The Hound of Heaven?
In the last issue we reflected on the symbol of the Lamb of God, the heart-tearingly beautiful and innocent baby animal destroyed by violence, who somehow redeems and renews. The poem this month, "Dog, Dog in My Manger," offers a problematic symbol of the other side of the picture. The animal here represents this destructive power that somehow transforms the soul seeking God, or indeed redeems the world.
The idea of the animal world as characterized by violence--"Nature red in tooth and claw"--is unhappily so common that friends of animals must be at pains to point out how one-sided it is. Undeniably, predation exists among animals; certain species cannot live without killing and devouring other species. But in fact such predator species are a minority. And we know that animals do not only prey upon "one another" (actually, other animals): they also nurture and protect their young, they build friendships, they protect and support their extended families, sometimes they even do acts of compassion for individuals of other species (see Reviews). Thus we must oppose such generalized characterizations of animals, as tending to increase human prejudice against them, or to justify human violence and exploitation.
What do we make, then, of the symbolic and fictional use of sometimes-violent animals as representing God's part in the struggle between good and evil, or the spiritual journey of death-and-rebirth? The film version of C. S. Lewis' novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, reviewed last month, ventures into this territory in presenting the divine figure as a talking lion. In fact Lewis, both in book and film, while suggesting that his Lion can be dangerous, never depicts him as actually stalking and devouring innocent prey. Aslan's violence, in the first story, is limited to directing a war against the evil forces of the Witch, and killing her. At this point the involved reader or viewer is rooting for Aslan, the children, and the good animals; only Quakers and others committed to nonviolence, and (other) feminists, are likely to see a problem.
And the problem is serious. A divine figure who employs violence will always, to a certain extent, be made in the image of the culture who creates and worships him or her, and will tend to have that culture's sins and blind spots. The violence in question may be intended to be righteous, but unfortunately when it becomes a model on a culture-wide level it tends to escape these intentions: a Lord of Hosts (armies) will sooner or later be seen as justifying Crusades, Inquisitions, jihads, and suicide bombings.
How about the violent-animal image used to depict aspects of the mystic's journey of death-and-rebirth, as in George Barker's poem below? The issue differs somewhat in that the audience of such a work is likely to be much more limited than that of religious scriptures and adventure novels, let alone major films, and those readers are more likely to be seeking God within their own souls than joining in physical holy wars. And in this case, the poem is intentionally obscure, limiting its audience still further. But the question remains: is it valid for one who seeks peace and justice to depict God as "Dog, dog, your bone I am, who tear my life / Tatterdemalion from me"?
The question is so difficult because logically, if "in all things God works for good," if the death of the lamb of God somehow brings transformation, then God is at work in the acts of violence that destroy the lamb. The idea of God as masterminding violence is, to say the least, repugnant. Luther calls it "the strange work of God." Mystical poets such as John Donne ("Batter My Heart, three-person'd God"), Gerard Manley Hopkins ("Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess / Thy terror, O Christ, O God") and George Barker do indeed experience God as the Mysterium Tremendum that unmakes them. Do not these images, even within their limited range of influence, become models, encouraging violence on some level?
I wish I had the answer. We are dealing here with mysteries that only fools think they have a handle on. But the poem, though it impresses me with its poetic depth and spiritual power, makes my heart uneasy. I don't expect that it will incite a holy war or encourage any guardians of dogs to abuse them. Nonetheless, it seems to me the sort of thing that we who love our fellow animals, and who seek to heal and repair the world, ought not to write.
Responses from readers are welcomed.
Opponents of Canada's seal hunt have a powerful ally in their bid to end the annual slaughter: Paul McCartney, who pledged to take to the ice floes Thursday and frolic with the doe-eyed pups before the harvest gets under way. The former Beatle and his wife, Heather Mills McCartney, arrived Wednesday night in this fishing community on Canada's Atlantic coast and intend to land a helicopter on the ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence if Thursday's weather permits. The longtime animal-rights activists want to publicize the plight of the fluffy white pups, which are calved and weaned from their mothers on the frigid ice before being clubbed to death.
. . . . [W]onderful news of a spectacular victory for the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia . . .! For nearly a decade, we [of the National Resources Defense Council] have waged an all-out campaign to win government protection of this vast coastal temperate rainforest that is home to the Spirit Bear, a rare white-colored black bear, and other populations of endangered wildlife.
Do animals ever act out of sheer compassion for another living being, as over against self-interest or “instinct” – whatever exactly that means? Many would say no, that compassion is solely a human trait – unless they have known animals who proved that presumption wrong, or unless they have read these two eye-opening books. In both, von Kreisler has assembled case after case of animals who have helped and saved, often at great risk to themselves. The cases come from newsmedia reports, from interviews, from animal organizations, from the writings of others, and in the second book, Beauty in the Beasts, from the emailed, faxed, and mailed accounts that poured in from readers of The Compassion of Animals. Her animal heroes acted for the saving of others when, by any kind of human comprehension, no reason is apparent except love and loyalty, or plain fellow-feeling, as to why they should extend a helping hand, or paw, or life to one of another species – in the case of humans, a species that has not always served animals as well. 
We know that violence afflicts us at every level of existence: from the individual act to war, which is murder on a large scale. What is its origin, its causes? How can it be prevented, contained, defused, resolved?
These are Hiassen's first and second novels for young readers. The hero of the first, Roy Eberhardt, is a transplant to Florida from Montana, and not too happy--at first--about the move. The second's hero, Noah Underwood, by contrast, is a Florida native with deep roots in the Sunshine State, going back at least to his piratical smuggler grandfather, and perhaps even deeper.
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
2 cups organic unbleached flour
I was born into a typically heavy meat and dairy-eating family in New England in the early 1950s, but fortunately discovered the joy of vegetarianism when I was just 22. Looking back, I can see there were some significant experiences that planted in me the seeds of vegan living. For example, one seed experience from my childhood that stands out vividly, and that I am grateful for having helped awaken my heart, is witnessing the killing of a cow on an idyllic Vermont dairy farm. I was about twelve years old, and attending a summer camp in the Green Mountains called Camp Challenge. 
Quite a lot of Friends here in Eastern Europe are vegetarian. At some gatherings we have a special table for ourselves at meals, so we can see the proportions. Maybe between a fifth and a third of the whole number of participants. I imagine that it is higher among youth. British Yearly Meeting claims that at their youth gatherings they only bother to serve vegetarian fare. Certainly at the German Yearly Meeting in Bad Pyrmont (near Hannover), which we just returned from on Monday, they arranged for dining at a nearby institutional cafeteria which offered mostly vegetarian food.
Albert Schweitzer, known primarily as a humanitarian whose thought and work were summarized in the phrase “reverence for life,” was in fact a pioneer in several fields, all of which were laced together to form and support his outlook. He was born into a musically gifted clergy family in Alsace in 1875; his parents were caring people who lived their faith and cherished their children. Nevertheless, from childhood he was deeply distressed at the suffering that he witnessed. In Memories of Childhood and Youth, he says “I used to suffer particularly because the poor animals must endure so much pain and want. The sight of an old, limping horse being dragged along by one man while another man struck him with a stick as he was being driven to the Colmar slaughterhouse--haunted me for weeks.” Schweitzer believed that we are in solidarity both with the abuser and the victim: “While so much ill-treatment of animals goes on, while the moans of thirsty animals in railway trucks sound unheard, while so much brutality prevails in our slaughterhouses . . . we all bear guilt.” Thus right activism on behalf of the suffering is carried out not in a spirit of indignant judgmentalism, but as a form of atonement for one’s own participatory guilt. 
Dog, dog in my manger, drag at my heathen