Gospel of Karin

I’ve posted some new images to my online gallery at:

KarinLauria.imagekind.com

Stop by if you get the chance.

All the best!

Karin

Image: Black Cat, copyright Karin Lauria, 2008.

I’m a theologian who loves animals and loves to paint. I recently set up an online art gallery where I’m selling prints of my paintings. If interested, you can see them here:

http://KarinLauria.imagekind.com/

All the best,
Karin

Image: “Optimism,” by Karin Lauria. Copyright Karin Lauria.

For the last few weeks, I’ve posted brief descriptions of Ian Barbour’s typologies of the relationship between science and religion. Today, I begin posting my critique of each category, beginning with Conflict. 

In reflecting on the Barbour’s typologies, I concluded that reconciling science and religion, whether it involves a respectful distance or a total synthesis, must have greater implications beyond the interests of either party. The question I became interested in is this: 

“What are the benefits of a harmonious relationship between science and religion?”

Or more specifically:

“What sort of relationship is good not only for science and religion, but also for humans, animals, and nature?”

The second question is central to my examination of the strengths and weaknesses of each of Barbour’s categories. 

Conflict

I have a difficult time identifying any benefits that views in this category might bring to science, religion, humans, animals, or nature. The best I can say is that some of the scholars that Barbour puts in this category seem well intended.

E.O. Wilson, for example, appears to genuinely believe that scientific explanations have the intrinsic power to lead humans to a more respectful relationship with nature. On the other hand, religious advocates who reject natural selection, for example, form a kind of resistance to an obsession with materialism that characterizes modern secularism.

Still, good intentions barely mitigate the fact that these are totalizing views that attempt to dictate the nature of reality and how we ought to live. Both are so committed to their own reductionist ideologies that they can’t even entertain the suggestion that the other might deepen their understanding about the complexity of life and living.

Regarding religion, I find the traditional image of God as an omnipotent and wholly transcendent being to be self-defeating. This view renders God irrelevant to the daily lives of people, and has proved for many to be disappointing in a world filled with suffering. It also sets up God to fail under scientific scrutiny, falsely divides humans from the rest of nature, and blocks us from understanding our place in the world in nuanced ways.

Image: “Creation of the Sun and Moon” by Michelangelo, face detail of God. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

I’ve said this before: industrialized animal farming involves the interlocking oppression of both humans and animals (and the environment). Congrats to the New York Times for pointing this out in today’s editorial section:

The Worst Way of Farming

Photo: Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Last fall, I graduated from Boston University School of Theology with a master’s of theological studies. I was recently honored to have been chosen as the salutatorian of the class of 2008.

Below, I share with you an annotated version of the speech I gave at the school’s commencement ceremony at Marsh Chapel on Sunday, May 18.

***********

Thank you, and good afternoon everyone.

This speech represents the very last assignment I’ll receive as a student of the school of theology, and I’m excited to have been chosen to speak to you today.

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King.[1] As such, I feel it is both good and right to honor him by drawing from his work for the theme of my address today.[2]

Reverend King had a vision of beloved community. By this vision, people would one day recognize themselves as existing in an integrated society of brothers and sisters committed to peace and justice, and redeemed through the transformative power of love.[3]

Today, King’s vision continues to inspire others both here and abroad toward non-violent means of achieving social justice.

Great visions, however, don’t occur in a vacuum. They arise in community with others whose visions can ignite in us our own courage and passion.

King himself was inspired by another great visionary, a man named Howard Thurman. Thurman served as the Dean of this Chapel while King was a student at the School of Theology here at BU.[4]

Thurman had his own vision of community, one in which people of all faiths would connect with each other in a common ground of religious experiences.

These two visions became intertwined here at BU. They’re part of a tradition of hopefulness and imagination.

Many of us came to the School of Theology with our own visions about how we might better ourselves and, in turn, make life better for others. We’ve come from many different places in life and traveled down many different paths.

Some of us came directly from undergraduate programs. Others left jobs in search of a more meaningful way of life. Many arrived with the intention of becoming ordained, while others came to explore how they might minister to the world in a different sort of way.

When I entered the School of Theology in 2004, I was heartened by the diversity of people I met here. There are, of course, students of different races, ethnic backgrounds, faith traditions, and ages.

But I also found that our experiences of BU have been varied as well. They’ve occurred in different contexts and on different schedules.

