Stumble It!this weekend, as we drove through a shopping center parking lot we spotted a kitten who had been struck by a car and was lying wounded in the road. it appeared that it was badly wounded and suffering. we raced to park the car and sprinted into petsmart to see if we could get help for the poor animal. i observed that people walking by the kitten paid it no attention. no one was rushing to help it. the first 2 employees in petsmart i asked for help said they couldn't help and couldn't even leave the store to go perhaps 100 feet to help an animal in distress. the vet tech on duty there, while he couldn't leave as he was the only one to cover the clinic, was kind enough to give us a box and some towels to collect the kitten so we could bring it to him for either help or putting it out of its misery. we ran with the box to the kitten. who was now dead.
when i saw the head wound up close, i was relieved the kitten was no longer suffering but i was heartbroken thinking of the pain it had been in and that it died alone. what sickened me most was the complete lack of compassion i observed towards this poor creature who clearly needed help.
i know animal owners who leave their pets outside always--in extreme temperatures and in scary violent weather--and never really integrate them into their families. speaking as a dog mommy for 11 years, i know that these little souls can be the hugest gifts in our lives. given some love and compassion, these dear dependent creatures just want to connect with us in their way and love us. how is it that we can turn away, particularly when another heartbeat needs our love, our comfort, our compassion?
granted, i can understand that if our basic needs are not being met, we may feel we have nothing to spare to share with a dependent animal. but i also see dogs faithfully walking with homeless street people--clearly they have adopted one another.
it saddens me to see more and more evidence that our culture treats animals so coldly, inhumanely. family pets are abandoned, animals are tortured by the more cruel among us, dogs are pitted against each other for fighting prize money, pets are beaten, neglected, abused, and let's not even get me started on industrial animal farms where chickens, pigs, cattle are packed into unhealthy and unnatural environments, pumped full of drugs, force fed unnatural feed. i grieve for them. and simultaneously i grieve for what the cultural lack of compassion does to us as a society and as individuals. are we growing more innured to cruelty or worse, accepting of it? if we have no compassion for animals, do we lose compassion for people as well? there is certainly no shortage of cruelty among our fellow humans.
i think it's a slippery slope. when we choose not to be compassionate towards another being who needs it, then it's easier to turn away the next time.
as with anything we want to fortify or strengthen, it takes conscious and diligent practice. choosing to act in a compassionate manner on a daily basis.
do you consciously practice compassion? how important is compassion to you?
liz
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