I never thought I had one thing in common with the famous Cotton Mather, the unyielding and terrifying Puritan minister. It seems that I do.

I think I learn slowly, but I am learning how to learn and listen.

It took long enough.

It sometimes takes years for the lessons of life to sink into my distractable consciousness, but when they do, they run deep and they stick.

I’ve been writing lately about how the experience of rescuing animals has changed me, challenged me, provoked me, inspired and angered me.  I’ve also been trying to figure out why I am who I am.

Lots of emotion there.

I couldn’t count how many rescue animals have come through the two farms I’ve lived on – old sheep, dogs, chickens, barn cats, donkeys.

I’m only just realizing how much animals and their rescue and my love for them have shaped my values and changed some. Or how much the relentless criticism of my decisions and choices have stung and forced me to think.

Rescuing animals is a powerful emotional experience. Not everyone is ready for it.

The rescue of Bud and other animals has lifted me up, taught me love and patience, pulled up some of the best parts of me into the light.

Rescuing animals has also brought me to a surprising, very new revelation.

Here’s my discovery:   I have a Calvinist and Puritan heart in some ways.

I believe hubris and self-righteousness is a sin. There, I’ve said it.

And since there is so much of both in our political and animal culture, I’ve come to feel a kinship Cotton Mather, the Puritan firebrand minister obsessed with the devil and the sins he wrought.

The most common question I am asked is why do I reply and write about people who make me angry or upset. Most – all, actually –  of these conflicts that I write about, I see now, have to do with animals and their rescue.

People accusing me of being cruel, or of killing animals needlessly, and  people invade my space to tell me how and why to get a dog, or when to end an animal’s life, or what a flawed person I am. It began with Orson and continued with Rose and Izzy and Simon and Rocky the pony. It seems that even when I was hurting, I was also fighting.

I think this has affected me more than I realized.

Christian asked me this question in a message the other day after a dust-up with a woman who said that by buying Zinnia, was responsible for the death of some dogs:

“I certainly support your views, your right to be triggered, your choice to deal with your trolls as you see fit (even if it’s not necessarily what I would do). I understand the whole interaction. What I don’t understand are the follow-up posts like this one–the sense of you of both justifying and celebrating your anger. Standing up for yourself is a virtue; anger is not. Why keep it alive in this way? Why try to spread it?”

It’s a good question, although I really can’t answer it to Christian’s satisfaction.  My exchange with my accuser was brief and tame.

I don’t argue my beliefs in e-mail or text messages online, and I wonder if Christian isn’t upset with me because he doesn’t do what I do.

This is quite often the reason contemporary Americans get angry with one another. It’s a lose-lose situation sometimes, people ask me to explain myself, and when I do, I am often accused of justifying, even celebrating myself.

Is this whining, or simply justification? And Cotton Mather and I would both disagree that anger is never a virtue. Sometimes it holy work.

But it’s still a fair question Christian is asking, and at the risk of celebrating myself once more, I want to answer it. I think the answer came to me during my meditation over the weekend.

What animal rescue and the many issues that surround it have taught me over a number of years – I’m just seeing it – is that I have come to see hubris and self-righteousness as a sin.

I have no patience or tolerance for either one. And let’s face it, it takes a ton of hubris to accuse a stranger of callousness and cruelty when you know absolutely nothing about him.

I don’t worry about sexual identity, sex, drinking or pornography, things usually associated with sinners. I’ll leave that to the Cotton Mathers.

But I do worry about hubris and self-righteousness, two traits enabled and fueled by our new way of messaging and talking to one another. Since we rarely know or face the people we are talking to online, it is easy to be angry, intrusive and judgmental.

In fact, this behavior has become epidemic online, where messaging is so easy and accountability so hard.

I just realized I’m like a Puritan pastor confronted with people dancing in the streets – sins of righteousness upset me, and as an avid reader of history, I realize that hubris is an almost unforgivable sin.

I should say I’ve never aspired to sound like a Puritan minister or to think like one, I’m just trying to be honest.

It seems that animal rescuers and animal rights people are the ones – just about the only ones – that have affected me in this way. This is curious because I see myself as having been a fierce advocate for animals for much of my life. But when I think about it, it makes sense.

These two cultural subsets – animal rescuers and animal rights supporters – sometimes embrace and internalize the idea that people who rescue animals are morally superior to others because…well because they rescue animals rather than buy them.

Elements of the animal rights culture have embraced self-righteousness and outrage as a driving ideology and a political tool, even using cruelty and false accusation as justified when it comes to protecting animals.

One pony operator from California told me she never really understood the Salem Witch trials until she was singled out and targeted by a mob of animal rights “activists” who thought pony rides were cruel and shut her down, costing her an income and her ponies.

I have always fought against hubris, even though I knew it lived inside of me.

It has always been an article of faith to me that I am no better than anyone else, my moral code comes from what I see in the mirror, not from what I tell other people to do, or what other people do. The person I need to respect is me.

Is it this “sin” of self-righteousness that touches me and stirs me to anger and conflict. Is that the answer Christian is looking for? Is that the truth?

Sin is not a word I have often used in my life, but I think that’s how I have come to feel about people who believe they are morally superior to people because they are different. And who presume they have the right to tell other people how to live their lives, let alone get a dog.

Sin is different from disagreement. A sin, according to Merriam-Webster is an offense against moral or religious law, an action that is or is felt to be reprehensible.

Hubris is excessive or exaggerated pride or self-confidence. It is, in my view, a violation of moral law.

The ancient Greeks considered hubris a dangerous character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the Gods.

They considered hubris a fatal flaw. Someone who tells me what to write or think or who criticizes me for buying a dog is exhibiting hubris in its purest form: an exaggerated sense of self-importance and a feeling of moral superiority.

Even you, Christian, with your valid question, shows a flash of hubris as if you know better than I do what I mean to write.  Your tone suggests you think I’m just trying to glorify myself when I think it’s just the opposite. But I can’t say for sure that I’m right.

In the Greek culture, telling other people how to live or think was considered an arrogant travesty: hubris.

The ancient Greeks would not like social media.

It was the moral philosopher Hannah Arendt who taught me about the dangers of hubris and self-righteousness.

She saw the danger first hand before she fled Europe in the late 1930s and became a refugee in America. History is not shy about what these two traits can lead to.

To me, it isn’t disagreement that upsets, I am disagreed with every hour of every day, and usually quite peacefully.

I believe it is immoral to tell another person how to live, to intrude on a fellow human being’s consciousness by suggesting they are inferior or immoral for choosing to make their own decisions.

I believe people who do this should be challenged before this kind of invasive assault becomes so common it becomes the new normal. We see in Washington how this can work with lies and insults.

I shudder to compare myself to the witch-burning culture of the Puritans, but I have to face up to it. The Rev. Cotton Matter spoke my mind when he wrote than hubris and sins must be called out and challenged. Perhaps we all chose the wrong sins.

He and I do not have the same definition of sin, but I do believe in sin. I am surprised to see myself write that. I can’t say that’s a good thing.

My life has finally taught me humility, my consciousness has dragged me kicking and screaming into this idea of understanding what I do not know. I’ve learned from the many mistakes I’ve made to not be arrogant, and never presume I am always right.

I’ve screwed up and been beaten up enough times to appreciate my very small place in the universe. I am a microdot, if that, not big enough to be seen by the most powerful telescopes.

Animals are fascinating, and animal rescue is especially fascinating because it raises some of the most important moral issues of our time: Is greed compatible with morality? Is it wrong to put your own interests above those needy animals? Do we save and rescue animals for them, or for us?  Is the welfare of animals more important than the welfare of people? Should we use animals to feel better about ourselves? Should we ever use animals to hate, judge and condemn humans? Is it moral to invade the sacred and private space between a human and their animal by judging people from afar and assuming the right to tell them what do do?

These are good questions, I have no answers.

Every day, I learn more about who I am and why I do what I do. I don’t always like it either, but I am finally learning to accept it.

I am who I am.