Flunking Sainthood Read online

  Although I’m curious about voluntary poverty, for my purposes this month, it’s Francis’s unique relationship to animals that interests me most. Francis’s life was filled with animal-related stories, which are ideal subjects for the many children’s books that have been written about him. (The story about him stripping naked is entirely absent from these picture books, incidentally.) In one tale, Francis saves a village that’s been terrorized by a killer wolf. The villagers have almost bankrupted themselves by sending a knight and then an army to kill the wolf, but to no avail. Francis is able to disarm the predator, Super-nanny style, just by gently explaining to “Brother Wolf” that it’s not polite to devour children. He succeeds because he’s able to communicate with the wolf “in its own language” (Wolfese? Romulan?) and see things from Brother Wolf’s point of view. The villagers agree to set out plates of food for the wolf, and Francis goes on his merry way, having resolved the crisis and saved the town.

  In another story, Francis was traveling with a group of monks when he spied a flock of birds resting nearby. Francis decided that he needed to preach to the birds, because really, who was speaking the good news to winged creatures in the thirteenth century? His fellow monks reported that the birds were attracted by Francis’s words, “and suddenly all those also on the trees came round him, and all listened while St. Francis preached to them, and did not fly away until he had given them his blessing.” Francis preached to them about how God had clothed them with his care, preserved their species in the ark, and given them nests. He warned them against the sin of ingratitude, which was apparently a particular temptation for birds. But the birds loved the homily:

  As he said these words, all the birds began to open their beaks, to stretch their necks, to spread their wings and reverently to bow their heads to the ground, endeavouring by their motions and by their songs to manifest their joy to St. Francis. And the saint rejoiced with them. He wondered to see such a multitude of birds, and was charmed with their beautiful variety, with their attention and familiarity, for all which he devoutly gave thanks to the Creator.

  After Francis had blessed the birds and made the sign of the cross in the air, the birds all arranged themselves into four companies according to the four directions of the cross, and flew off to carry this good news to the ends of the earth.

  It’s a lovely story, and there are many others like it. But the most surprising element my research turns up is this: Francis might have then baked those sweet gospel birds into a pie. For even though Francis is listed at famousveggie.com as one of history’s most famous vegetarians, even though I have already devoted my month of Christian vegetarianism to his saintly memory, he was an omnivore. In one place, for example, he lauded the joy of Christmas by saying that on that holy day, Franciscan friars should receive a double portion of meat in celebration. This apparently happened even if Christmas fell on a Friday, which was traditionally a meat-free day. (Never one to forget the animals, he also advocated livestock receiving a double portion of hay, at least until such time as they became Christmas dinner.)

  St. Francis was not actually a vegetarian. Oh.

  I admit I am surprised. Consider this quotation from St. Francis I find at the Christian Vegetarian Association website: “If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men.” It hardly sounds like Francis would be ordering the rib eye at the Outback Steakhouse. I guess I had just assumed.

  Part of the problem is that the whole concept of full vegetarianism is anachronistic. In the first-century church, Christians abstained from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays, but not all the time. As I learned in my month of fasting back in February, many Eastern Orthodox churches still fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, though in the Catholic West it became primarily Fridays and some special holy days.

  Even Jesus chowed down on Brother Fish from time to time. Come to think of it, Jesus conjured several thousand fish to feed the hungry multitudes. If he had cared deeply about vegetarianism, he could have fed the five thousand with just some loaves of bread and miraculously reproducing pomegranates, and then offered a clever parable about not skewering and roasting our animal friends. But he did not.

  I know it shouldn’t bother me to learn that St. Francis, like Jesus, was likely not a vegetarian. The very word vegetarian didn’t enter anyone’s vocabulary until the nineteenth century, and as scholar Stephen Webb has pointed out, what passed for historical vegetarianism was as often rooted in a hatred of the body’s natural functions as it was in a desire to treat animals with more respect. I imagine that being mendicants played a part; since Francis and Jesus depended on the hospitality of others and beggars can’t be choosers, they would have eaten whatever was put in front of them. Just the idea that Francis regarded animals as brothers and sisters was a radical departure from the norm in his day—and our own.

