I have discovered beauty in places most incomprehensible.  I saw unimaginable splendor in the homeliness where others found only pity.  I discovered incalculable promise in overwhelming defeat, and I looked beyond the sadness to find great joy.  In the terror of incarceration, I knew boundless freedom.  There was strength in illness and purity hidden in soiled and tattered lives.  My soul was lit afire through caresses from eyes both soulful and frightened.

Is it a gift to see beyond the horrors, to know hope where none exists?  Am I gifted in a way that others are not?

Nay, looking beyond the visual to see true souls within is no gift.  Instead, it is the purist sight one may have, to stand before the forgotten and betrayed and cast light upon their darkness, providing them the love so deserved and bringing them into a home where they will know happiness always.

I will never buy a pet.  No human ever should.  It is selfishness incarnate to bathe ourselves in self-adoration because we purchased an animal and feel somehow the simple act has made us brave and selfless.

The true act of love is in adopting the animals in which no one else can find potential, those creatures cursed at birth with uncaring people who thrust them out into the world without care or affection, leaving them to the whims of humanity and nature.  Anyone can walk into a store full of milled animals and purchase one without regard for its origins, demonstrating a complete lack of interest in those who require saving.  The truest devotion can only be found in those who visit a shelter and see beyond the disrepair, who see the sickly and wounded and visualize a future where that animal is loved, safe and healthy.

Indeed, it takes a true human — a humane human to understand the difference.  Rescuing an animal is the height of benevolence, yet it takes more than shallow interest in a companion to see that which cannot be seen.  It takes eyes capable of recognizing what the heart sees.  It takes a heart capable of looking beyond.