My wife, Kristy, and little girl, Josie, and I went to the petting zoo last week. It was dollar day which I think was a mistake because this place desperately needed some money. It was dirty and redneck – think random truck parts laying beside beautiful deer.
So you walk on this one mile loop and hand-feed deer, pigs, donkeys, sheep, ducks, chickens, and turkeys. Some are in pins and some are running free. You can throw food at some caged up bears and goats and bison. The animals are fat and happy, and the metaphors to a consumeristic church culture are endless.
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Here’s a squirrel, sort of camouflaged in the middle of the pic. Yes, that’s the back end of a fat squirrel.
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I think while these animals, like the fat squirrel, are provided for and surviving there’s a part of them that longs to live the way they were created to live: hunting, feeding, and resting. Out in the world, not protected from it.
I think Christians are the same.