Spiritual “Slaughterhouse”

       I was talking with a friend.  He and his family have been watching some video that depicts the inhumane and often horrible conditions of America’s “meat” industry.  It’s to a point where they as a family are beginning to make choices based on this knowledge.  Not popular, but definitely more in line with their personal beliefs.  What’s going into our bodies comes from these slaughterhouses.  And sure, there’s governmental standards (like that’s reassuring in any way), but the truth is beyond what they can take.  And yeah, it might be sensationalized a bit, but what is shown is still there, you know?  In fact, after talking to his wife, his kids talking to my kids … it’s definitely put me in a different frame of mind, even without seeing the video (like, I’ve been doing no meat any time I go out to eat recently …).

Anyway, this isn’t all about the meat industry.  It’s about the spiritual industry.  After thinking about this information their family has been sharing, I see a lot of lines that can be drawn to what’s going on in the meat industry and what’s going on in the spiritual “industry.”

To continue what we as consumers call for, the farmers bring animals into cramped, often substandard places to “house” them.  Sure, our church buildings are anything but cramped or substandard, but somehow we have been trained that we “need” to gather into one physical place to really, truly accomplish what God has for us.  We come together, we are put in “stalls” (or pews, or perfectly aligned rows of chairs) and tethered up by something that catches our attention — pretty lights, nice stage setting, good music.  Anything that makes us sit and pay attention.  Makes use fall easily into the “herd” mentality.

I also know the meat industry is guilty of “forcing” growth in animals.  There are steroids and other chemical compounds given to the animals to grow quicker, or produce more.  Never-mind the way it affects the animal, or the person even eating it.  The producers apparently “know” what’s better for the American public than we ourselves do.

Looking at the “spiritual industry,” often times we are “fed” things that speed up our growth, so that we can be turned out to the general, “unsaved” public to do whatever we are to do more quickly than maybe we are ready.  We are given “four easy steps,” and “five point plans” that help us disseminate whatever our particular “growers” want us to.  We are “encouraged” to have relationships, often with the “plan” of converting whomever we befriend — because that’s all that really matters, anyway, we’re told.  Never-mind we may have a different opinion or desire.  Our “job” is to fulfill the needs of the those our “farmers” turn us out to.  Regardless of if it’s healthy or “right,” it doesn’t matter.  As long as the industry continues.

And let’s talk profit.  A cow that is forced to grow 10% quicker, or a chicken that is forced to produce 3 eggs instead of 1 brings back to the farmer a larger profit margin.  Here, in this spiritual industry, so much of it comes back to the “bottom line,” too.  Somehow, we have to finance our continued existence.  Never-mind that the person who supposedly began this religion (Jesus Christ) was homeless and wandered from place to place with his friends, sharing good news of liberation and wholeness.  Somehow, our requirements include large buildings, more than comfortable salaries, nice cars and a variety of other things that make “ministry” possible.

What about the actual “animals” brought into the slaughterhouses?  My friend tells of diseased animals who are allowed to live “as is,” just so they can be killed and given out to the public — so the industry doesn’t lose money on them.   Or chickens, gathered so tightly together and given no freedom that they can never even lift a wing.  Forced to fit into the industry’s plan for them, without regard for doing something “another way” unless it benefits the industry itself.  After all, they’re just “dumb animals,” right?

We bring in people, and true, we try to meet needs.  As long as they fall into a margin that is “convenient” for us as an industry.  They need to fulfill “change” standards … they need to agree with “doctrinal” statements.  They need to follow the rules that keep the order of the spiritual industry in tact, without rocking the boat too much.  We have words for that — heresy, rebellion — and threats of eternal damnation and other things.  Even when things actually change for the better (say, the reformation) it isn’t until years (centuries) later, after things have been santized and reconstructed by the failing eye of history that we tend to adapt them.

There will never be wide-sweeping changes in the meat industry, because it will cost too much — time, energy, jobs — to do the right thing.  We as individuals, however, can make choices for ourselves and our families that help us achieve a healthier lifestyle and moral choices that agree more with our consciousness.  And I’m not even talking becoming vegetarian (throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water).  But everything we do should line up with what we truly believe.  We should never accept things simply because we were “told” it was right.  We should test everything; our lives and our words should live in harmony with one another.

So, too, in the spiritual industry.  I no longer am willing to be the “dumb” animal at the whim of my spiritual keeper.  I’m not saying “throw out the baby,” but I am saying that I have a personal responsibility when it comes to the spiritual health of myself and my family.  Test everything.  Accept only what is pure.  Not succumb to the temptation of “settling in,” just because it’s easy, cheap or acceptable. 

I have the freedom to walk out of the slaughterhouse, and live “free range.”  Doesn’t change the fact that I’m still a “chicken,” but I would be living a lot closer to how God intended “us chickens” to live.

~ by lostgirlfound on August 7, 2007.