Where Does Fido Go When He Dies?

 

December 13th, 2010

 

By Padmananda Rama, CNN

"What happens to animals when they die?" author Ptolemy Tompkins wonders in

his new book.

"I looked into that dog's eyes and knew there was something more," says

Tompkins, a writer for the Christian magazine Guideposts.

At the age of 12, Tompkins named that dog - a hungry mutt with a

“copper-colored spot on her shoulder” - Penny. Decades later, in his latest

book, "The Divine Life of Animals," he briefly describes how he adopted Penny

during a family vacation to Mexico.

“Penny and I had connected. I had looked into her

face and seen something there,” he writes. Later, he concludes, “Penny, then,

must have had a soul.”

This intuition leads the author on a far-reaching journey, exploring various

faiths and philosophies, and searching for answers to explain the possibilities

of our pets’ afterlife.

During his time writing for Guideposts, Tompkins told CNN, he received

numerous letters from animal lovers who had asked their parish ministers similar

questions after the death of a pet and received less-than-satisfying

responses.

“They’re so heartbroken. They go to find out what happened to their poodle …

and they say, ‘Am I going to see my dog again in heaven?’ and the pastor sort of

scratches his head for a second and says, ‘No, you’re not. There are only people

in heaven.’ ”

 

Tompkins' book is written for animal lovers who are

dissatisfied by this response - and who are willing to take a leap of faith

along with Tompkins as he searches for clues to animals’ divinity, piecing

together spiritual arguments from primitive cultures as well as

Christianity.

“If you look a little deeper in the Bible, you can find evidence that writers

of the Bible actually did have a deeper respect for the spirituality of animal

creation than appears to be on the surface,” Tompkins says.

“There is a spiritual reality to animals,” the author explains. In

researching his book, which he described as “one man’s quest to discover whether

the souls of animals live on,” Tompkins looks to Christian theories of the

concept of the Resurrection.

“Nature is resurrected too ... so if you’re a Christian and you’re interested

in this kind of thinking, there's plenty of argument that suggests that all of

nature is included in the idea of redemption, which is central to

Christianity.”

This holiday season, as you’re checking off your gift list, Tompkins’ book

may be a good option for pet lovers in your life who are ready to explore

whether their favorite fluffy companion may also have a spiritual side.