About
('Other Nations Under God')
"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilisation surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees there by a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."
-- Henry Beston, The Outermost House (1888-1968)
This site is an ongoing prayer -- a "Wailing Wall" of sorts, with prayers permanently embedded in its nooks and crannies for the "Great Search Engine" to discover and to brood over. (I'm not referring to the actual prayers that are hidden away on various pages. I'm referring to the intercessions that leak out every time I find some story or picture of animal exploitation or abuse to post; or every prayer of thanksgiving whenever I find examples of animal advocacy or caregiving, especially when it's church-related.)
This site is also a result of prayer, acting on the premise that God is "displeased" with the damage humans have caused to the rest of creation and particularly to every other species under our control, and "holding it up to the light of Christ" for all the world to see. It is motivated by the frustration of "hitting my head against the wall of silence" and lack of feedback I receive from my own community of faith, and has become my venue for speaking out beyond the confines of "imprimatur"; motivated as an attempt to narrow a noticeable gap between God and Church. It is a call to the Church to find ways to address "unpopular" (but important) issues, and to find alternatives to congregation-based traditions that unthinkingly support the suffering of animals. And it is a call to the faithful to reassess our mission as God's "gardeners" in this world, with a new spirit of humility, and a willingness to put aside the privileges that our species has appropriated for itself at the expense of others. It goes beyond any biblical argument or religious dogma that could be used to justify the status quo of abuse, to the center of the soul, which cannot justify it in all honesty. Basically, it is an urgent call to change....
In other words, this is my response to God -- the same God who raised Lazarus from the rocks, and made me wonder "Why?!" for almost two decades.
This site is also dedicated in some small way, in memory of St. Basil, whose prayer has gone unanswered all these centuries.
"O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, even our brothers, the animals, to whom Thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to Thee in song, has been a groan of pain. May we realize that they live, not for us alone, but for themselves and for Thee, and that they love the sweetness of life."
-- St. Basil
"The creatures of the sense world signify the invisible attributes of God, partly because God is the origin, exemplar and end of every creature, and every effect is a sign of its cause, the exemplification of the exemplar and the path to the end, to which it leads....
For every creature is by its nature a kind of effigy and likeness of the eternal Wisdom. Therefore, open your eyes, alert the ears of your spirit, open your lips and apply your heart so that in all creatures you may see, hear, praise, love and worship, glorify and honour your God lest the whole world rise against you."
-- St. Bonaventure, from The Soul's Journey to God
and people may talk as much as they like about their religion,
but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to
other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham."
-- Anna Sewell, writer (1820-1878)
Episcoveg is not responsible for content on websites it links to, and is not responsible for the reputation of websites that link to this site (or that lift whole pages from this site, without permission). Episcoveg is "Episcopal first, and animal advocacy second", and therefore does not endorse or participate in any "direct action" or illegal activities. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect the majority views of the Episcopal Church, ASWA, ENAW or any other organization Episcoveg identifies with.
Individuals are welcome to print pages for their own use. Other websites are welcome to link to anything on this site. But "cloning" pages is irritating, unnecessarily redundant, has adverse search engine implications, and is potentially dangerous to my mission, if it creates a perception that I am affiliated with an organization that I am not.
Please link, but don't "clone".
In case anyone would like to know what I 'really' think about various topics, I started a new blog on 3/13/2008 at http://episcorant.blogspot.com .
