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Pastor’s Reflection: “All God’s Chickens”
Before she left on vacation, I told Rev. Judy that I was reading “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer and as a result enjoying my breakfast eggs less.Chickens are sentient beings with complex brains, individual particularities, social lives, emotions, and the capacity to suffer
Most all of our eggs, even many labeled “organic” in the stores, are derived from factory farmed chickens called Layers who suffer mightily at the hands of industrial agriculture. Many know this but keep the knowledge just the other side of conscious.
Christianity declares that Jesus took suffering upon himself to spare the suffering of others. We flip the cross on its head when we cause the suffering of others to benefit of ourselves.
Does this apply to animal as well as human “others”? Animals we domesticate as well as animals we eat? I’m not sure why it wouldn’t.
I respect those who become vegan to refuse companies that make animals suffer for cheap and easy products. Personally, I’m not quite at that decision yet but grappling with it this summer.
In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the 2-dozen eggs that Rev. Judy brought to me after her New Hampshire vacation. They come from chickens who live happy free-pasture lives at Meadowstone Farms in a town named after our Lord’s place of birth – Bethlehem.
Tags: chickens, vegan, vegetarian
