Blessing Us, By Blessing the Beloved Beasts

THERE IS A SPECIAL place in Arkansas called Turpentine Creek, where acres of land are devoted to providing living space for several dozen big cats and several big bears. They are protected, nurtured, permitted to live peacefully, with dignity and purpose, inspiring the humans who come to visit them. Surely they can sense that they are loved, and surely, since they are sentient beings, to be loved matters to them. The people responsible for this act of kindness are a couple now deceased, their grand child and spouse now run the refuge, and say that it is their calling, their life's work. Money comes in, from donations. There have been times when money was short, and it was difficult to even provide adequate food for these beautiful creatures of God, but somehow, someway, homo sapiens has always come through in a pinch, and these beautiful wonders of nature have been fed. Feeding several dozen lions and tigers and bears is no small expense, in fact is a huge one, but the inherent goodness of mankind shines through, even in seemingly dire times. "Nobel be man, compassionate and good", said the greatest of all poets, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and, boy howdy, did that ole boy ever know what he was talking about. On this website we spend a good amount of time and energy berating mankind, not without cause, but not today, not this time. People who donate time and money, people who are employed in this endeavor, and people who visit are assured of a special place in the heaven I believe in. Goethe was a genius, the undisputed prince of European literature, greater than even Shakespeare, and he lived in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, so he was neither naive nor ill informed. He knew well the evil in us. But he knew, on a deeper level, our very great good, as creatures of a good and magnificent creator. There are places just like Turpentine Creek all across America's fruited plain, which proves the goodness of the American people. My sister told me how she was visiting one such refuge one day, standing before a tiger's cage, in which the animal was free to come and go, watching the magnificent being with a group of well dressed upper middle class Americans as the magnificent tiger watched them, raised one of its legs, and sprayed everybody, but good. Everybody there got soaked, and freaked. Expressions of shock, horror, and disgust rent the air. One would have thought an earthquake had struck, but not my beautifully spirited sister - no, not her. She smiled, laughed, squealed in delight, took a quick whiff of her newly acquired odor, smiled again, thanked the tiger, and swore never to wash her garment again, so honored was she. Her friends thought she was nuts, and sat as far from her in the restaurant as possible. But it was they, not my enlightened sister, who were the crazy ones, the insensitive ones, the unthinking, unfeeling, unaware soul challenged prissy vain ones. My sister would have been better off to stay with the tiger, and that would probably have been her preference. Count my sister a member of the community consisting of those who care, nurture, and love other beings, and for that matter, let us have faith that we can count most of us as members of that same, noble community.