  Still, my inner child feels betrayed. I actually stop reading about St. Francis’s life—a shallow response, but an honest one. I am disappointed in him. I recall my friend Judy’s sculpture of St. Francis standing next to a lamb. Was he imagining how Sister Lamb might taste with mint sauce?

  For Francis, the emphasis on animals was about more than eliciting a warm-fuzzy feeling about warm, fuzzy creatures. To him, animals symbolized Christ’s incarnation—God’s willingness to enter into the dung heap of this world just to be one with us. It’s no accident that Francis is credited with starting the first live nativity scene way back in the thirteenth century. He wanted people to experience the whole Christmas story with a cast of real livestock, in all their braying and crapping complexity. That, to him, was the world of Jesus who was Immanuel, not a demure wooden crèche scene.

  I suspect in my heart that vegetarianism points to this enmeshed, meddling Jesus who wants to live among us and sacralize everything. To this Jesus, even the birds of the air and lilies of the field warrant honor in God’s kingdom. Francis was on to something when he regarded the animals (and the moon, and the sun, and everything else in creation) as brothers and sisters. This Jesus did not weigh animals by their usefulness to human beings, or count them as mere instruments in a strict hierarchy of creation. This Jesus did not apparently question, as many of my fellow humans have done, whether animals have souls. He welcomed them as an integral part of the kingdom of God.

  THE LUKEWARM VEGETARIAN

  If both Jesus and Francis believed that animals had souls, who am I to serve my furry friends for supper? When I’m honest with myself, which happens once or twice a year, I admit to a deep unease about my carnivorous ways. Eating animals feels immoral to me, and I’ve been ignoring the promptings for too many years. I need to give up meat.

  But just because I’m on board with the idea of vegetarianism as a spiritual practice doesn’t mean I’m practicing it perfectly. Vegetarianism, it turns out, is more difficult than it looks. I’ve made salads, soups with vegetarian stock, and enough pasta to feed Francis’s home nation of Italy. I’ve also indulged in my favorite lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich and cream of tomato soup at least twice a week. I never thought I would tire of it, but I can’t quite face bright red liquid again. I have also consulted the nutrition label for the first time and realized that the soup has enough sodium to kill a small animal, or possibly me if I try to sustain a vegetarian lifestyle from a can. So I eat more salads than usual, which makes me feel healthier but still hungry.

  After two weeks of semi-virtuous eating I am seriously craving a burger. I won’t let myself have one, but I do bypass the Fresh Market in favor of the Golden Corral, a chain buffet restaurant that Phil and I have nicknamed the Golden Trough. Since he and I both hail from lower-middle-class backgrounds, a part of us will forever pine for the stick-to-your-ribs comfort food that comes from places like The Trough. Down-home people want their vegetables clothed in butter as the good Lord intended, not sitting there perfectly naked for all to see.

  I don’t want any more wai
f food, no greens or granola. I miss the four-way at Skyline Chili. I want fried chicken, and if I can’t have that, I’m going to have the Trough’s macaroni and cheese along with green beans that were probably boiled with a nice chunk of ham for flavor. The specter of ham technically violates this month’s principles, but since it is only a suspicion, maybe I’m not morally responsible for the welfare of Wilbur, or whichever pig might be gracing my vegetables today.