Many of us were full-time students who continued to stay involved in a range of social justice activities. Others worked part-time jobs while tackling demanding academic work loads, and maintaining close ties with our churches.

Some went straight through their programs without a break. Others took time off to tend to ailing family members, to earn money to pay the bills, or just to breath. Each of us has our own story.

King knew that achieving the beloved community involves a diversity of people, with a variety of life experiences and sometimes conflicting ideas. We here at BU haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. We’ve had our struggles and heated disagreements.

But on balance, we’ve been blessed in many ways—with new friendships, with a caring administrative staff, and with an amazing faculty of professors.

We’ve been enriched by new members, and diminished by the loss of others, such as our dear professor Simon Parker, who we sadly miss.[5]

Along the way, we’ve inspired and challenged each other to think more critically about what we presume to be absolute and true. We’ve perceived the plank in our own eye, and in doing so have learned to see ourselves and others more clearly.[6]

There are those who say that love is an unlimited resource. That there is enough love in the world to help everyone. A cynic might respond to this by saying, “Yes, but time is limited. Therefore, some must take priority, even if others are left behind.” [7]

I hope you don’t know anyone like that. But if you do, you might ask them, “how much time does it take to put your hand on someone’s shoulder and say ‘Great job. You’re making a difference.’”

Showing support often requires only a generous spirit towards those who’ve heard the divine call to minister to the world in their own distinct ways. Community must be built in different places, by different people, with different visions.[8].

The beloved community then, is about unity in difference. It’s about individual, embodied spirits who share a common commitment to achieving the peace of God which transcends all understanding.[9]

St Francis reminds us too that the beloved community need not be restricted to humans, but is a mixture of people, animals, and the natural world.[10] God’s blessings are more beautiful and diverse than we can ever know.

We need each other just for a glimpse.

When you leave here today, take a moment to step out into the plaza, and stop at the monument to Martin Luther King.[11] Think about the way you’re called to build the beloved community, and about all those who have inspired and supported you. May you, in turn, inspire and support others in pursuing their visions.

Say thanks to our merciful God that you are privileged to stand in a long tradition of unity, common ground, shared dreams, and hope.

God bless you all. I’m honored to be part of this community.

Thank you.
______________________________________________

1. King was assassinated April 4^th, 1968 in Memphis Tennessee. He was there to support striking sanitation workers.
2. A special thanks to Steve Chase, Director of Antioch University New England’s Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program. It was his enthusiasm for King’s legacy, and especially for King’s vision of the beloved community, that inspired the theme of my speech. Steve recently wrote a great essay for the Practical Ethics blog, Ethos, about Martin Luther King. You can read it here: “The Dream Reborn.”
3. The King Center website provides a nice introduction to the concept of the Beloved Community.
4. King received his Ph.D. from Boston University on June 5, 1955. Thurman was the first African American Dean of Marsh Chapel and a mentor to King. See Religion and Ethics News weekly for a great feature about the life and thought of Howard Thurman.
5. Simon Parker was a professor of Hebrew Bible studies who began teaching at BU in 1981. He passed away on April 29, 2006.
6. See Matthew 7:3–5.
7. Here I’m alluding to Mary Midgley’s argument that compassion is not a “rare and irreplaceable fluid” that must be reserved for humans to the exclusion of animals (I substituted the word ‘compassion’ with ‘love’). Instead, it is a “habit or power of the mind, which grows or develops with use” (see Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, p. 31). I’ve read and heard more times than I care to remember variations on the uncharitable and morally hollow response referenced above.
8. This is a quote from professor Norm Faramelli, a highly respected lecturer of ethics at the BU School of Theology and other Boston-area seminaries. Norm generously offered his time to help me brainstorm ideas for this speech.
9. See Philippians 4:7.
10. For more on the concept of the mixed community of people, animals, and nature, see Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, chapter 10.
11. A beautiful sculpture, Free at Last, erected in honor of Martin Luther King, stands in the plaza in front of Marsh Chapel. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/491106232/ for more information.

Photo: Martin Luther King, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

My post the other day on sheep shearing made me think about the ethics of the practice. I’ve heard mixed reports about shearing. Some say it’s cruel, others say it’s necessary for the comfort and health of the sheep (they can overheat and get insect infestations).

I wondered whether it was inherently inhumane under any circumstances.

As luck would have it, a friend of mine has three sheep who were scheduled to be sheared this week. She and her husband adopted all three from the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA). She graciously invited me to witness their annual de-wooling.

