Day: December 9, 2016

I often meet or talk with people who tell me they are too old to get more animals or replace the ones that die, they do not believe it appropriate or ethical to acquire animals that might outlive them. Yesterday Drew, a retiring physician in New Mexico, told me there is a sick and lonely donkey down the road, she decided against adopting him because she is 68 and thinks she is too old to adopt an animal.

This is one of those compelling animal ethics concerns I have thought a great deal about, and written about.  It is, of course, a personal decision, there is no right or wrong, only what feels right to each person.

I am heading towards my 70’s and I own quite a few animals that may outlive me: two donkeys, a pony, a two-year-old border collie, some  young sheep. There is no telling how long I might live or how long they might live, but donkeys can live to be 40 or 50, ponies almost that long.

Maria is younger than I am – 17 years younger – so that makes our situation a little different, but she and I both believe she will not wish to care for all these animals and the farm by herself, if she chooses not to re-marry.

I can’t and wouldn’t tell other people what to do but I have thought about this issue myself, and I do not feel it is inappropriate for older people to acquire animals who might outlive them. Countless millions of animals – horses, donkeys, dogs, ponies, cats – are re-homed every year, even every month, and there is no reason older people can’t make arrangements for their animals if they die.

More than 150,000 American horses will go to cruel slaughter this year – due to animal rights legislation passed in America and banning euthanasia for horses here, these horses will have to go to Canada or Mexico in long trailer rides and have bolts fired into their heads. This, so human beings can declare that they are humane.

I believe these animals would be happy to live with Drew or other older people. Many older people are retired and have time to love and care for animals, many have experience with animals and are mature and responsible.

Despite our emotionalizing of them, dogs and cats – and horses – are highly adaptable. Of the many Katrina animals re-homed, I known that perished in grief because they were going to new homes. And many older people, going through changes in their work and family life, greatly benefit from the company, stimulation and responsibilities of animals.

Some animals require substantial care, some very little.

I can testify that there is nothing worse for older people that lives without connection and responsibility. I won’t let them do that to me, not because there is so much ignorance and fear surrounding aging.

My ethical rule is this: if people love animals and have the resources and energy to care for them, then they should acquire animals, from breeders or from the shelters and rescue organizations that have millions in need of homes. Aging is not a prison sentence, or a mandate to downsize one’s life.

The older I get, the more things I try, the more things I do, the more things I learn. Age brings a wisdom and perspective and experience that is a good match for most animals, and I feel I am well qualified, emotionally and otherwise, to give animals a good and loving home, despite the fact that I am 69 years old.

This philosophy may or may not work for you, but it has worked well for me, and, I think, for the animals in my care. I am careful to give my dogs and other animals the best possible and most fulfilling lives. All I can do is the best I can for as long as I can.

If and when the time comes, Maria and/or I will make sure they go to homes that are as good, and there is no evidence in the world that I have seen that suggests they cannot be just as happy elsewhere.

For so many animals, that is a miraculous and very fine alternative for them. My animals have very good lives.  I reject cultural notions of aging that say I ought to live less fully than anyone else. I believe if they could speak or think like humans, the animals in my care would agree.

In my lengthening life in this world, I have never seen so many good and righteous people as frightened and troubled as they are by the recent election and it’s possible consequences. They fear the death of goodness and compassion and justice, the loss of their faith and beliefs.

It is not for me, sitting on my beautiful farm, to say if they are right or wrong. Time and historians will have to decide, and I may not be here for the final judgment.

I know many other people who believe goodness and justice have been saved.

For now, I am more fascinated than alarmed, I am drawn to the spiritual implications of all this, and when I read and hear about it, I can’t help but go far back in time. I am a devoted reader of the Christian theologian St. Augustine, and his book City of God has always been an important book for me, a non-Christian and a non-believer.

It has comforted and guided me at almost every difficult point in my life.

I am closer to early Christian theology and it’s notion of mercy and compassion than any other theology, except for the Kabbalah. These works keep me close to spirituality, and my own idea of a compassionate and just God. There are important lessons for the righteous who are suffering today, as there always have been in human history.

In 410, the Visigoths sacked Rome, a nation that had not been sacked in the seven hundred years of its existence.

The destruction of Rome was a disaster, the Classical and Imperial Roman consciousness was utterly unprepared. The Christians had long predicted the end of the world, the pagans believed, and by refusing to offer sacrifices to the ancient Roman pagan gods, the Christians were blamed for turning the gods against Rome.

The Christians struggled as well. Why were the righteous suffering? Where was the Kingdom of God on earth that had been promised, and was expected? Why had justice and compassion not prevailed?

I can’t help but think of the shock and suffering that swept progressives in November, people of a particular social conscious. They were expecting their own Kingdom of God, a new era that brought comfort to the poor, social justice for the downtrodden, rights for the persecuted, equality in pay and work.

Like the ancient Romans, this socially liberal consciousness was utterly unprepared for a stunning and very painful sacking, a sacking of sacred values and expectations.

St. Augustine wrote City of God to respond to the fall of Rome and comfort agonized Christians. His writing was an answer to what he called the inevitable suffering of the righteous. His writing was successful, it gave the righteous comfort and inspiration. It helped to heal their wounds.

The perfect government, the perfect life, the perfect world could not happen on this earth, Augustine said, it was hubris to demand it, and the righteous could not expect it. Their very faith and righteousness came from suffering and despair and challenge, not victory or perfection. The perfect world could only exist in another, and spiritual realm. And in a perfect world, there was no need of the righteous, they would vanish.

In fact, he wrote, it was the lot of the righteous to be defeated, and be reborn,  and defeated again.

