Smell of Death

(This post may be graphic)

This last Sunday, I had to work 17 hours in a beef slaughter house. Not only was I at a slaughter house, but I was working in the most disgusting area of it. We had to replace the augers in the "gut grinder". This tank is probably six feet deep, fifteen feet wide and forty feet long. All the parts that they don't use for human food go here i.e. the guts, heads, hooves and so on. All of these parts then get grinded down and sent into an oven and cooked and made into dog food and cosmetics. There were drums over flowing with parts of animals that I didn't recognize. And all of this at room temperature. It is by far the most putrid place I've ever been in my life. It took everything I had to not throw up from the initial smell of the place. The work was grueling and disgusting.

So, what does this have to do with spirituality?

Well, here's what;
After a little while I didn't even notice the smell. I got used to the sites and was actually able to grab, with gloves, this wretched stuff and move it as needed. It was late in the day when I had my revelation. I had to weld something on the backside of the auger, so we turned it and as it turned up came a cow head with it. I just kicked the cow head off and began to weld. Right then, I realized what a picture of the world this all was. When I first got there, it smelled of death, it look awful, unbearable. But, soon I got used to the smell. After that I was mingling with the death, actually touching it, I was comfortable there. It didn't even realize how disgusting I smelled until my wife didn't want to sleep with me after two showers.

The world is like this. It's made question how I've conformed to my surroundings. How the smells that used to bother me don't anymore. How I'm able to look at and be involved in things that were repulsive. When I began welding after moving the head, it burned guts and blood and this smell was a 100 times worse. It was the smell of the world burning, it was the smell of death. Oh how I've become like the world in different ways when I'm suppossed to be a fragrant offereing to the Lord. Please forgive me Father.

In what ways have you compromised?

PS I don't eat beef anymore.