Description:
Animal Grace is an outstanding contribution to a new genre of literature that boldly asserts the profound spiritual connection many humans feel toward animals. When author Mary Lou Randour began sending money to animals-rights groups a new world opened up for her. Envelopes filled with "heart-stopping, stomach-wrenching" images started appearing in her mailbox--beaten dogs, abused laboratory animals. Finally she read Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation and began to recognize the deep kinship and responsibility she felt toward animals. Since then Randour has devoted her life to animal advocacy, and from walking this path she has come to an understanding of spiritual grace. Randour uses her journalism skills to recount stories of wild and tame animals--how they have helped to heal human illnesses, turn child criminals into loving adults, and comforted us in times of grief. Yet Randour is more than a convincing researcher, vegetarian, and storyteller, she is also a spiritually mature writer. Each chapter supports the overriding theme of respecting interspecies connections--such as "Entering into a Spiritual Relationship with Animals," "Animals' Souls and Spiritual Lives," and "The Parallel Worlds of Human and Nonhuman Animals." This could well be the next animal-rights manifesto. --Gail Hudson
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