Here are a few photos I took (the last photo is of an affectionate goat who head butted me and nibbled my clothing as I watched the shearing process):

The shearer is a thirty-year veteran who trained in Ireland, and who clips the old-fashioned way using hand shears. My friend warned me that I might be a bit startled by the way he handled the sheep. He needed to muscle them around a bit to get them in position. I found that I was unbothered by it because he seemed no more assertive than necessary to maneuver a 200 pound sheep. I’ve made similar moves just trying to wash my dogs’ ears.

The sheep were a bit nervous as they watched him prepare. (They looked like me when I’m waiting to see my dentist.) During the shearing, they groaned a little when placed in less than graceful positions, but they never cried in pain, even when they were nicked, which happened only a couple of times.

It was interesting to witness how the sheep behaved out of concern for each other. For example, one of them would lightly touch his nose against the nose of the one being sheared.

Afterwards the sheep were let out of their pen into the yard. They spent a great deal of time smelling each other (the goats joined in as well). The most dominant of the three also tried to mount the others. My friend told me there’s always a bit of upheaval afterwards as the animals adjust to the new scents.

Overall, my experience was that hand shearing is completely humane if done by an adept and respectful handler (which this man was). I asked my friend what she knew about electric shearing. She told me that her sheep had only been sheared this way once, and were stressed out by the noise. She thinks this is because they’re used to being hand sheared.

At the same time, I can easily see how electric shearing in intensive agriculture could be stress filled and painful for sheep, particularly with hasty or insensitive handlers. However, I need to do some more homework here.

I also can see how sheep shearing contests judged primarily by speed could be largely inhumane because of the sensitivity of the sheep, but again, I need to research this a bit.

See also:
Talk to the Animals
Finding the Way Back with Animals
Meeting God in Relationship with Animals

I talk to my dogs frequently and unabashedly. Once, an electrician working on my house overheard me talking with my two labs in the back yard. Later he said to me “Wow, I talk to my dogs, but not like you do!”

I wondered, why not? I’m convinced that these “conversations,” have resulted in my dogs being much more perceptive of me (and I of them) than they otherwise would have been.

I was equally curious when I found out recently that some novice sheep shearers are themselves sheepish about comforting nervous animals while shearing them. With a shortage of shearers in the American west, a growing number of folks, from ex marines to psychiatrists, are taking up the profession as a way to a more natural and sustainable way of life.

Many are sensitive as well to the emotions of the sheep. Good thing. For despite their reputation as virtual automatons who would follow their flock off a cliff, ethological studies have shown that sheep are actually reasonably intelligent. They have, for example, sophisticated memories and respond emotionally to familiar faces.

And yet some shearers in training are a bit shy about talking to sheep. Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times article on the subject:

For some students, empathy was an issue, if mostly unspoken. Are the sheep stressed?…

Meagan Rathjen, 22, a ranch hand at a sheep spread near Missoula — she came west from small-town Iowa, interested in helping support sustainable agriculture — nicked her first sheep. It was nothing too serious, but enough to draw a small trickle of blood, which looked stark and red against the yearling’s white skin.

So quietly that almost no one else could hear, Ms. Rathjen bent down over the half-shorn animal, and apologized.

Why so quiet? I suspect it may have something to do with a fear that, despite the evidence of sheep intelligence and their obvious expression of certain feelings, such behavior may be criticized as inappropriately emotional. Like my electrician thinking I was a bit eccentric for speaking so enthusiastically to my dogs, it may seem slightly nutty to apologize to a frightened sheep.

A completely reasonable response suppressed. This may be partly due to a cultural suspicion of empathy for animals, handed down through scientific and religious traditions that view them as instinctual, instrumental, and soul-less.

Sources:
“Work as Every Bit Wild as It Is Wooly,” New York Times.
“The ‘intelligent’ side of sheep,” BBC News.
“Study Shows Sheep Have Keen Memory for Faces,” Scientific American.
“So who’s being wooly minded now?: Other animals could learn something from an intelligent flock,” New Scientist.

See also:
Finding the Way Back with Animals
Meeting God in Relationship with Animals

What you know first stays with you, my Papa says.
But just in case I forget
I will take a twig of the cottonwood tree
I will take a little bag of prairie dirt
I cannot take the sky.
And I’ll try hard to remember the songs,
And the sound of the rooster at dawn,
And how soft the cow’s ears are
When you touch them,
So the baby will know
What he knew first.
And so I can remember too.

