Cats, Souls, and Dog Poop

This morning my husband asked me to lock our cat, Milo, outside the bedroom. Milo's soft, but persistent, meowing was keeping him awake. This was hard for me to do. Milo finds such joy in coming into our room in the morning and snuggling with us. He is always very happy to see us when the sun rises and the world begins to wake up. To Milo our "going away into sleep" is very much the same as when we have been away

(about 45 minutes later)

away on vacation is what I was about to write. That was before Milo asked me to open the window blinds so he could look at the birds at the feeder. Before I stepped in dog poop on my way back from the window. Before I spent 30 minutes cleaning the floor, the rug, my shoe. Before I spent 10 minutes reassuring our old dog Sammy that I still love her. Before I spent another five minutes giving all the other now equally distressed pets their usual and customary morning treats to reassure them that "all is well" and my upset was only temporary.

Companion animals are like small children in the way that our every mood, our every action, our very existence, means so much to them. They take note of everything we do. Skeptics would say we only matter to them because we are their food source. That’s true of course. But that's true for our children as well! I do think even the most cynical skeptics would agree that human children love their parents. It seems equally obvious to me that animals can love their human companions.

These days I think most people recognize that animals feel love and other emotions, that they have intelligence, are social beings, and that they may even have senses and skills that we have long lost. Accepting that animals have souls is a much bigger leap.

Why is it so hard to accept that an animal - that any non-human living being - could have a soul?

Are we afraid that if we acknowledge other children of God it will make us somehow less close to him? Less special? Are we so insecure in our own relationships with God that it is only by convincing ourselves that we are better than all other living things that we feel worthy to be loved?

Yes, God made us in his own image. He breathed his life into us. But he also made the animals and the life breath that fills them.

I think all living things are part of that one breath of life; that we are all threads in the fabric that was woven from the consciousness that is God. What then are souls? And why would only humans have them?