  I can think of several compelling, logical reasons not to eat animals, so it’s odd that I can’t stop remembering how delicious they are. First, it’s bad for the environment, because it takes so much grain to feed the kinds of animals I love to eat. To raise the grain, we have to cut down trees, contributing to greenhouse gasses and a loss of biodiversity. I’ve read one statistic that says eating a pound of meat is the same as driving forty miles in a gas-guzzling SUV. Second, it’s not great for my health. Meat today comes with a host of nasty chemicals and growth hormones, not to mention old-fashioned health risks like clogged arteries and high cholesterol. (Granted, the idea that vegetarianism is healthier is based on an optimal veggie diet of salads and nuts, rather than the actual diet of fettuccine alfredo I’ve resorted to, but for the sake of argument let’s just assume I am the very model of a modern vegetarian.) And of course, the third reason is the not terribly kind treatment of the animal in question. At the end of the day, I feel less of a person, and less a follower of Jesus, when I stab a steak knife into a juicy slab of medium-rare prime rib. That was somebody’s son.

  THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION

  I can’t seem to completely follow through with my own ideals—my culinary memories are inextricably tied up with meat as comfort food: chicken noodle soup, pot roast with gravy, turkey at Thanksgiving. With the ideals of St. Francis (even if not, apparently, his deeds), I’m committed to defending vegetarianism in principle. What’s more, I have naively assumed that most people share my sense that we all should be vegetarians. It turns out I’m largely mistaken about this. When I talk to people about my month of vegetarianism, some are supportive, even impressed, like when I tried to fast. Still, a surprising number disapprove.

  Several male acquaintances, as well as my husband, ask whether I’m getting enough protein. Why are men so obsessed with protein? It’s as though my vegetarianism had personally threatened their muscle buildup. This, however, is tame compared to the response of one outspoken elderly woman in my church, who shakes her head in outrage when I mention my vegetarian experiment.

  “The Scriptures are clear that we’re supposed to be in charge of the animals,” she quarrels. “I just don’t know what the world is coming to. Besides, what will happen to all those animals if we don’t eat them?”

  I’d like to report that I hold my tongue out of Christian patience, but my silence is more the result of being too shocked to speak. This woman often has that effect on people. It’s her ministry.

  How can I explain to her that “those animals” would never be bred in the first place if demand for their meat declined? That the image she has in her mind—the same image I used to share—of happy cows roaming the fields doesn’t take into account the fact that nearly half the meat in the United States was raised on factory farms?

  I stop asking other people their opinion of vegetarianism.

  Maybe I should follow Francis’s example and talk to the animals, asking them what they think. I start with Onyx, because he’s the member of the animal kingdom I know best, and we already understand each other’s language.

  One evening I test Onyx’s principles by offering him a hunk of the chicken breasts I’ve poached for Phil’s and Jerusha’s enchiladas. Tonight’s enchiladas are carefully divided into two Pyrex dishes, a large one with a yellowish M on top in melted cheese, and a petite dish for me with a V—for vacillating vegetarian.

  “Here you go, buddy,” I tell Onyx, dangling a morsel of chicken as he sits patiently before me. Ever polite, he does not lunge or jump up like other dogs. But his decorous manners don’t extend to refusing the chicken, even if it belongs to a fellow animal. He seems pretty copacetic with the whole thing, actually, downing it quickly and looking up hopefully for seconds.

  This is not the response he offers when I replace the chicken with the vegetarian strips I’m putting in my own enchiladas. He chokes one down, then lumbers away to occupy his usual command post at the foot of the stairs. Not a success.

  AMISH CHICKEN

  Vegetarianism in theory is something I wholeheartedly support; vegetarianism in practice is tough to implement. It’s another failed spiritual practice, since I can’t even quite make it to the end of October. Eating in an upscale restaurant the last week of the month, my eye lingers on the “Amish chicken” on the menu.

  “What makes a chicken Amish?” I ask the waiter.

  He looks flustered. He is not aware that the chicken has any unique religious sensibilities.

  “That just means that the chicken was raised by the Amish, with no growth hormones, in a humane environment,” he explains, gazing a little too long at his order pad.

  “So it’s a free-range chicken?” I persist.

  “Yes, I think so. Free-range. From an Amish farm.” He does not meet my eye.

  “Do you know how it was slaughtered? I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but that kind of thing is becoming pretty important to me.” My friend and dinner companion, Anna, is now rolling her eyes at my interrogation.

  “No, I have no idea how it was slaughtered, but I can tell you that the chef prepares the breast of the chicken in an orange tarragon sauce. It’s a specialty dish,” he concludes, as if that settles the matter.

  It does. I’m that cheap and disgraceful. I am lured, just like that, from all my vegetarian ideals by the promise of a chicken that was raised in a “humane” manner more befitting the eighteenth century than my own. I’ve since learned that almost everything the waiter told me about Amish chicken was likely a fabrication; many Amish use growth hormones and chemicals, and some raise their poultry in solitary confinement coops for the bulk of the birds’ lives. But ignorance is bliss, and by the time my succulent meal arrives I have already named my chicken Brother Yoder and imagined for him an enviable prerestaurant life. Before I eat him, I picture Brother Yoder ranging around his farm in a black hat and suspenders. All the other chickens show up with tiny hammers on a Saturday to help him build his coop. He has a beautiful, peaceful life until one day—only when he is very, very old—he knocks on the kitchen door of the Amish homestead and indicates that he’s ready to make the leap from farm to table.

  The fantasy, and the bird, go down well. Someday I hope I will have the courage of conviction I need to resist the siren smell of bacon and give up meat altogether. St. Francis can pray for me. In the meantime, I’m definitely going to cut back. Starting mañana, or maybe the next day.

  11

  November

  three times a day will I praise you

  Prayer is as variform as any other human activity. The Liturgy

  of the Hours, or the Divine Offices, is but one of those forms, yet

  it is the only one consistently referred to as “the work of God.”

  The Divine Hours are prayers of praise offered as a sacrifice of

  thanksgiving and faith to God and as a sweet-smelling incense

  of the human soul before the throne of God. To offer them is to

  serve before that throne as part of the priesthood of all believers.

  It is to assume the “office” attendant upon the Divine.

  —PHYLLIS TICKLE

  I used to work from home for a magazine that required me to travel frequently to conferences and trade shows, where I would see my colleagues and enjoy their company. One of my coworkers, Phyllis Tickle, would frequently disappear at lunchtime for a few moments, something I never wondered anything about until one day she explained to us what these mysterious absences involved.

  “I’m praying the hours,” she said simply.
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  Not coming from a liturgical background, I needed a remedial explanation of what this meant. What secret ritual required her to disappear to a hotel or convention center bathroom at noon each day? What were “the hours”?

  My curiosity was piqued, mostly because I adored Phyllis. If she had been snorting cocaine in the bathroom, I’d have wanted to try it too. Mostly I wondered if fixed-hour prayer had helped Phyllis to become the person she is—a living saint, but with a rare sense of humor. If so, I thought, sign me up for that.

  This was a decade ago, and Phyllis has done much to revive and popularize the ancient spiritual practice of praying the hours. Her multivolume series The Divine Hours came out while we were still working together, and it was a joy to hear her speak about the practice and to meet others who had taken it up. But I’ve never tried it myself in any sustained way. Now, armed with the autumn-season edition of The Divine Hours and some supplementary books to help me understand the practice, I’m ready to start another adventure.

  RETRO PRAYER

  The practice of praying at fixed times during the day has a number of different names—the Divine Office, the Divine Hours, the Liturgy of the Hours. I’m just calling it fixed-hour prayer because “office” sounds bureaucratic. Although Phyllis mentions becoming an “attendant” for God, this feels a bit secretarial, and God can fetch his own cup of coffee.

  I’m part of a pretty low-church Christian tradition, where people are encouraged to pray every day but there’s no fixed formula for doing so. We don’t recite the Lord’s Prayer in our church services, and as far as I know most people don’t do this regularly in family prayer either, though I haven’t exactly conducted polls. I expect that many people in my church are suspicious of “rote” prayers, which smack of Catholicism and might lead to Pharisaic vain repetition. We’re certain that vain repetition will cause dogs and cats to start mating with each other, and that will bring about the end of the world.