The Body and Blood in Everything

As a child, I was very sensitive to the suffering and death of animals. There were multiple occasions when I was reduced to tears: when my dad brought home lobsters to kill for food, when boys squished frogs for fun, or when they used salamanders as bait for fishing. I was even a vegetarian for four years straddling high school and college.  I can’t say I feel exactly the same way now; when I renounced my vegetarianism, I ushered it in by boiling a lobster alive and eating it. However, the anguish I felt as a boy was inordinate but from a good place. I clearly saw that suffering was bad, particular innocent suffering. How we relate to suffering and the rest of the creation is one of the questions religion must answer. One particular incident, during a cub scout summer camp as a boy, reveals how religion can address this.

One of the days spent camping, a group of us went to investigate the woods near our campsite.