Catalysts for Change

It's difficult to walk around in February and see evidence of the carnage. A book called Animal Rites: Liturgies of Animal Care by Andrew Linzey offers some inspired truths and remind us to be courageous and hopeful and catalysts for change.

Merciful God
we are made in your image
but we have made gods of ourselves;
we have turned your creatures
into things and machines,

making them objects of our sport
using them for our vanity,
exploiting them for our greed
and stealing their lives;

but you are the liberating God
who can transform
even ourselves;
help us to turn from
our evil
and embrace
the vision
of your peaceable
kingdom:

They shall not hurt nor destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full
of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
(Isaiah. 11:9, RSV)