Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105
(262) 763-3021
“The more I see of man, the more I like dogs.” Madame de Staël
People expecting an addition to the family have a lot on their minds. Besides the changes to their routines, there are short-term considerations like getting time off to properly welcome the bundle of joy into his or her new home. Happily, though, there are enlightened employers who understand their anxious employees’ concerns. That’s why Virgin Mobile of Australia is offering its employees five days of unpaid leave to welcome the newcomers home.
Only five days? Well, how long does it take you to get a kitten settled? In announcing the new policy, a Virgin Mobile spokeswoman said that the company understood the adjustment involved in getting a new pet. It recognized that employees “may want to be at home for the first week or so with their new addition, to settle the pet and get them used to their [surroundings].”
Mind you, not all new pets entitle their owners to an unpaid week off. Only employees with “puppies and kittens aged 10 weeks or under” could give up a week’s pay to show Rover the extent of their devotion.
Given people’s sensitivity when it comes to their pets, let me be clear about what I’m not saying: I’m not objecting to Virgin Mobile’s efforts to build employee loyalty, and I certainly think that the humane treatment of animals is a basic requirement of the Creative Mandate and Christian stewardship.
But what’s being dubbed “pet-ernity leave” goes beyond caring for animals to blurring the line between people and animals. As the Virgin Mobile spokeswoman said, the new policy is “an acknowledgment that not all staff would have babies.” This equivalence between pets and babies is hard to miss. This is especially true when you consider the opposite end of Fluffy’s earthly sojourn. Once, a pet’s passing involved a shovel, a shoe box and some fond memories. Now, grief-stricken pet owners spend $500 and more on pet funerals—usually packaged deals with names like “Happy Trails”—that come with a proper urn and sometimes a chaplain. (FYI: This particular pastor does not do pet funerals ☺). Those who can’t bear to be parted from their pets can opt to have the dearly departed freeze-dried.
Now if the consequences to such blurring were limited to people looking ridiculous, we could ignore it. Unfortunately, there’s something else that’s hard to miss. The growing trend of treating pets like people is happening at a time when a misanthropy that sees people as the source of all the world’s problems is becoming widespread. The same country that gave us “pet-ernity leave,” that is, Australia, also produced a serious proposal to tax human births to stop global warming.
Then, there is the obscene misuse of resources. In a world where a child dies every 30 seconds from malaria, which can be prevented with an $8 bed net, how do we possibly justify spending 60 times that or more on a pet funeral? Imagine how many real children a Christian charity could feed with that week’s pay now being given up to spend time with a new puppy.
God has created us in the image of Himself. He knows us intimately long before we breathe our first breath of air. But it is quite clear that we live in a culture where we protect the whales, seals, and the rights of animals, but not the unborn. Ours is a culture that values the family pet more than the old, the terminally ill, the mentally and physically handicapped.
As people who are striving to live for God and obey the Bible, we must do as God does, that is, view all life as precious and sacred. But we may say, "I’m just one person, what can I do?"
We must value life the same way God does. We can be ambassadors of hope and life (2 Cor. 5:20). As ambassadors of life, we can support life by how we vote. Then, we can support life in how we share our lives with others and tell them about Jesus and by actively showing concern for life.
We can support life in how we speak on behalf of the unborn and the dying. Now this doesn’t mean that we necessarily have to stand in picket lines, or enter into emotionally charged debates with our coworkers, yet each of us should model the life of Christ and do their God given part to stand up for life as God leads them.
God desires that we would support the sanctity of life. Even more, He wants us to celebrate life here and life eternal with us. This can only happen as we enter into an intimate relationship with Him. Let me encourage all of us to be about human life! And if you do not yet have a personal life changing relationship with Jesus, let me invite you to do so today.