present it. Rather it is an ascent to the position of God’s steward. It is to serve as a mediator and a conduit of goodness and health between the Source of goodness and the good creation.”

---

“Can we dream of a world where all creatures, human and not,
can meet each other in a stance that is not tinged with fear?”

– Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori

Downloadable July 4th .pdf flier from Action for Animals