Their  fight was eternal, not temporal, mortal armies and emperors and politicians could not defeat them, any more than they could make the world pure and just in their lifetimes. A spiritual life, a righteous life, a  moral life, could not be measured by the successes or failures of Rome, (or by extension, a presidential election).

The decay or prosperity of a single nation meant nothing in comparison to the happiness that awaited them in heaven or another world, or in their own hearts and souls.

Augustine wrote that faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of faith is to come to see what you believe.

This is the very perfection of man, he wrote, to find and face his own imperfections. If you aspire to great things, begin with little things. The world is a book, and those who cannot travel can only read a page.

I aspire to great things, I have begun with small things – my photos, my therapy work with Red, my work with frightened refugee children. The rest of it is beyond me, I will not spend the remainder of life in complaint and argument.

St. Augustine’s writings brought great comfort to the world after the fall of Rome. I was touched by his idea of humility, which called on us to keep our expectations low and our faith and good works high.

His warnings to the greedy and powerful were as true then as they are today. It was pride, he said, that changed angels into devils, it is humility that makes men angels. We do not need to personally defeat all evil, their pride will turn them into devils and the will be consumed in their own fire.

“He that is kind is free, thought he is a slave,” wrote Augustine, “he that is evil is a slave, though he be King.”  I know there was great comfort in Augustine’s works more than 1,000 years ago, I believe there is comfort in them now. The righteous do not have a patent on happiness or success, quite the opposite, grace comes from struggle, not a perfect life.

I cannot change the imperfections of the world, or wave any magic want to create it in my own image. I am no God. But humility teaches me that patience is the child of wisdom.  It is not for me to judge, the people who challenge and defeat me are just as holy as I am.

St. Augustine urged the righteous to “love, and do what you like,” my own version of that thought is “do the best you can for as long as  you can.”

He also wrote that the purpose of all war is peace, the purpose of all defeat is victory, the purpose of a shattered dream is hope.

Righteousness is born from suffering and disappointment,  just as life is about death and light is about darkness. It is all one, really, all connected to the same thing. Augustine urged his battered and bewildered Christian followers to be generous in their disappointment and judgments.

“Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.”

“He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” – Isaiah 10:10

The Bible mentions sheep more often than any other animal, Jesus was, of course, a shepherd, and the idea of the shepherd has touched the human spirit throughout history. In Christianity, God is the shepherd, his worshipers the devoted sheep.

Some people have sheep and some are shepherds, and they are not the same thing. As the Bible says, the shepherd gathers his lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

Shepherds have the most intimate relationship with their sheep, they help bring them into the world and they help them leave the world. I love the quote from Isaiah and often repeated it aloud. I have been the owner of sheep and, at times, a shepherd.

When I bought the first Bedlam Farm in Hebron, Rose and I would often take the sheep off of the farm and into the woods. Sometimes we even came into town to move the church lawn there. I so loved those walks up and over the hill, we found green pastures and deep woods, Rose kept the sheep together and I walked ahead or behind with my big crook, they were close to my heart and brought me great peace.

“John 10:14: I am the good shepherd, I know my own sheep, and they know me.”

In Hebron, I carred St. Augustine’s City of God with me on our walks, and I often read it aloud, to Rose and the sheep. The sheep seemed seemed disinterested, Rose listened. There is a profound spirituality beyond religion to being a shepherd, I think it is the softest and gentlest thing in history.

On the new farm, I can’t really walk the sheep out into the woods. But I can stand and sit with them and be with the dogs while they guide them. I think it has fallen to Maria to be their shepherd.

I was a city boy, an urban boy, and the rise of the shepherd was a powerful spiritual experience for me. Today, on our new farm, Maria is the shepherd, I am the person who owns sheep and works with them and my herding dogs. Equally satisfying, but different.

This morning, Maria went over to the feeder and sat down next to the sheep, she was inches from them, and they were at ease with her, they stayed close and kept on eating. I thought of her love for them, and of her gentle ways with them, and their comfort with her. I know my sheep, and they know me.

I thought of Isaiah, and I thought that she is the shepherd now.

 

 

 

 

 

I may call my new portrait lens the “Kelly” lens because Kelly Nolan, manager, bartender, waitress and hostess of Foggy Notions (a/k/a The Bog) is the reason I have it. Sometime last year, I asked Kelly if I could take her photo. I was struck by the power and radiance of her smile, and the strength behind it.

The photo changed both of our lives, at least a bit. Kelly is known far and away for her competence and strength, and I was introduced into the exhilarating world of portrait photography. My new lens, a 135 mm one week old, is an exciting portrait lens. It captures the spirit of the subject, but also allows me to stand back a bit and capture the scene and the atmosphere where the subject works.

For Kelly, who works in a neighborhood tavern, family restaurant and biker bar, the atmosphere is important, there are lights and screens all around. Kelly is a fixed point in a chaotic universe, she seems to be everywhere, all of the time, ignoring no one, staying steady. And her smile is never far away. I thank Kelly for her smile, and for the way she has opened the door in my head to a string of creative moments.

People ask me all the time why I started taking photographs of Kelly – they have become immensely popular on my blog, and I have to say I don’t know. Behind that smile I saw much beauty and character and I wanted to capture it i my photography. Kelly has been so gracious about letting me do this, I am sure she thinks I am mad. I think she is the essence of sanity.

She may be right about me. But I am right about her. But she is quite beautiful and worthy of portraits.

The creative life is not about hanging on, but yielding to new creative moments, and Kelly has been a new and creative moment for me. And who can imagine where these instincts can take us?

If not for Kelly, there would not have been all those portraits, there would not have been a portrait show at the Round House, there would not be in my possession this lens to take her picture with.

The lesson for me is clear. Follow your bliss. Trust your instincts. Take the leap.

In the creative life, we never know where we are going when we give way to something new.