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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Happy Mother’s Day – 14 May 2006
By Mary T. Hoffman

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Mother’s Day were happy for all mothers: human mothers as well as other animal mothers? When you stop to think about it, worldwide the number of mothers who are having a Happy Mother’s Day today is really very small.

The chasm that separates the joyful celebration of motherhood in some human families and the round the clock horror in concentration camps where mothers are imprisoned in modern dairy farms, poultry farms, and other factory farms is enormous and getting larger every day, as more countries (China, for example) establish huge factory farms.

By using the description of a mother hen protecting her chicks, in Luke 13:34-35, Jesus illustrates his yearning to save the city of Jerusalem from internal violence:

34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!

35 “Behold, your house is left to you desolate; and I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”

~ New American Standard Bible

What a world of difference between Jesus’ description of a hen and her brood and the live trashing of male chicks, the debeaking, the ammonia stench, the crowded wire cages, the gloom and darkness, etc. – all the atrocities that are routine in large egg and poultry production operations!

(Note: In case you’re wondering why I write “humans” and “other” animals: humans are not minerals or vegetables – they are animals.)

See also:
http://all-creatures.org/anex/chicken.html
http://all-creatures.org/anex/index.html 

Go on to: An Open Letter to Christian Churches – 15 May 2006
Return to: Love: Fulfillment of the Law – 13 May 2006
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