Rabbit Fur Trail

One fine day at UT in the blissful, leafless, and below 30 degree weather of the current windy winter I saw a young man wearing a bomber's hat lined with fluffy rabbit fur. I then had the following train of thought: "an animal's rights advocate (ARA)would not like the hat because the rabbit had to have died to keep the young man's ears warm. What would I say if it were me who was wearing the hat and I was confronted by a person involved in the rabbit wing of the ARA group. I would reply by saying 'I am very grateful to the rabbit for its sacrifice which keeps me warm.' I then thought; what if the ARA were stranded without a warm hat in a very cold place; a place in which he must choose to wear the fur hat or die. He too would choose to don the fur hat and be grateful to the rabbit."

What does this train of thought have to do with anything? Glad you asked. We humans are so jaded by our abilities, derived from our gift to think rationally, that we fail to see how utterly dependent on the earth we are. Our physical nature would, without rational thinking, make us the prey in the natural realm. Think of yourself as Gollum without loin cloth or rational thought. Just imagine yourself naked in the winter grappling for nuts along with the deer and squirrels--or even trying to catch prey with your hand to gnaw it with your teeth and rip it with your uncut fingernails. Remember you would have no rational ability to make weapons. We are in many respects very inferior to our animal cousins.

The trail stops here: we must have been made this way to realize our dependency on something. For me this something is God.