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I just read this poem and I agree with you about the lines: > And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore

I just read this poem and I agree with you about the lines: > And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. I don’t believe that any supernatural force is at play, certainly not an all caring and loving one, for there is great and needless suffering in our world. That all said, I do find much of the rest of the poem comforting and good advice for myself. Very finally, I urge you to reconsider the phrasing of “bovine acceptance”. Cows are intelligent beings. They have long memories, they have friends, they have feelings. They have personalities. They are capable of learning.

samizdis 4y ago
> I urge you to reconsider the phrasing of “bovine acceptance”. Cows are intelligent beings. They have long memories, they have friends, they have feelings. They have personalities. They are capable of learning. I read the term "bovine acceptance" without considering it to denigrate cows, their personalities, feelings etc, but rather with the focus on "acceptance", their perceived resignation to fate or order/hierarchy. My thinking was informed by a bit of Chocky [1], by John Wyndham, in which the key character, a boy called Matthew Gore - who has been communicating telepathically with an alien lifeform (Chocky) and trying to answer questions put to him about Earth - asks his father, "Why does a cow stop?" What the boy means is that he sees cows mass at the field gate at the right time of day, awaiting the farmer who opens the gate, whereupon the cows turn the right way into the lane, enter the farmyard properly, enter the milking stalls without instruction etc - and then the whole process in reverse. But never do they undertake the oft-watched and easy action of raising the simple gate lever to open it for themselves. The father, narrator in the book, offers the idea of "limited intelligence" by way of explanation - but "bovine acceptance" of the world's order might actually be a more useful way to look at it. And, again - unlike the concept of "limited intelligence" - it's no slur on the cows' faculties or feelings. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocky

samizdis 4y ago

> I urge you to reconsider the phrasing of “bovine acceptance”. Cows are intelligent beings. They have long memories, they have friends, they have feelings. They have personalities. They are capable of learning. I read the term "bovine acceptance" without considering it to denigrate cows, their personalities, feelings etc, but rather with the focus on "acceptance", their perceived resignation to fate or order/hierarchy. My thinking was informed by a bit of Chocky [1], by John Wyndham, in which the key character, a boy called Matthew Gore - who has been communicating telepathically with an alien lifeform (Chocky) and trying to answer questions put to him about Earth - asks his father, "Why does a cow stop?" What the boy means is that he sees cows mass at the field gate at the right time of day, awaiting the farmer who opens the gate, whereupon the cows turn the right way into the lane, enter the farmyard properly, enter the milking stalls without instruction etc - and then the whole process in reverse. But never do they undertake the oft-watched and easy action of raising the simple gate lever to open it for themselves. The father, narrator in the book, offers the idea of "limited intelligence" by way of explanation - but "bovine acceptance" of the world's order might actually be a more useful way to look at it. And, again - unlike the concept of "limited intelligence" - it's no slur on the cows' faculties or feelings. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocky