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I
have written most of this book with Samson, my small Yorkshire Terrier, on
my lap. I did not invite him there; he insisted. In the beginning I saw
him as needy, but then I began to see that in fact, it was me who was
needy. When the words wouldn't flow, I took my hands off the keyboard and
ran them along the length of his little body until they came again. When
the ideas were blocked, I looked away from the computer screen and down at
him until they came again. Sometimes I would simply rest my hand on his
chest and feel the miracle of his dog-lungs breathing, feel the beauty of
his dog-heart beating. From source of nuisance to source of inspiration,
Samson's presence connected me to spirit while writing a book about being
connected to spirit.
Do you see who was the real needy one?
Anatole France wrote, "Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul
remains unawakened." Those of us who love animals know this, know that
there is a part of our hearts and souls reserved and given solely to those
creatures, that there is a part of our spirits that cannot be stimulated
in any other way.
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Can we open our hearts to the animals? Can we greet them as our soul
mates, beings like ourselves who possess dignity and depth? To do so, we
must learn to revere and respect the creatures who, like us, are a part of
God's beloved creation, and to cherish the amazing planet that sustains
our mutual existence. We must join in a biospirituality that will
acknowledge and celebrate the sacred in all life.
--Gary Kowalski
If thy heart were right, then every creature would be a mirror of life and
a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so small and abject, but it
reflects the goodness of God.
--Thomas a' Kempis
Being with pets can often be a very prayerful activity as well. Animals
are the highest form of aliveness that are still spontaneously transparent
to the Divine. Humans have to work at that. Meeting an animal can be quite
similar to meeting a very saintly person. They are totally transparent.
When I look at a cat, it's like looking into God's eyes.
--David Steindl-Rast
I love cats because I love my home and after a while they become its
visible soul.
--Jean Cocteau
Folks will know how large your soul is by the way you treat a dog.
--Charles F. Duran
We can judge the heart of man by his treatment of animals.
--Immanuel Kant
I like handling newborn animals. Fallen into life from an unmappable
world, they are the ultimate immigrants, full of wonder and confusion.
--Diane Ackerman
I walked out alone in the evening and heard the birds singing in the full
chorus of song, which can only be heard at that time of the year at dawn
or at sunset. . . . A lark rose suddenly from the ground beside the tree
by which I was standing and poured out its song above my head and then
sank still singing to rest. Everything then grew still as the sunset faded
and the veil of dusk began to cover the earth. I remember now the feeling
of awe which came over me. I felt inclined to kneel to the ground, as
though I had been standing in the presence of an angel; and I hardly dared
to look on the face of the sky, because it seemed as though it was but a
veil before the face of God.
--Bede Griffiths
I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better
for it.
--Abraham Lincoln
You think that these dogs will not be in Heaven! I tell you they will be
there long before any of us.
--Robert Louis Stevenson
Love animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy
untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, do not harass them, do not deprive
them of their happiness, do not work against God's intention.
--Fydor Dostoyevsky
If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature--even a caterpillar--I
would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of God is every creature.
--Meister Eckhart
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of
animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice,
man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his
knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in
distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic
fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and
greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older
and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with
extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices
we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they
are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time,
fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.
--Henry Beston
An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.
--Martin Buber
If dogs are not there, it is not heaven.
--Elisabeth M. Thomas
I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
--Emily Dickinson
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A dog thinks: Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me, provide me
with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take good care of me... They must
be Gods!
A cat thinks: Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me, provide me
with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take good care of me... I must be
a God!
--Author Unknown
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