Soul Food

Michele Marr

“[The lamb] grew up with him and with his children. It ate of his own

food and drank of his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a

daughter to him.” -- 2 Samuel 12

You won’t find the word “pet” in the Bible. That has been pointed out

to me. Repeatedly. And it’s true.

All the same, it would be tough to find a better description of a

domesticated animal -- in other words, a pet -- than the one of this lamb

in the second book of Samuel.

National Pet Week was observed in the U.S. and the United Kingdom in

early May this year. The U.K. has a colorful web site, o7

www.nationalpetweek.org.uk,f7 devoted to the purposes of the week.

At the time I thought I would write about the weeklong observance, the

Web site and, especially, about the role pets play in so many of our

lives.

But Mother’s Day fell at the end of the same week. Then came Memorial

Day and Huntington Beach’s jump-start into summer, then Father’s Day.

So it’s already mid-June now, but I’m still thinking about pets. In

particular, a dog named Strider and a cat named Monika.

Strider was a striking chocolate Labrador. He lived with my mother’s

friend Angelee, her husband Stan and their 10-year-old son Gawain for all

of Gawain’s life and then some.

Monika lives with my friend Maxine. She’s an old calico girl and she’s

very sick. One day Monika seems on the brink. The next she bounces back.

Maxine says Monika is like a child to her. She nurses her feline

daughter. She tries to comfort her. She tries to prepare for her death.

Strider died on the eve of Mother’s Day. His family grieved for him,

but especially Angelee.

“Strider was her child,” Stan said when I saw him on Mother’s Day

morning.

There’s a photo of Strider on the family Web site alongside a photo of

Gawain. Each has a Web page all his own. Strider’s page is called “Wisdom

from the Kennel.”

Among the sage morsels are bits of scripture. There is Psalm 139:14,

in doggish translation, “I am furfully and wonderfully made,” and

Strider’s favorite, unaltered from its English text, “The dogs eat the

crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

There is a quote from T.S. Eliot about a cat, which -- Strider noted

-- might just as well have been written about a dog, “For he will do/ As

he do do/ And there’s no doing anything about it!”

And there’s a caption from a Frank and Ernest comic. In it an angel

says to a man seeking admittance to heaven at St. Peter’s gate, “If you

don’t mind throwing tennis balls for eternity, I do have an opening in

doggie heaven.”

Doggie heaven. Is there a doggie heaven? A cat heaven? A hamster,

fish, bird or ferret heaven? Or do pets simply go to heaven along with

their people? Do pets go to heaven at all?

Book upon book has been written to answer the question. Polls have

been taken. Some are more optimistic than others.

A o7 www.beliefnet.comf7 poll shows that 86% of its respondents

believeanimals -- as God’s creatures -- go to heaven, while 14% believe

they do not. Yet in an ABC News poll, only 43% of the people thought

animals go to heaven. Another 40% thought not. Some, apparently, are

undecided.

When I lost my own two feline girls -- Mitzi and Ginger -- not long

ago, I looked hard and long for a definitive answer to this question. But

I found little evidence and a lot of mere speculation.

On the topic of animals and heaven, the Bible is all but silent. And

perhaps that is not so surprising. Scripture is, after all, mainly about

God’s relationship with man.

One Anglican bishop I know answered my question about animals and

heaven with two questions of his own.

If God saved the animals in the ark with Noah, why wouldn’t our

animals be with us in heaven? If God grants us the joy of our pets here

in this world, why not -- even more so -- in heaven?

And why not?

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer and graphic designer from

Huntington Beach. She has been interested in religion and ethics for as

long as she can remember. She can be reached at o7

[email protected]