—From What You Know First, by Patricia MacLachlan and Barry Mosher

Finding the Way Back with Animals
This morning, I heard the sound of barking through an open window. It was a moment of happy recognition; I knew the octave, the pattern, the cadence. Every bark is a little different, you know. This one came from my dog, Henry (Henry James to be precise). Henry is a baritone barker, except on those occasions when his bark suddenly breaks high, like the warbling voice of a teenage boy.

Diesel, my other dog, is a naggy contralto. He is strident and imperious, especially at mealtimes. By the look of him, you might expect him to bark like James Earl Jones or Barry White (if they were dogs). But this morning, it was Henry who I heard barking in the backyard, the sound thrusting forward and dissipating wide and fast across the sky. It wrapped around the house, drifted through the window, and met me where I stood. It emerged from back to fore and I received it joyfully, this comforting, familiar sound.

Years earlier, I held a four pound puppy in my hand. Henry was not yet Henry. He was “Blue,” a reference to the little blue string of yarn tied loosely around his neck to distinguish him from his siblings. A few weeks later, my ex-husband and I took him home. We became coo-ers; “Blue” was so cute. “Blue” was so happy. Also, “Blue” peed everywhere. Cute as he was, I was determined to maintain some house rules. Rule 1: he will never sleep on the bed. Rule 2: he will never get up on the furniture. I liked this little pup alright, but it was not my idea to get a dog. Everything would be ok as long as the rules were followed. But Blue grew into Henry, Henry Fenry, Hank, Cutie Wootie, Baby, Bubba, Bub, and Bubble. He learned to answer to all of these weird endearments and more. Five months later, he was sleeping on the bed. Several months after that, we adopted Diesel. Another dog. What on earth was I thinking? Read the rest of this entry »

In the last couple of posts, I began presenting interrelational views on panentheism, as presented in the book In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being. The present post focuses on the perspective of theologian Ruth Page.

Interrelational Perpectives on God, Part III
In an earlier essay, I introduced the concept of emergent monism in theology. As a reminder, emergent monism is inspired by the evolutionary concept of emergence in which natural systems and organisms spontaneously give rise to higher levels of complexity and novel properties. Theologically speaking, emergence refers to the belief that God is not a static substance but a creative, dynamic presence inextricably intertwined with nature and continually advancing it toward higher states of being.

Page argues that emergent monism as a way of understanding God-world relations is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, she suggests that the argument that evolution reveals a pattern of divine purpose is contrary to the evidence. The overwhelming number of occurrences of “natural evil,” such as mass extinctions, tell against divine providence (224, 227). Likewise, she argues that the Process philosophy notion that God lures creatures toward the good is hard to reconcile with natural relationships such as predator and prey.

Second, she objects to ontological hierarchies which grade the intrinsic value of creatures based on what biologist Charles Birch refers to as “richness of experience.” This view, she argues, is rooted in the mistaken belief that complexity and consciousness are simple goods. (Page quoting Birch, 225).1 On the contrary, says Page. Greater complexity and higher levels of consciousness are at best ambiguous with respect to the inherent value of living beings.

Instead, she emphasizes relational over essentialized ontologies in which God values creatures as they are, embedded in their particular situation without reference to humanity. In Page’s words: “the whole of creation is companioned [my italics] by God, not on the basis of hierarchy, but according to what is proper and necessary to the creature in its circumstances” (229).

Rather than panentheism (all in God) as a way of thinking about God’s relationship with living beings, Page proposes the concept of pansyntheism, or all “with” God (231). This idea, she believes, preserves the separate identities required for participants to actually be in relationship, rather than one party overwhelming the other. It also may help us to appreciate that nonhuman creatures have ways of responding to God that are distinct from humans. Their means of relating to God is appropriate for their own kind. As such, it makes no sense to measure their intrinsic value against the value of human beings.

Works cited
Page, Ruth. Panentheism and Pansyntheism: God in Relation,” in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World (222-32).

Photo: “Predator and Prey” by Carl Purcell, copyright Carl Purcell, image courtesy of www.art.com

For those interested in animals and our relationships with them, I’d like to recommend the Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships. This is a four-volume work with entries written by experts in the vast area of human-animal relations. For more information, see this write up on Practical Ethics by William Lynn.

You can also find information at Amazon.com. Note — it’s expensive. Most of us will need to go to the library for it. But it’s a great resource for animal lovers willing to make the trip!