THE SOULS OF ANIMALS

At different times in human history, we’ve denied soul to entire classes of beings whom we’ve wanted to control. Women, it was once said, had no soul. Slaves naturally had no soul. And now, we perpetuate that degrading practice by treating ourselves as conscious subjects and all other animals as inert objects. We treat the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea as unanimated, without soul, hence without enduring value. Yet the very word animal comes from a Latin root that means soul. To ancient thinkers, soul was the mysterious force that gave life and breath to a myriad of the earth’s creatures…but later theologians restricted the possession of a soul to human beings.

At long last, we’re beginning to realize that all oppressions are interrelated and, moreover, that when one living reality is ignored, rendered disposable, or destroyed, the entire cosmos shudders and wails. So, at long last we humans are turning to the plight of our non-human kin, the animals. Considering them to be inferior creatures, residing at the bottom of the biological scale, except for plant life, we’ve engaged in remorseless mistreatment, experimentation, yea, devastation of animals.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I’ve come to believe that there’s only one big law we have to obey during our stay on earth, and that law is respectfulness. We’re summoned to treat everything we meet with respect: the earth, the animals, the plants, the sky, and other people. Everything.

If we genuinely "respect the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part," then our social programs and moral behaviors must attempt to underscore that fundamental principle. Of course, we fall short, far short, but our goal remains to resemble our principles.

Throughout religious history there’ve been scores of folks who’ve honored the wisdom of animals. We recall the story of how, when the monks wouldn’t allow St. Francis to stay overnight in their lodge because he smelled too bad, he found many a friend among the wolves, dogs, sheep, and creatures of the wilds. Or how St. Anthony, whose congregation didn’t want to hear what he had to say, preached to the fishes and was also preached to by them. Or how Buddha related openly to animals and how at home Jesus was in the animal world. Animals were treated by these holy leaders as wild creatures with souls. They were treated with respect.

In the long sweep of our moral and spiritual evolution, says Darwin, we’ve gradually learned to broaden the circle of our concern for others. It’s time now to bring not only other races and nations but other species within our arc of conscious compassion. We tend to either colonize animals or idolize them, trivialize or sentimentalize them. Yet all that animals are asking for, all they need is our respect. Again I say, everything follows if we’re willing to obey the one big law of respect.

Before I go any further, I want to dedicate today’s homily to all the animals I’ve owned, most especially our precious dog of fourteen years, Spring, who we had put to sleep in the arms of her beloved family years back. There’s seldom a day that goes by without my missing what Spring meant to me that no one else, human or animal or divinity, has meant or ever will mean. I also want to pay homage to all the animals I’ve totally ignored or inadvertently abused, and to all the animals that I’ve eaten without a shred of acknowledgement, sufficient reverence, let alone remorse.

As we all know, the terminal care of dogs, often our most loyal friends, is a tricky enterprise at best. Gratitude and frustration are agonizingly twisted together. Spring didn’t fill out any living will. We were unsure about her precise wishes concerning any "prolonged" existence. She simply became increasingly riddled with pain, hardly moving from the kitchen, incontinent, gazing soulfully into our eyes and hungering for our familiar touch.

All any of us animals wants is a comfortable journey into the final silence. That’s all I want; that’s all Spring wanted. So, anguished and trembling, we invited a vet to come to our house and put Spring to sleep in our home, her home, our arms–an imperfect, departure as we huddled together in tears of sorrow and relief, gratitude and love. Yet how many dogs die every day, dropping unknown into the universe, uncelebrated?

Many are the lessons Spring taught us, and your beloved animal companions have taught you. I share but a few of these lessons today. You could easily add your own.

Animals are our connection to nature, sniffing their way along life’s path as sensual explorers, reminding us cerebral types that we’re inextricably related to the soil. Animals teach us late arriving humans to adapt to the places where we live. The bear can live on earth without fire. Animals don’t need houses or clothing. They live fully where they’re placed, rather than dreaming endlessly about being in another town or universe.

Animals also teach us about friendship, which, at its heart, banks more on presence than promises. A dog pulls its companion’s wheelchair, helps him get to classes, picks up his pencil and pushes elevator buttons. The resident dog at a nursing home becomes the physical therapy for a woman who’s had a stroke. She won’t use the machines, but she will pet a dog.

A horse becomes gentler when a handicapped child is placed astride her back to learn balance and coordination and to see the world from more than a few feet off the ground. Children who’ve withdrawn until there’s no life left in their eyes have responded to a kitten placed in their lap.

You see, the relationship between people and animals has flourished not because we humans have done such a good job at nurturing animals but because many animals genuinely and unconditionally like us. They know how to befriend us. Animals don’t care what we’re wearing. They don’t care that we don’t measure up to certain expectations. They listen with an ear that doesn’t turn away. Animals are unaware of our color or class, creed or capacity.

And beauty. Well, who among us humans isn’t mesmerized by the form of a seagull in flight, by the straight back of a proud dog, by the graceful stride of a tiger, by the perfect musculature of a fine stallion?

I know, I know, not all animals are social or altruistic, nor can all distinguish between right and wrong, but my friends, isn’t the same achingly true with our human sisters and brothers? And perhaps, given the state of humanity today, across the globe, it might be time to inquire whether or not we have souls? And if we do, or ever did, what’s there to show for it?

With our immense powers of imagination and creativity we can wipe out habitats of species that will go extinct forever. Or we can manage ways of respectful co-existence. We humans have that kind of power; we have that measure of responsibility.

This I know to be true: we all share in the one blessed breath of Creation.

Tom Owen-Towle

March 12, 2006