Animal Souls, Human Souls

"In days of old, animals believed

humans to likewise have a soul"

I love bits of prose, poetry, movie dialogue or song lyrics that turn our expectations upside down or inside out–such as those lines from today's call to worship by Annette C. Boehm, who translated them from the German herself. If we’ve thought about it all, we might debate whether or not there is some irreducible, inextinguishable bit of human existence that might be called a soul? Or have wondered, do animals have souls? Such ponderings are familiar to me. And just for the record, I believe there is some irreducible, inextinguishable bit of human existence, unique to each of us. And I see no compelling reason to believe the same is not true of animals. It is hard to imagine what that might be or how it might function in single cell organisms, perhaps. But then, my beliefs are neither defined nor limited by my imagination.

The idea, however, that there might have been a time when animals believed humans have souls, and further, that such a time has passed–now, this is intriguing. We know that we anthropomorphise animals–from our pets to the birds and squirrels that either entertain or annoy us in our yards to the characters that populate picture books and cartoons. We attribute human motives and emotions to them. Hold conversations with them. Give them backstories. But do animals do the same with us?

I suppose we see some suggestions that they do–herding dogs herding children or other family members, for example. Some animals seem to consider the human creatures in their orbit one of them. Other animals seem to consider human creatures in their orbit predators, or perhaps prey, depending on whether or not the animal senses threat from the human creature. But do they know themselves to have souls, and was there once a time they consciously believed humans to likewise have souls? Well, that too is beyond my imagination.

But if we suspend disbelief for a few minutes and accept the premise–animals with souls believing once upon a time that humans have similar souls–then the question that I keep coming back to is this: if that time is in the past, then what changed and when?

Did animals abandon their belief in the souls of humanity the first time they observed a species go extinct through human action, or the hundredth time? Or when clear cutting and strip mining and toxic waste destroyed one of their habitats after another? Or when they witnessed some of us carry disease across oceans, devastating other members of our own species? Or saw us wage one too many wars against members of our species? Was it in Gaza or Auschwitz or the Killing Fields of Cambodia? Was it during the Weeping Time or when women burned alive behind the locked doors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory or when children were pulled from their beds in the early hours of Tuesday morning and led zip-tied together into the dark streets of Chicago?

Or was it more mundane? Did the steady drip drip drip of individual indifference and cruelty of one human toward another finally erode the animals’ belief that we, like them, have souls? Or yet more mundane–perhaps the gradual distance that opened between animals and humans as urbanization and industrialization progressed simply made it harder and harder for animals to recognize us as kindred souls, so to speak.

I know, these are not celebratory ponderings for our usually jubilant animal blessing service. We aren’t living in jubilant times, however, and I think you can perhaps understand why Annette Boehm’s brief poem captured my attention. Still, though I do find the disturbing questions it raises worth our consideration, I chose it for our call to worship not because of the pessimism of its opening lines but for the optimism, cryptic though it is, of its final lines: Children mostly still think this way today./Their limbs are small and weak./The heart however holds. And I chose it for the lack of a period or any punctuation after the final word.

The poet seems to suggest that for whatever reason–Boehm doesn’t elaborate–animals may have lost their belief in human souls, but children have not. And therein is cause for hope. We may have lost the animal vote–and that is not to be taken lightly–but we haven’t lost the children’s vote. And that also is not to be taken lightly.

I’m cautious about attributing an almost otherworldly innocence, and depth of wisdom to children. Even if you haven’t had much interaction with children in your adult life, you were a child once yourself. You know I’m speaking truth when I say that to expect that sort of innocence and wisdom in children is not only unrealistic but also unfair. Kids are only human, after all, just like the rest of us.

Yet, on the whole, children have had less time to observe us, be disappointed by us, be disillusioned by the frequent gaps between our actions and our professed values. So, if there is a possibility that children still believe we have souls –not in so many words, of course, but as a conviction that we are worthy of their trust and love, that we can provide security, and are able to protect those who need protecting, and will usually do the right thing–if even a few children believe this of us, perhaps we haven’t lost our souls altogether, regardless of the animals having lost faith in us. Perhaps there is still something in us, collectively and individually, that both calls us and empowers us to preserve the children’s belief in us, to begin to repair whatever cost us the animals’ belief. That is to say, perhaps there is still something in us, collectively and individually, that we can gather up and turn toward the healing of the world.

"In days of old, animals believed

humans to likewise have a soul

Children mostly still think this way today.

Their limbs are small and weak.

The heart however holds"

Does the poet mean the child’s heart holds faith in humanity? That humanity’s heart holds a soul? And why no final punctuation at the end of the poem? I double checked. In German and English, the poem simply ends after the word holds. I don’t know what the poet meant by the omission of final punctuation. I like to think she meant for us to choose. Will our hearts hold only the shattered pieces of all our failures, an abyss where our souls once resided? Or will they hold our birthright as creatures with souls kindled by embers of holiness? Will they hold a vow to bless all our companions upon the earth and the will to match our actions to our words?

Will the poem one day end with a triumphant exclamation point?

Amen.