Tag Archives: animal chaplaincy

Jun 11 – Surrender to Your Heart’s Desire

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One of many influences toward my upcoming Animal Chaplaincy ordination is St. Francis of Assisi. Below is a repost from a recent meditation available at https://www.franciscanmedia.org/minute-meditations/surrender-to-your-hearts-desire/

Surrender to Your Heart’s Desire

What keeps us from seeking our soul’s deepest desire? Most often it is the ego and its fear of annihilation.

Few of us have the courage to pray as St. Francis did — “Who are you, O God? And who am I?”—because we don’t really want to know the answer. While our souls long for intimate unions with God, unions in which we can no longer distinguish our deepest selves from the Divine, our ego selves understand the price of these unions: the loss of our hard-fought external identities.

We’ve spent our entire lives crafting an identity to present to the world, and our egos are terrified at the prospect of that identity being consumed in the flame of God’s great love. For if we follow our soul’s desire, we will be left standing defenseless and out of control, which is precisely where we need to be to experience the sheer delight and the richness of God’s consuming love for us.

The Good News for our souls is that the fire of God’s love is relentless and will eventually break through our well-formed heat shields. When that happens, we too will become a fire of consuming love that draws in everyone around us. 

Loving and irresistible God, you draw me into your flame of love, and yet I resist. I pray for the courage to surrender my whole self to you, as St. Francis did, so that, like Francis, I might experience the joy of a life without control, a life that brings the unexpected delights of sweet surrender.

Loving God, help me to stop counting the costs and to overcome my fear of loss, so that through your consuming love I may find my true self, transformed by love, ready to share that experience of pure joy through loving service to the world around me.  

 —from the book  Eucharistic Adoration: Reflections in the Franciscan Tradition 
by Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration

Feb 19 – Interspecies Companionship – Sarah Bowen

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Rev. Sarah Bowen 12-minute video introducing Animal Chaplaincy

It’s a sunny winter day here in MId-America and I’m contemplating the questions Rev Sarah Bowen introduces in the video link above. Questions like:

  1. Do animals have spiritual lives?
  2. How can we survive the loss of a loved one?
  3. What self-care looks like for animal advocates and Earth Warriors?
  4. What are some of the ways we can honor animal lives and heal human hearts?

I was very fortunate to attend the original webinar offered last Spring, 2022, and join the Animal Chaplaincy Training Program, Rev Sarah began last Summer. Barring the Apocalypse occurring this coming week, I’m looking forward to certification next Sunday, Feb 26. After that I hope to continue on for another 3 – 4 months and be ordained as an Interspecies Interspiritual Chaplain (aka Spiritual Care provider).

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you already know of my interest in Animals, Mindfulness and now Animal Chaplaincy. If you’re interested in learning more about these topics please subscribe to this blog AND check out Rev Sarah Bowen’s organization: Compassion Consortium. https://www.compassionconsortium.org/training

Today’s senryu: Interspecies Companionship

breathing in, I feel

life teeming all around me;

breathing out, I smile

Compassion Consortium’s Tenets of Agreement

https://www.compassionconsortium.org/our-founding-principles

Jan 27 – Animal Chaplaincy – Rev. Chris Rothbauer

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http://revchris.faith/about/

Currently serving as a Unitarian Universalist Minister in Auburn, Alabama, Rev. Chris Rothbauer professes:

“My calling is towards healing of the universe and her human and non-human creatures. Our interconnection to the rest of the universe is not just some lofty intellectual exercise, but a fact of existence. As the late Carl Sagan once remarked, “We are all stardust.” Modern society often alienates us from these interconnections. I feel a deep call to help restore this sense of relationship with the universe and nurture a deep sense of love for human and non-human life alike as well as the universe as a whole.

We live at a time when the universe itself is threatened by the consequences of decades of thoughtless actions that have damaged this one and only planet we call home. At a time when so much is at stake for the future of our planet, I feel a deep calling to heal this damage before it is too late. I am called to participate in the Great Turning, in the words of Joanna Macy, the emerging story of how we might yet reverse the effects of climate change precipitated by an attitude of human supremacy.”

Involved in multiple ministries, Rev. Chris is also a Registered Pet Chaplain who explains:

“Animal chaplaincy is not a support for mental health services, but a multi-faith way to explore the spiritual and emotional issues surrounding our connection to our animal friends.“

For much more information on animal chaplaincy and Rev. Chris’ approach and services check out his website: http://revchris.faith/animal-chaplaincy/

Jan 23 – Four Roles of an Animal Chaplain

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Donna Rae Yuritic’s Compassion for Creatures Animal Ministry https://tucson.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/animal-chaplain-brings-peace-to-many/article_026dfee4-b9ca-50e5-a4f7-165c63ad5b06.html

Yuritic estimated, as of 2008, there were “50 animal chaplains in the U.S. and Canada.” That number has grown significantly since due to her work and that of Reverend Sarah Bowen.

Sarah Bowen’s roadkill ministry http://www.modernreverend.com/about-rev-sarah.html

What does an animal chaplain do? Sarah Bowen identifies at least four roles in a Tricycle magazine article. https://tricycle.org/article/animal-chaplain/

Those roles are: “animal chaplains primarily help people with

  1. end-of-life care and the grieving process for the animals who often become an integral part of our families but whose deaths we tend to not process as fully. The job can also entail
  2. working with animals in shelters,
  3. addressing behavioral problems through interspecies spiritual practices, and
  4. animal advocacy.” https://tricycle.org/article/animal-chaplain/

Or, stated another way on Sarah Bowen’s website, ModernReverend.com:

  1. Supporting animals
  2. Promoting human/animal bonds
  3. Sacred Sendoffs
  4. Advocating for non-human animals

If you’re interested in “honoring animal lives and healing human hearts” check out Sarah Bowen’s companion website Compassion Consortium: https://www.compassionconsortium.org/training