Eagle vs. Fox: The war for our souls

ByHal Hammons

Wildlife photographer Kevin Ebi captured a series of photographs, one of which is included here, depicting an epic struggle between a bald eagle and a young red fox over a rabbit they both wanted for themselves.  The eagle, obviously far more powerful, was determined to have the rabbit.  But the fox would not give up.  Ultimately, though, it had to; it let go and dropped about 20 feet to the ground below, emerging unharmed.

Imagine for a moment that you are the rabbit.  God is the eagle.  Satan is the fox.  And don’t push the metaphor too far; God isn’t going to eat you for dinner, for instance.  Just go with it.

 

The Beastly Human

ByHal Hammons

It is no wonder that a society that tells its citizens constantly that they are no better than the animals — indeed, no different from them — winds up seeing those same citizens act like animals.  Why wouldn’t they? How could we reasonably expect anything else?

As Christians, we hope and expect humans to rise above the animal world. Animals can be trained, after all.  Why not humans?  But culture wins over holiness, time after time. And thus we see headline after headline, proclaiming in grotesque detail how degraded a culture bereft of God can become.

Animals

ByHal Hammons

A Buddhist monk was chastening me and other animal-harvesters the other day on Facebook.  We humans are arrogant, he says, to think that eight million species are here on earth simply to serve our needs and wishes, that our abuse of “other animals” is completely unjustified.