Black Christian Mind

I Have the Body of a Beast, But I am Not a Beast
by Sabrina Dawkins

I ate one of the tastiest pieces of beef I’ve had in my life today. It was perfectly tender and juicy. I only eat meat every other day, a piece of salmon and a piece of beef. But today I yearned to eat meat every single day. A day in between is too long to wait to be able to eat another piece of that beef cut. Did the grocery store accidentally give me the best part of the cow for the lowest price? Even now as I type this, I am trying hard to remember the taste of that succulent beef in my mouth, the satisfying chews I didn’t want to end. And I am reminded that I am still physically a beast.

Nature programs make lions and tigers out to be vicious, heartless predators that with cold psychopathic eyes stalk their prey and then rip into their skin while they are still fighting for their lives, causing the innocent creatures pain and death. “What terrible, evil creatures,” I thought. But even now, I fantasize about re-eating that tasty meat over and over again, tearing into it with my teeth, slowly savoring the flavor. As I ate it, I wondered if the warm flesh of a fresh kill tasted to the lion or tiger like the warm, cooked, juicy meat tasted in my mouth, an irresistible flavor and tenderness that draws me back for more.

How am I different from the lion or tiger? My body also requires meat. I tried being a vegan for sixth months and developed chronic lower back pain, mental fogginess, and headaches until I started eating meat again. But because I don’t kill my own meat and therefore don’t have to watch the life leave the helpless animals’ eyes, I didn’t see myself as similar to a lion or tiger in my need to feast on animal flesh in order for this beast body to run optimally. Whether I killed the animal or not, and I never ask at the grocery store whether or not the supplier’s cows or fish died a quick and painless death, I am still living off of the meat from the dead bodies of cows and fish. And not only do I quickly heal from soreness and injury after consuming meat, I also enjoy the consumption of it. I almost forget that I’m eating animal flesh.

Out in the wild, prey live in danger. Even when they take a drink of water, they risk a crocodile or alligator eating them. And even predators such as lions and tiger can be attacked by reptile teeth while in the water or be kicked, stomped, bitten, scratched, or gored by vigilant prey in self-defense. If hell isn’t clearly recognized on earth, the picture comes more into focus when one looks closely at nature. Death reigns in nature (Romans 5:17).

My relatively comfortable human life has artificially shielded me not only from outside nature but also my own internal nature. When I buy blocks of meat without eyes, mouths, or hair in shiny plastic under bright, inviting lights at the local grocery store, I often forget that I am buying parts of the carcass of a once-living creature. It has become just something crossed off a to-do list: “Buy nuts, fruit, garlic, and meat.” And when I get back home, I’m just glad to have picked up everything I had on my list. I’ve done it so many times, it’s rare that I even consider that the meat was once alive. My beast body is too concerned with replenishing itself.

But the point is not that in our current state we are evil for consuming meat. I even tried to cut back eating meat to every third day instead of every other day; consequently, I soon started feeling aches and pains from going two days without consuming animal products. I wasn’t recovering from my daily exercise. Is the lion or tiger evil? The predatory carnivorous beast is just made that way. And I am made to require meat as part of my diet. The question is, do I want to remain this way, feeding on the flesh of dead animals? No. I don’t want to exist in a place where death rules and I participate in causing death to creatures.

John 12:25 says, “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” And when the remnant returns to God, there will be peace:

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together. And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:6-9)

During my time in earthly hell, I have decided that I no longer want it and instead want to return to God’s peace. In the meantime, however, I am still stuck with a beast body. So while I closely study scripture and continue to strengthen my relationship with my heavenly Father, I am cursed with requiring meat to sustain my beast body and even enjoying its taste, as a beast would. And yet death still rules over this body after the biblical fall, and gray hairs continue to creep in. And I groan with all of creation in pain as I await the end of the reign of decay and death and the beginning of the redemption of my body and the adoption as a child of God (Romans 8:21-23). “So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54).