Killing Time

Killing Time
by Karen Beth Pike, Columnist

"Taking Care"

September 15, 2003

The chill in the autumn air means a number of things on a farm. The crop harvest is the part that most people are familiar with, but there is another type of harvest that happens in the fall. The harvest of meat animals also happens in the fall, usually after the crops are in, or on days that are too rainy to work in the fields. That harvest entails the taking of lives in a way that brings food to our tables. Anyone who thinks it is easy to kill an animal that you have nurtured from its birth is wrong. Granted, most farmers know better than to give names to the livestock with a destiny for the freezer, but we still are attached to those youngsters. Many farmers hire the killing and butchering work done, and I do the same with the larger livestock, but the others are done right at home.

The animal harvest brings with it a number of logistical issues, especially if it is a large animal like a cow or a hog. Smaller animals can be handled in whatever size group makes sense for the time and space available. A large animal takes the full day, and used to be done in gatherings of several families and each group went home with part of the meat, or the gathering was repeated at each place over the course of several weeks so that all were provided for. Often, a huge feast followed the day's work and much fun followed the unpleasant work of butchering.

Yet there is purpose in the lives that are lost this way. Providing food for the families that bred, raised and nurtured the livestock. Some produce a surplus to sell to those who do not raise their own food. I wonder how many people today can clearly identify their purpose for living, an odd question to ask, or is it? What is it that gives your life meaning? What drives you and makes you leap for joy? Perhaps if more of us spent time thinking about these things and less time on the trivial matters that bog us down and frustrate us, we'd know less of hate and more of hope and our civility would return. We have lost much in our rush to become tolerant of everything and everyone, no matter what our moral character screams in our heads about the rightness or wrongness of what we see. We remain silent, to be tolerant, to be liked, or to avoid taking a stand.

It is an interesting paradox, nurturing a life for the purpose of taking it. But in some respects it is not that different from what we watch daily in our society. The throw away nature of relationships and marriages, the abortion of babies, the gang violence and the very nature of war stand in this same crossroad. Killing for convenience or to make a point is the difference, and it shatters the morality that used to be what America was all about. Doing the right thing has lost favor, now the mantra runs to the selfish desires of the individual rather than the public good. Society has become so hedonistic and depraved that it is considered entertainment to watch people risk their lives on "reality" television. We once considered the ancient Roman circus to be brutality - are we really so different today? We watched in awe and horror as the planes crashed into buildings two years ago, and yet the public outrage was nearly non-existent, which astonished and terrified me. Have we become so cowardly that we cannot muster the backbone to stand up for what is right and decent? There were many signs in lawns saying pro and con things about a war with Iraq. Do we really believe that we make any kind of difference by just putting a sign in the yard?

It has been said that a culture topples when it spends an inordinate amount of its resources on entertainment. 9-11 became entertainment as it was broadcast over and over until the images were burned into our psyches. It was all people could talk about for months, and for most of them, it was just talk. Then it was the images of the war, then the photos of the two dead brothers in Iraq - they even appeared in the pages of this e-magazine. The ongoing fanaticism over sports also figures into this, the new heroes of our time are often overpaid boors of very questionable character, who can even commit the most heinous of crimes without fear of punishment for their brutality.

So both on the farm and in society it appears to be killing time. ***

Photo of Karen Beth Pike courtesy of the author