Recently there was a story out of England about two pigs who while on their way to the slaughterhouse made a break for it. They managed, if I remember correctly, to get under a fence and  swim across a river to safety. They were later found by some sympathetic folks who turned them over to an animal rights group, which is now keeping them in some kind of a safe haven. They were for a short time celebrities of the animal rights movement--pig heroes.

There are a couple of reasons why I am attracted to this story: first of all, I am a vegetarian and pig lover; secondly, I think the story is a wonderful allegory. It reminds me of another story:

In Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, there is one scene in which the main character, an army officer, is captured by rebelling troops. As he is being led to what is certain to be a summary execution, he, like the pigs, makes a break for it. Against all odds, he escapes.

I present these two stories as allegories of the situation we are faced with as rational human beings: We have a choice in life to make--a choice between believing or not believing in something more than the material world that is presented to our senses. If we are materialists we must be resigned to death as a final end. A personal death that will rob each of us of everything, a death that will make it as though we had never lived at all. And now, with what we know of the material world, it seems that at some point the whole universe will die a heat death, and whatever meaning we might find in it beyond our personal selves is also doomed. It's pretty grim; the "execution" not only of our own person but that of the entire world, everything we know and care about, is certain. Such a belief as that leaves one hopeless and helpless.

So, why not be like Hemingway's man of action? Why not be like the pigs? Why not grasp for any chance, no matter how remote, to salvage hope and meaning in our life. Why not take what Kirkegaard (sp?) called the "leap of faith". After all, as Blaise Pascal has shown, we have nothing to lose, but we may have everything to gain.