Blog - 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.

 

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Irony – 10 August 2006
By Mary T. Hoffman

Once I crossed the line into a vegan lifestyle, my eyes began to open to the ironies of the omnivorous/carnivorous eating habit to which most people are slaves from infancy. Just as I was for many years, they are blind to the inconsistencies in their lifestyle that was handed down to them by others equally blind.

What struck me as an example of an irony – that probably never registered as such with most viewers – was a scene in an old Matlock TV program in which Matlock and his friend are having lunch while discussing a murder that Matlock is trying to solve. The friend protests to having the dead victim’s photo lying on the bread package on the table – while they are eating beef stroganoff. Do you see the “irony” in this situation? Is there really all that much difference between a human animal and another animal? Both are composed of meat, aren’t they? Both feel pain, have babies, feel joy and sorrow…. Those pieces of beef came from a sentient being, created by God, with God-given rights to enjoy life.

To continue in the complicity of the unspeakable cruelty suffered by farmed animals, to listen to the propaganda of the powerful flesh, dairy and egg industries, is to do a disservice to humans, to other animals, and to the environment. It is past time to stop living in the concessions that God granted after humankind’s fall, and to return to the teaching of Genesis 1:29:

29. Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;

~ New American Standard Bible

It is time to set our vision on Isaiah’s prophecy –

Isaiah 11:6-9

6. And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the kid, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them.

7. Also the cow and the bear will graze; Their young will lie down together; And the lion will eat straw like the ox.

8. And the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den.

9. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.

~ New American Standard Bible

– and on God’s final restoration of the earth:

Revelation 21:4

4. and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

~ New American Standard Bible

As Jesus says in Matthew 11:15, Mark 4:9, Luke 8:8. and Luke 14:35:

“He [or she] who has ears to hear, let him [or her] hear.”

~ New American Standard Bible

Go on to: Wild Bergamot – 11 August 2006
Return to: Locally Grown Produce – 9 August 2006
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