Gifts of Creation

A few chickens are spending their days here on the farm.  Not many roam around,  just seven hens.  Being able to get a warm egg from the nest and  having it for breakfast the next morning is a real treat.  No, it is not a treat, but a blessing.  When I put my hand in the laying box and pick up the eggs, I often speak a word to the hens, saying, "Thank you for your contribution."  While I have yet to have any of the animals here talk back as the Hollywood variety might do, I figure it is a way of expressing respect for the animals and paying attention to their place on the land.

 

Prior to my coming to the farm, I was only on a first name basis with a few dogs which were a part of the years.  We are fortunate to have animals as a part of our lives.  When we remember the creation story, we are reminded in the seven day story that they show up in the narrative before we do.  In the one which follows in chapter two of Genesis, the animals are created after the man.  As we put the two together we hear a word which speaks of man naming the animals and being given dominion over them.

 

From the beginning there was a relationship between those created like us and those created as the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the animals of the field, and every other living thing.  What joins us together is not some evolutionary process, but the fact that we all bear the mark of the Creator's hands.  As surely as you and I bear the essence of the Almighty Creator within our being, so do all the other living creatures He has brought into being.  In a sense it might be said that we are a gift to each other.