blog-maryBlog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 


We Will All Benefit – 3 May 2006
By Mary T. Hoffman

If you are involved in trying to improve the plight of other animals, sooner or later you will be confronted by “do-nothings” whose criticism goes something like this: “Why don’t you do something for people, instead?”

What these criticizers (who imagine themselves as being very clever and original!) don’t realize (or choose to realize) is that, first and foremost, human beings (including the complainers) reap the benefits of helping other animals.

The factory farms are major polluters and disease spreaders on God’s earth. If factory farms are abolished, everyone here on earth (including the criticizers) will benefit. And what about the people, including children, who are traumatized by the knowledge that there are billions of God’s creatures needlessly tortured, and that their numbers keep increasing as other countries copy our obsessive exploitation of other animals? Complainers obviously limit their “caring for people” to the ones who are hard-hearted and uncaring as they themselves are.

So, caring about other animals is part and parcel of caring for human beings; the concerns of the two are intertwined. The degradation of God’s creatures and His earth affects everyone, both spiritually and physically.

I like to apply the following Bible passage to what I have just written above. Note Verse 14 that states: “…the body is not made up of one part but of many.” This analogy between the collective “body of believers in Christ” and the “individual physical body” can also be applied to those who do God’s work in various fields. As you read this scripture, you will see what I mean:

1 Corinthians 12:12-22

12. The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.

13. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

14. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.

15. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.

16. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.

17. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

18. But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.

19. If they were all one part, where would the body be?

20. As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!"

22. On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,

~ New International Version

Therefore, every individual who works to improve any aspect of God’s creation in order to make this a more loving, compassionate, and peaceful world is fulfilling this scriptural message.

Go on to: God’s Gift – 4 May 2006
Return to: Humane? - 2 May 2006
Return to: Blog - Main Page
Return to: Archive - By Date
Return to: Archive - By Subject

See Readers Comments