Animal Padre's
Christians Against All Animal Abuse
"Christ’s redemption is for the whole of creation!"

Newsletters 
Spring 2006 Issue

Another Oxford Demo. But Sadly I’ll Not Be There!!

Yes, and if it goes ahead it will be a contrast to the last attended. For this is again an inter-faith gathering in which the dear Buddhists have taken the initiative. Doreen and I would dearly love to have been coming. We’d agreed to speak on behalf of the Christian contingent!, but very sadly repairs on the line centred round Milton Keynes has resulted in the latter part of our journey being by a bus shuttle service, resulting in a five and a half hour journey each way from North Wales! This would have resulted in having to book three nights in Oxford and our finances just do not allow for it.

I sense that if we were like Cancer Research or the British Heart Foundation – possibly like some prominent animal caring charities! – we would have put out loads of collectiom boxes by now as well as held a weekly stall outside super markets. This way, we could quite easily attend almost every worthwhile Demo. Yes, while booking in at a top hotel for the nights preceding and following! Indeed, I actually know of at least two who travel in affluence via top media charities mostly financed by genteel ladies rattling their collection tins, and you may well know of countless others also. It’s certainly a cheap way of seeing the world under the pretence of being charitable. Yes, as charitable as the grocer who used the proceeds of his box for the blind with which to procure a new one!. As for Doreen and I, we simply string along on a shoestring, while some kind readers reward us with an annual generous donation.

Well, our hearts will be with those of you who can turn up again at Oxford. That Hell of an animal torture complex must not be allowed to blacken the image of Oxford. As an ex scholar myself, I see more than blue when I read of those present students who are being used as no more than stooges to bolster a decaying and most macabre pseudo-science. However, one thing is sure: if Aberdeen university’s Marishal college – the largest granite building in Europe! - can become totally defunct of animal experimentation then so can the proposed ‘animal torture’ edifice planned for Oxford.

Should my saffron robed colleagues still go ahead demonstrating on Saturday afternoon of the 1st of April, then my prayers will be with them. Regrettable indeed, however, that even these kind, compassionate and caring folk should be refused permission to the actual site; and that outside the zone they are only allowed to hold such a respectable vigil for no more than 30 minutes! Yes, if we could have made it – and we dearly wanted to! – I would only have been delegated 5 minutes in which to speak as a representative of the state church ‘by law established’. Well that’s a joke under this Blairite regime if ever there were one. It’s methods are beginning to come out of its cracks in the same way as are the fruits and folly of the vivisection labs. Enough said!

Well, thank God for the laws of Karma! How true that in dishing out cruelty we are inviting it to come back to ourselves! And to the argument that certain drugs are on the market, and wouldn’t be there except for animal experimentation! Yes, perfectly true, but then how appallingly short sighted. This immoral practice of vivisection has severely hindered the use of discovering and researching humane medications. Incidentally, medically acknowledged deaths in the UK resulting from prescription drugs have risen from 648 in 2001 to 1,013 in 2005 – a 50 percent increase in just five years! One wonders how many more unacknowledged deaths there have been! If such statistics do not ring alarm bells, what will? Only a short sighted civilisation will be blind to the fact that the cruelty it sows it will reap..

Admittedly, Christianity may bring in Christ as a scapegoat and substitute for all our transgressions and moral inadequacies; but even then: though Divine reconciliation may be the outcome, and God no longer turns His face away from us, a refined concept of Purgatorial cleansing is, quite probably, far more to the point than self centered’ clap happies or morbid intercessors ‘for mercy at the hour of their death’ may wish to envisage. St Paul, himself, hinted at progressive stages in the hereafter, and St Peter spoke of those needing deliverance years after their earthly sojourn. The extreme concept of a ‘Jesus paid it all’ theology may well be a relief to the guilt ridden professing believer; but the closer followers of our Lord will be too busy emulating the work of Christ on earth than in being ‘time-locked’ in reiterating: ‘I’m saved for time and eternity!’ Yes, a claim that others may very much doubt!

Having faith that could remove mountains will not compensate for a love that seeks not it’s own. Yes, such as that of St Theresa – the little flower! -: who asked that she might spend her Heaven doing good down here! Indeed, love that is altruistic should be the fruit of each child of God; whereas love that is primarily concerned with seeking to continually convince oneself of one’s own personal acceptance by God, appears utterly selfish. God knows our hearts, and He has given us all a task to do while we remain upon this planet earth. As for the hereafter, it is surely enough for us to leave that with a just and merciful heavenly Father whose Son told us about so many future dwellings within His Father’s kingdom. I like the words of the blind George Mathieson’s hymn written after he was jilted ‘O love that will not let me go’!. But here are just three verses from a lovelier hymn still. It was written in his years of maturity:

Gather us in Thou Love that gatherest all.
Gather our rival Faiths within Thy fold
Bend each man’s temple-veil and bid it fall
That we may know that Thou hast been of old 
Gather us in

Each sees one colour of Thy rainbow light
Each looks upon one tint and calls it Heaven
Thou art the fullness of our partial sight
We are not perfect till we find the seven

Gather us in

Some seek a Father in the heavens above
Some seek a human image to adore
Some crave a spirit vast as life and love
Within Thy mansions we have all and more
Gather us in

Go on to A Letter from The Scottish Highlands That Speaks For Itself:
Return to Spring 2006 Issue

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