Last night my mom and dad came over for dinner. I really wanted to see them, it had been a couple of weeks. We were happily eating the yummy chilli my hubby made when out of the blue my mother says, "I am not going to call myself a mammal anymore, I don't believe we are animals, God made us like him, we aren't like animals." ....
The red flags went up and I gave my hubby a quick look out of the corner of my eye. I think both my dad and my hubby got very uncomfortable and wanted to quickly end any conversation that might come of this declaration. I couldn't contain myself. I immediately laid into her, how we aren't different and how that is being judgemental and putting humans up on some pedestal. Saying we are better when we aren't. Her argument was that we have self-awareness and are conscious of what we do. We can build things and have all this technology, and well, no animals have that. I was on the edge of my chair cringing. I was having trouble seeing past her need to judge animals against us because God made us in his likeness. My mother is very religious and the sermon yesterday must have been about man and animals. After arguing for a bit, I let her talk and I really listened to what she was saying. Then she let me say why I attacked her.
I have real trouble when people try to separate us from the rest of the living world, we all came from the same place and we will all go back to the same place in the end. Just because humans have self-awareness and can build things and have all this technology it doesn't make our ways better or more justified. I am not an animal rights activist, I am into animal welfare. When we see ourselves as different and better than animals, we see them as less and therefore expendable. If we don't see ourselves like animals and as mammals then how can we possibly all live together on this planet respecting each others cultures and way of life.
In my work at the zoo, that is the biggest message we push is how similar we all really are, to help people get a sense of belonging to nature not something outside of it because we live in houses and never really have to go outside except to get into our cars. We must continue to cultivate in our children an appreciation for all life and for all of nature. When they learn to enjoy it and love it they will want to preserve it and take care of it. When they see it as something separate from themselves, well, they just won't care.
My mom and I came to the realization that we were both thinking the same thing, our words just weren't the same. She wanted to call us separate to say that if we were all living in God's love and light that we would all be stewards of our earth, we would love and care for it and care for all living things, because that is what God wanted for us. However that is not the reality and that what I was saying was also true that we cannot separate ourselves, once we separate, well that is when we stop caring. We start thinking we are different, we are better, who cares, we can make artificial environments, and well we don't really need this or that species, they just get in the way, they are so different from us anyway, who needs them.
It was good to have the argument, but sometimes my mom is so into her God, that she fails to see how things really are and how she needs to lead by example instead of how things should be. She talks about man's fall as if it doesn't have to be that way, but it does, and it always will be. Man has free will and people will do what they want, when they want and what suits them best. Ignorance is bliss, what we don't know won't hurt us, but may be deadly to someone else(animals included). My mom accused me of being close-minded, and yet I was able to see where she was coming from, and we agreed that God intended us to be stewards, that our relationship to other animals is a stewardship, to care for them and watch over them. But we don't do that and well just look at the way we treat each other let alone another species. I just don't like making us separate as if our ways are better, it's judging, and that is not for us to do.
Okay there's my rant.
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