Animals and 'Aminals'

As a boy I was fascinated by anything animal or “aminal” as I called them well into kindergarten. I went exploring for whatever insects, feathers and small carcasses I could find, and back inside I pored over any books that I owned or could find on my grandparents’ or library shelves. I put together ambitious reports, for school and on my own time, on subjects ranging from butterflies and hamsters to dinosaurs and endangered mammals. My family thought I was destined to be a veterinarian and I thought I would grow up to work in a zoo.

Though my parents were reluctant to bring larger pets into the house, they did encourage me to keep any number of smaller animals: goldfish and parakeets, lizards and turtles, rabbits and my favorite, hamsters. I was captivated by these furry little creatures with mild personalities but such serious habits: running in wheels and see-through hamster balls; lushly padding their nests, no matter how many times I cleaned the little house in their cage; packing their cheeks with food to laughable proportions, only to drop it off in their favorite “pantry” spot.

I was deeply affected by the suffering of these and other little creatures which I was witness to. My mother describes one instance when, as a five-year-old, I happened to break the wing of a butterfly while playing with some friends. When she told me the butterfly wouldn’t be able to fly any longer, my eyes brimmed with tears and I set to putting together a book of “things we should be fragile with.” I was beyond distraught when my first pet goldfish “Jack” died, and I experienced the same intensity of grief a few years later when my first hamster “Scooter” died by an unfortunate accident.

But as I grew a little older and more distracted by interests such as sports and computer games, and other hormonal pursuits, I gradually became less affected by the animals in my care, and less interested in giving them the attention they deserved. This neglect almost certainly contributed to their demise on more than one occasion. By my mid-teens I didn’t even bother with pets, which was at least the responsible decision to make. I hardly kept any contact with animals at all and carried this shortcoming with me into adulthood, falling in line with the general obliviousness of much of society towards animals.

Until eight years ago, when alone and terribly lonely in my first apartment out of college, a providentially-placed neighbor introduced me to a stray kitten which she had nursed to health but couldn't keep. I instantly fell in love with this little ball of life and had no choice but to take her in, despite the fact that I had never imagined myself a “cat person.” “Baby,” as I couldn’t help but call her, with her beautiful Halloween-spotted coat and snow white bib and paws, would wait to use the bathroom with me in the morning and on the window sill until I came home at the night. Everything about her enthralled me, from her deep golden eyes that could melt your heart one moment or stare daggers the next, to the way she followed me around the apartment but only allowed me to touch or play with her on her own terms.

Others followed “Baby," adopted by me and my young wife, including the ultra-timid “Missy,” equally laidback “Bubba” and petite “Bitsy” who taught herself how to play fetch and squeaks whenever she lands. I couldn’t help but develop an extraordinary appreciation for the unique makeup and endlessly precious existence of each of these creatures under my roof. And by God’s grace just the same, I was gradually beginning to reopen my eyes to my outdoor surroundings and the wide assortment of fauna that inhabit them.

During long walks along the Des Plaines River trail, tucked behind an otherwise schizophrenic Chicago-suburb strip, I became more regularly distracted by the animals that I happened across. I would pause to watch the geese with their young families on the water along with the butterflies, frogs and turtles that wandered across the path, and I kept a wary eye on the territorial red-winged blackbird which followed me noisily from tree to tree. On campus and around our apartment complex, I paid more attention to the gaggles of ducks, and the scurrying rabbits and squirrels that watched me even more intently. And I was fascinated by other glimpses of animal personality and human-animal connection, such as through the moving documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill and even America's Funniest Home Videos.

I came to realize that the same unique reason for being and will to live thatI found in my own cats must be present in all other animals as well. It has to be, whether we humans happen to tame an animal or not, and regardless of whether we acknowledge their uniqueness. It belongs to every creature because God made it so, creating each one of them with a painstaking and personal touch. And if God created each of them with such love and attention to detail, then He can’t help but continue to care about their wellbeing. And we as his children can’t hope to honor Him or His creatures unless we respond to them with the individual recognition and nurturing their existence warrants.

