09 October 2007
Odd Things You Learn About Your Neighbors
Tonight Pastor Curtis and I had a school board meeting to attend. While waiting for the meeting to begin, the conversation wandered into the area of food and hunting. Pastor Curtis, you see, is an avid hunter. I am not. If I had to deal with meat in anything but packaged form, I am certain I'd be a vegetarian. In fact, just TALKING to Pastor Curtis is enough to send me running for my copy of Laurel's Kitchen! Tonight Pastor Curtis had some of "Doris." Yes, "Doris." He NAMES the poor beast that he shoots before he stores it away in the freezer as an aid to remembering WHEN the slaughter took place, I believe. So the Curtis family feasted tonight on Doris. I ate hamburger and was rather thankful that I didn't know by name the beast from which it came!
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11 comments:
I'm as much of a carnivore as the next midwesterner and I grew up on a pig farm, but I'm with you on hunting and "preparing" the carcass. It is just too gross. But, I can see how doing it would give someone a healthy respect for life and the constant sacrifice of blood all life demands.
I'm told of the African tribal chief who came to America and was physically sickened at the sight of the meat arrayed under cellophane in the grocery store. "You don't even know the animal from which this comes!," he said with amazement. " In our village, when we slaughter an animal for food, the entire village comes and lays hands on the animal and thanks it for giving its life so that we may live."
There is something very close to the vicarious living off the Death of Another in that.
We were talking about how strange our lives have become - so disconnecting from the underlying realities of this created order. That's a good example. Now, if *I* had to participate, I'd have no objection to laying hands on the wheat or the rice. ;)
And isn't that shying away from the bloody death and its reality - from which we live - a picture of the modern aversion to the vicarious atonement?
Hopefully Doris was short for "Dorothy" - or "Gift of God" in Greek. Remind Pastor Curtis from me that it is not wise to become arrogant in the face of God when you have a gun in your hand. . . or when Dick Cheney's around - but that's a separate issue.
And isn't that shying away from the bloody death and its reality - from which we live - a picture of the modern aversion to the vicarious atonement?
Ah, but it was not so in Eden. It was only after the Fall that man was given permission to kill animals for food.
I, along with C.S. Lewis, have a sneaking suspicion that just as all animal sacrifices ended with the One Sacrifice that avails through eternity there won't be any slaugherhouses or hunting in heaven, where death will be no more -- even some Orthodox Jews believe that in the Messianic age the world will become vegetarian again.
Now pardon me while I nosh on some fruit and veggies.
The only normal member of Heath's family is his mother. But you gotta admit they're fun. ;-)
It's especially fun to be his brother's pastor.
Hunting is adiaphora. Fishing is not. "Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing" (John 21:3 KJV).
Heath is definitely an interesting character. I heard he also fashioned a grass tennis court in his backyard.
Your post reminds me of a time some years ago when my wife and I started raising chickens. We ordered up a bunch, and waited to see how many egg layers and how many roosters we'd end up with. The egglayers we'd keep, the roosters we'd eat.
Butchering day came, and it had a steep learning curve. In the end we used the Indonesian method of offing the birds, which I won't go into.
Suffice it to say, it was difficult--surprisingly difficult--to eat those birds. Appetites disappeared at the table. We were finally reduced to hiding the meat in pot pies, and then all was well.
Bruce,
Thank you.... For not explaining Indonesia!
I hear you. I'm a whimp when it comes to these animals. And I'm an ex-disciple of Laurel. IF I could keep the weight off and eat vegetarian, I'd do it in a heart-beat - except for bacon. One taste of bacon and you know that at least THAT section of piggy was made to be savored! ;)
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