On killing creatures and humans

Image above: Theodore Roosevelt with rino

I killed a spider this week and it was entirely by accident. Here in my easy chair I felt something crawling on my right ankle. Because of my partial paralysis,  all of my body below my mid-chest is feeling impaired and my right side has less feeling than my left. But I felt this thing ... I didn't know what it was but I crushed with my left foot. I looked down at the crushed mass and said to Kathee ... "there was something crawling on my leg". She came by (it was just before dinner) and with a tissue swiped the eraser sized clump off my leg. She examined it (I don't know why) and said "whatever it was it had legs".

I am not spider adverse! Several weeks ago someone gifted me with a nicely potted Azalea. From that pot on the center island of our kitchen, a small jumping spider emerged. I saw it several times on the countertop and let it live. I got close and watched it's bold reaction ... wary of the giant but not afraid. How could I kill it?!

One summer week at Boy Scout camp I coexisted with a Black Widow spider in my tent. I reasoned that as long as it didn't bother me, I wouldn't  bother it ... but I did pray quite a bit for safety and I was very careful entering and exiting the tent! Image source.

To be very Dexter-like, I purposely killed this week! I crushed a silver fish on the bathroom wall! Generally if bugs are outside ... they live! Inside the house ... they die! Spiders are exempted inside unless they are on my body! See Bert and Ernie.

More on killing: Across on on the wall from where I am now typing is the head of an antelope. My brother killed it and I ate it ... or at least the good parts of it. No one is protesting at my residence or forcing me into hiding. (Consider the case of Walter Palmer)

I am actually adverse to killing most things. Not that I haven't. I've run over at least one raccoon and probably a dozen squirrels. I really try to avoid squirrels but they seem to be somewhat suicidal. They appear to wait by the side of the road ... then dart out before the vehicle ... then stop and wait and turn around. Truth be told, the night long ago (in my early twenties) when I hit the raccoon I actually felt very badly and even cried a bit. Squirrels? I feel somewhat badly but no tears. Perhaps in another generation or two they will learn to watch carefully and dart in a straight line without turning back.

I stop for ducklings by the way ... although MNDOT says I should not!

 I've killed other things:

• In my teen-aged years I used to shoot at birds with my trusty Daisy Model 25. One day I struck and killed a bird. It bothered me and I cried a bit. I regret that action and never shot at a bird again
• Near my Uncle's house in Michigan we use to shoot at rats at the dump with his 22 pistol. It's not easy to kill rats at a distance, but I did kill some and it never bothered me a bit!
• Several summers ago I killed a young rabbit with my mower. I don't believe I struck it, I think the roar of the whirling blades scared it to death. I stopped and examined it. It was lifeless but still warm. I wished I could have breathed the breath of life back into it.
• Someone kills the chickens, pigs and cattle that I love to eat. In my childhood I watched grandma and grandpa chop the heads off chickens. I prefer eating them to killing them myself but I know someone does it.

This conversation raises some ethical questions that demand pondering:

• The killing of the silverfish? If morally right why?
• The killing of Cecil? If morally wrong why?
• The killing of chickens (I am thinking of the very cute Chik Fil A billboards)? Right or wrong? Why? Image source. 

And of course in the recent news is the horrific fetus dismembering and selling of body parts by Planned Parenthood and our President's comments on same. 

I suggest that abortion is so very wrong, so morally reprehensible, each act a Nazi-like atrocity because human beings are image bearers and that killing is forbidden by the moral law of God our Creator!