Appreciation for the value and wonder of each of God’s creatures led me naturally to the animal welfare cause over the past few years, and only deepened as I looked more closely at the Christian doctrines of creation, stewardship and redemption. During the same period, I also became increasingly conscious of the realities of humanity’s fall from grace, of atrocities of neglect and cruelty being committed against animals on an isolated and institutionalized scale. Each of them amounted to an individual negation of one or (many) more of God’s cherished creations: the mother and kittens left to fend for themselves on an abandoned farm, or the deer that bounced off of my windshield on a dark winter night and lay crippled and trembling by the side of the road until three bullet shots put it down, and the reports I continued to hear about the unspeakable conditions in which animals are raised for food on industrial farms.

It became clear to me that we cannot randomly assign individuality and dignity to some animals, but withhold it from literally millions of others when it’s convenient for us to do so. I know that God granted humanity certain permissions to benefit from animals in Scripture, but I am just as strongly convinced that He must be deeply saddened and angered by the ways in which we as a society have twisted those permissions into indefensible abuses of His creatures. I have also begun to understand that God has even more life-affirming intentions in mind for His creation, intentions which we can work towards even now as followers of a gospel which is good news for all of his creatures.

In the process I realized that God didn’t just want me to care about animals and their suffering, but He wants me to do something for them. I knew I was wired for something along the lines of communications and advocacy, but I didn’t know which issue I should commit to with so many causes vying for attention. One day I was suddenly at peace with the idea that I am meant to be a voice for animals, from the Christian worldview and especially to the more conservative end of the Christian community, which at best hasn't had much to say about animals, and at worst sees most tangible concern for them as unfaithful. One capstone project at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (“Not One Sparrow is Forgotten: A Biblical-Theological Foundation for Animal Welfare”) and more than a few gut-checks later, Not One Sparrow hatched a little over a year ago. As an awareness-building effort and developing community of Christians who care for animals on a number of different levels, I can only hope it bears out its name: “Aren’t five sparrows sold for a couple of pennies? But not one of them is forgotten by God.” (Luke 12:6)

I’m very grateful to Cris Bisch and SustainLane for the opportunity to connect with the Creation Care community here. It’s an honor, and a connection which I think is vital to Not One Sparrow’s mission: to help the Christian community on the whole better understand and engage animal welfare and advocacy issues. And if I may be so bold, this is a dimension of creation stewardship which the creation care movement has been surprisingly quiet on, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. Richard Young's Is God a Vegetarian? and Matthew Sleeth's chapter "Food for Thought" in Serve God, Save the Planet). This silence has always struck me as a peculiar, even unfortunate, disconnect.

I don’t want to take an iota away from the incredibly extensive and diverse light which Christian environmentalists have shed on God’s creation and its urgent needs, including the plight of animals in ecosystems and in terms of species preservation. Lord knows it’s hard enough for any of us to stay on top of even one area of focus, and without a doubt we’re all meant to bring our specific passions to the table to complement each other. But how can we profess to care passionately for creation on the whole, as a collective community, and still have so little to say about the animals in our direct care: the hundreds of thousands of animals we trap, hunt and fish; the millions of companion animals in our homes and shelters; and the literally billions of animals bred, raised and slaughtered in our food production systems and research facilities each year?

Thank you for allowing me to introduce myself, and to bring my own passion for "aminals" to the Creation Care community. I hope to continue to pose the question just asked in the months to come, and in the process offer an occasional perspective on the joys of the human-animal connection, but also the range of tragedies that befall animals in human care, some of which have great consequence for human health and environmental degradation as well. I would very much welcome your grace and input in doing so, and truly look forward to getting to know you better.

Ben DeVries lives with his wife Cheryl, four-month-old son Jadon and three cats (sadly we recently lost Bubba) in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He blogs at Not One Sparrow, and welcomes personal communication at: ben@notonesparrow.com.