Chicken String
Just for your information, I have hunted and fished and even helped process chickens in my youth. However, the cleaning and processing of animals was never one of my preferred jobs.
As a young child, my dad got a few chickens and a rooster with the intention of gathering eggs and having chicken dinners from time to time. The problem was my sister and I decided the chickens were pets and not a food source. We had no problem gathering and eating the eggs, but when it came time to process a chicken for dinner, there were plenty of tears.
Shortly thereafter, my dad got rid of the chickens (by the way, the same thing happened when my dad tried to raise rabbits but that is a different story). Ironically, my dad raised Suffolk sheep and my sister and I never became attached to them (except the rare bottle lamb but again, that’s a different story).
The only thing I can figure is the processing of the animal as being different. Whereas dad wanted to process the chickens (and rabbits) himself, he always deferred to commercial organizations to process the lambs.
As an adult, accepting that I was most definetly an unabashed carnivore, I felt the need to reconcile my desire to eat meat with my reluctance to be involved in the processing of the animals. I did this by creating a mental picture of a string on the back of every chicken. When a person pulled the string, the chicken pieces fell apart, and the grocery store was able to put them in those neat packages. Of course, the same string applies to cows and pigs as well.
“And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” - Genesis 1:28-31 ESV
“In that day the Lord God of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth; and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: “Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,” says the Lord God of hosts.” - Isaiah 22:12-14
Now, it seems to me that eating animals is not too dissimilar from divorce. God originally made us to be herbivores. It was only our sinful fall that resulted in our becoming omnivores. Given how much I enjoy a good steak or bacon, it is hard for me to imagine the blessings I missed due to the sinful world I was born in. I can’t wait to see what heaven is like.
