I think I've heard all I care to hear about erstwhile quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons Michael Vick. He has pled guilty to some pretty sick stuff and then claimed to have a major redefinition of life. Read about his apology here. I don't want to cast doubt on the sincerity of his apology; that is not for me to judge. However, I agree with Mike Straka of Fox News that this was a pretty quick turn around.
What bothers me about all this is what it says about Michael Vick and how much he values life. I'm not talking about human life, of course, but of animal life. I suspect we have all gone through the stage of pre-adolescence in which we take sadistic pleasure in the pain and death of something innocent. I've roasted my share of ants and grasshoppers with a magnifying glass, or blown up a few frogs with fire crackers - "Cigars, anyone?" I remember yelling as a few friends and I laughed our fool heads off and lit the fuse of an M-80 stuck in the mouth of some unfortunate amphibian. But eventually, we outgrow it, and come to realize that life - even seemingly valueless life like insects and animals - is to be treasured and celebrated, and taking out anger or sadistic pleasure on one of God's creatures is a reflection of our lack of respect for the Creator. A few years ago, when we were raising chickens, I found out how hard it is to intentionally put to death a living thing. I had to decapitate chickens, pluck them, gut them and get them in the 'fridge pretty quickly. It was not easy. It got to the point that, like the Native Americans of old, I whispered an apology to each chicken as I ended its life, assuring it that we are not killing simply for pleasure but to provide life-sustaining nutrition for my family. It is not pleasant to kill any of God's creatures. (Wait - I do take pleasure in crushing Palmetto bugs!)
When I worked for the juvenile court while I was in graduate school, I interacted with many kids with serious problems. It was characteristic of these kids that they had very little ability to empathize with other living things. If they wanted something you had, they took it; if they didn't like you, they beat you; if they wanted sex, they took it; if it made them feel good to hurt you, they did it. I was able to extrapolate the degree of a kid's moral development by watching how he treated other, innocent and/or helpless living things.
This brings me back to Michael Vick. I don't know him, but from my experience, this incident with the dogs tells me that there are probably some serious moral deficiencies in this man's life. I hope he can turn things around, for his sake and for the sake of other people in his life. But in any case, I'm sick of hearing about him. There are plenty of other things going on in the NFL. What about you?
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