The Most Beautiful Animal

Last year I took my family to Zoo Atlanta.  It is an exceptional zoo and especially is neat with the new baby pandas.  I could have stood there all day and watched them play.  Their mom was so protective and yet, she let the babies play together while she got some much needed rest.  They were great to watch, and certainly beautiful animals, but not the most beautiful animals.  

In another area of the zoo, it was feeding time.  The handler came out into the enclosure of the vultures with a tray of bright yellow chicks.  I thought I was going to have to leave.  Then the handler started her presentation.  Vultures are nasty animals, right?  I thought so until I listened to this presentation.  The zookeeper fed the chicks to the vultures while she talked and explained to us that vultures are the only animals that are able to eat "spoiled meat" that is likely contaminated with e coli, botulism, and all sorts of nasty bacteria that we can't eat nor can any other animals created.  Nasty animals?  Let me rethink that.  God created an animal that can clean up the road when an animal gets hit.  When an animal dies in the woods, a vulture cleans up.  They don't get sick from eating decayed, rotten meat.  What an amazingly, beautiful animal!  Maybe the panda is beautiful in it's own way, but so is the vulture. 

 

How many times to we shy away from the vultures of humanity?  The people who may not be the most attractive or beautiful or have the most magnetic personalities could be the people we are least likely to interact with.  God created them just like He did the vultures.  Do we take time to learn about those people and appreciate their talents and gifts they bring to our society or do we just pass by them thinking they are less desirable much like I was tempted to do as I passed the vulture enclosure.  Had I not stopped to appreciate the vulture for the most beautiful animal that it is, I would have missed the gift.  If we don't stop to appreciate the less pretty, less social, less polished, lesser abled people in this world, we miss their gift.  

God created people just like he did animals.  We all have a purpose.  May we all be more conscious of the vultures in our lives and take time to find out their gift so we can appreciate how much more beautiful the world is because of them.   

I am so grateful for vultures for keeping our world clean from things that most of us would not touch.  They are the most beautiful animals because their beauty is inside, not outside like the pandas.  May we all appreciate the beauty within all creatures and people.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Jennifer