On Killing Bambi

America, in 2019, is a land and a culture of sanitized convenience.  Our needs are met many times over.  In fact, our basic needs are so easily met that we rarely think of them.  We have morphed into a culture that believes that our desires and our wants are our needs.  All Americans, including me, have succumbed to this to one degree or another.

We have lost our connection to life, death, struggle, and provision and replaced reality with convenience, pleasure, fashion, hobbies, and games.

I was thinking this morning about how many Americans have never killed something and then cooked and eaten it.  Meat comes in a package, not with a heart and a set of lungs walking on bones.  Meat doesn't come with eyes pleading for life; it arrives riding on a carpet of Styrofoam, lifeless, and without context or concept of the life it once represented.

Killing an animal is not something to take lightly.  There is something quite unpleasant about it.  Even today, I feel a sympathy for the dying animal for whose death I am directly responsible.

Guilt, however, is not the emotion, for I feel no guilt in using the bounty that God has provided.  Connection comes as close as anything to describe the feeling.

I feel connected to a collective human past, connected to the provision of God in the most direct way possible, connected to the animal itself as its life is transformed into nutrients that make the continuation of my life possible.

It also reminds me that, someday, my carcass will be fodder for another creature.  And so it goes.

Every human, at least once in his or her life, should kill something, dress it, cook it, and eat it.  We all need to understand this fundamental aspect of life, to understand the nature of life and death, to enter a world that is bloody, and messy, and unsanitized, to enter a life that is connected to something real, to something that matters.

A small box I made from a Pecan Tree

Although I have focused on life and death, on killing and eating, there is so much more to consider.  Making your own lumber for instance.  The list is nearly infinite.

We, in our current culture, can never completely abandon the end-consumer role that we all play, however, there is great merit in taking steps to ensure that we have at least a rudimentary understanding of our actual dependence upon raw materials.

There is also a spiritual dimension, for, somehow, this awareness helps transform the crucifixion of Christ from an abstract concept to a loving sacrifice.  His life, much like the animal's life, was given for my benefit.  The animal's life contributed nutrients to my physical life; Christ's life provides the absolution needed for my spiritual life.

So give some though to making something, or cooking something.

Tell God how appreciative you are.

TheCurmudgeon