I just watched a safari video on Facebook. A buffalo mom just gave birth to a calf in the grass in the savannah. The slime from the afterbirth was still hanging from her rear. The calf was in the grass, trying to get up. A pack of lions attacked her from all sides. They were trying to carry away the calf but the mother fiercely defended it. As she attacked the lions with her horns, she repeatedly tripped over her half, which was struggling to get on its feet while being hit by the mother’s hooves and being bitten by lions, trying to pick it up. After a minute or so of fierce battle, the lions eventually got hold of the calf and started jumping on the back of the mother. Eventually five or six lions brought her down, one latched on to her throat and they all remained still, waiting for her to die. One of the lions dragged away the limp body of the newborn calf. This is when I could not watch anymore and I flipped away from the video.

All this, of course, was being witnessed by safari tourists in Jeeps from various angles.

Mother nature at work.

Some weeks ago I saw a safari photograph of a leopard carrying a dead monkey in its mouth, walking toward the camera. Obviously, it had just killed the monkey and was carrying it away, perhaps to feed its young. The gruesome part was this: On the belly of the dead mother monkey hung a baby monkey, very much alive, terror on its face, but hanging on.

Mother nature at work.

Sometimes when I am alone for lunch I will choose to just pick up a  simple meal from KFC – fried  chicken. As I eat the “breast and wing” I realize that someone or something had to die, just so I could have lunch. One life, one lunch.

Mother nature at work.

Then I came to thinking: Christians believe that God made the world. They call it intelligent design. If I were to design a world, and I had all the tools of the universe at my disposal, I think I’d design a world where something didn’t have to die for something else to eat. We call it the food chain. Many animals are designed to eat other animals. In the ocean, in the skies, on the savannahs, even outside my own driveway, when the coyotes catch a rabbit or when the owl nabs a gopher.

I think I’d come up with a better plan, where the beasts of the world would not have to eat each other. I’d design food that does not experience terror and does not have to run to survive. I’d design animals. And I’d design food. What we have in our world is not very intelligent design, and it’s definitely not compassionate design.

Rather, it’s mother nature at work.