On wolves and other endangered species
Reactions to the gray wolves being removed from the US endangered species list seem mixed. While it’s good that the wolves’ long-diminished population has grown, “delisting” removes many statutory protections and generates worries that they will soon again be endangered. For many of us who are remote from the wolves’ habitat, there seems little we can do to help resolve the dilemmas.
Yet we can always pray, and that does lift thought to find fresh and practical solutions.
The listing of endangered species can offer protection to animals and plants from overhunting, overgrazing, and other harm. But it also implies that other species are left unlisted, not needing or deserving special care. Lists of any kind connote fragmentation, separation, and limitation, while from a higher, spiritual perspective, there are no lists.
Prayer is the process of consciously communing with our source, God, divine Spirit or Love (as God is described in the Bible). Such prayer lifts thought up out of the mortal, dualistic view of life and death, plenty and lack, safety and danger. It takes us beyond any finite groupings, to glimpse the oneness of Spirit, where Creator and creation (source and expression) coexist harmoniously.
In infinite Spirit, there can be no fragmentation, splits, or rifts. The one God is indivisible, and His creation expresses that oneness. Divine Love and its lovely expressions can’t be subdivided, any more than a full moon can be only partially reflected in a still lake on a cloudless night.
Similarly, Spirit’s creations can’t be separated from their source, any more than a thought from its thinker. There’s no outside to infinity, so there’s no possibility of God’s creatures being lost or cut off. Divine Love doesn’t play favorites, doesn’t have either an “in crowd” or outcasts. All of God’s creation, including the wolves, is securely situated in Love’s habitat – the kingdom of heaven.
Recognizing God’s eternal care also removes our mortal sense of wolves, or any other creature, as limited or endangered. There are no caps on or gaps in divine Love, so there can be no place where fear, hatred, or lack can exist to threaten Love’s creation. Lifting thought Spiritward enables one to see more of the unlimited harmony at hand, including solutions to dilemmas regarding delisting particular species and concerns about adequate habitat and coexistence with livestock.
A passage from Isaiah offers a beautiful benediction to prayers for these and other animals: “For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (55:12-13).
All of God’s creatures can “go out” and live in harmony and abundance and never be left out. Spirit is inseparable from its creation, and Love doesn’t list or delist.
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