Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Reflection: Kindred

Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Palo Alto, CA

St. Francis called animals his brothers and sisters. The hymn we sang a few minutes ago is adapted from words he wrote, and so we sang, “All creatures of the earth and sky, come, kindred, lift your voices high.” Kindred means kin, family. All of us animals are family.

How do we try to get along with our family? Well, the word kindred shares a root with another word that looks like it: kind. All animals, of all kinds, are kindred — kin — so we should try to treat each other kindly.

Most of the animals here today are ones we think of as members of our family. They’re pets. We give them names and probably their own beds (or else, as in the case of my cat Luna, we let them sleep on our own beds). Maybe we even buy them presents for their birthdays. We try never to hurt them; we bring them to the doctor for care; we give them places to exercise and play; and when they die, we are very sad. They are part of our family.

In the places where animal blessings started, animals were not usually pets. For example, in rural Mexico, people have long celebrated the Feast of St. Francis by bringing animals to the church to be blessed. They have brought oxen, cows, goats, donkeys, sheep, chickens, ducks: not animals who lived in the house, but animals who helped the family to live. They pulled plows and carts. Their wool kept the family warm, and their milk and eggs were the family’s food. And then, the humans would kill them, and eat their muscle, and make their skin into tough leather shoes and their feathers into warm quilts.

This is a much more complicated view of family! And of blessing, too.

Some might say that that kind of animal blessing is not so much about care for the animals themselves as for the human families — asking for the animals to stay healthy so that the family would have enough to eat. I don’t think so, though, because there are other saints who are patrons of farming, and if the people wanted the blessing on their farming, they could go to those saints. St. Francis is the patron of animals themselves, and when you ask for his blessing, you are asking for the sake of the animals.

Here’s what I learn from those rituals: even the animals who are going to end up as food deserve our kindness. For some people, being kind to animals means never eating them. Sometimes I think I should be one of those people, but there are some animals I still do eat. But here are some other ways to treat our kindred more kindly.

We can promise that we’ll only wear an animal’s skin if it’s the only thing that is warm enough, not just because we think it’s pretty. We can avoid buying anything that’s been tested on animals, except medicine. We wouldn’t lock a dog into a kennel too small for her to lie down in, or torture a cat, so we won’t buy product from the people who do those things to cows and rabbits. We can make sure the animals we eat were treated well while they were alive.

Come, kindred, let’s be kind to each other.

 

Reflection: If St. Francis Were Alive Today (and a UU) by Bill Landauer
Reflection: Swimming with Turtles by Bill Landauer
Reflection: When Animals Talked by Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern
Litany: Litany of Blessing