Animal Advocacy News

Here is some general news about Veganism which has been cropping up on my Facebook and email lately. Each title is linked to further information and/or a way to take action.

The Turlock Hen Rescue
A factory egg farm recently shut down his facility, leaving 50,000 hens to starve to death. Animal Place and one other organization have taken the initiative to rescue some 4-5 thousand of the hens but are completely overwhelmed with the need for food, bedding, and other supplies. These people are amazing, they are giving their all to save these hens' lives. I could only donate a tiny amount, but by sharing it I have been able to get donations from some family and friends, and I hope that those who can do something for this cause will. It's not every day we have a chance like this to make a real impact on such a huge number of suffering animals. You can also sign this petition to bring the farm owner to justice.

Ag-Gag Bills
There is one in Utah which has passed the House. For those of you living in Utah, please contact your senators and let them know that this is not okay. In order for people to learn the truth about factory farms, we need to continue to be able to send in undercover investigators to document the horrors without being treated like terrorists. One such bill, the first of its kind to pass, has already recently passed in Iowa.
People from MFA are protesting it. I hope it does some good : \


Antibiotic-Resistant Super Viruses
This is the second article I have found talking about how our overuse of antibiotics in factory farms (necessary to keep animals alive in such awful conditions) is breeding new antibiotic-resistant superbugs which are now infecting humans. The first was from a German news source, Der Speigel.

Fox Penning in Virginia
Click above to sign the petition against fox penning. It's a really horrible practice... I don't see how anyone can justify it.

Horse Slaughter in Missouri
Another petition link above.

Use of Pigs in Combat Training
Another petition

Ban the Sale of Whale, Dolphin, and Porpoise meat
and another.

Dying Cattle at Sea
The practice of shipping cattle overseas for slaughter is probably even worse than shipping them by truck. 3,000 cattle recently died when a ship got stranded....

Although there are a lot of other issues and petitions to look for, I'll let anyone who wants to look them up do so on their own. There are many problems in this world and it's easy to get overwhelmed. But we all just have to focus on what we can do, and do it, not get depressed about what we are not doing.

Why VEGAN?

I've been feeling like I should write a post about why I am Vegan, rather than just Vegetarian or an Organic-loving Locavore. Why give up dairy and eggs altogether, when I could get some from a nice little family farm where the animals are treated well? For that matter, why give up meat when I could get it from a nice little family farm where the animal lived a long and happy life?

Well, first of all, when it comes to meat, I believe that no matter how nicely it's done, killing is killing, and it's wrong. Violence harms the soul of the perpetrator, making them distant from God and hardening them to suffering, making it harder for them to feel compassion. Killing something or someone unnecessarily is even worse. Since I don't need to eat meat to survive, it's completely unnecessary for an animal to die for me. How selfish would it be of me to have an animal give up its life just because I like how it tastes? My own personal feeling is also that my life is no more or less valuable than an animal's... they want to live just as much as I do, so what gives me the right to kill them or support their deaths by consuming their flesh?

It's true that milk and eggs are not created directly through killing like meat is, but that doesn't mean that death is not a part of the process. Let's start with milk.

In order for a cow to give milk, she must be impregnated. Once the baby is born, it needs the first, fattiest, and best part of the milk in order to get the right start on a healthy life. Now, some farms deny the calves this (especially factory farms, which drag the calves away from their mothers basically as soon as they're born) while others don't. The mother will only keep giving milk for 2 years after the birth of her baby, and then she must be impregnated again. So, in order to keep getting milk from a mother cow, a farmer will inevitably end up with multiple baby cows. You may think, well that's just fine, he'll just let them grow up and add them to his herd and milk them too. Well what if someday he doesn't have enough land or feed for those cows? And what if a good number of them turn out to be male? What happens to them? For most farms, even smaller ones, it is common practice for "unprofitable" babies and grown males to be killed for veal or beef. Even if that farm doesn't do it themselves, they will probably sell the babies to someone else to be killed or exploited.

Also, what happens to the female cow when she is too old to be a profitable milk cow? In most cases she will be killed rather than allowed to live out her life, because keeping her is a drain on resources.

While there may be a few places which will keep unprofitable cows, bulls, etc, they would definitely be rare and not the norm. Just try to find one.

Let's talk about eggs. Hens will continue to lay eggs even without a rooster around, so there shouldn't be any violence involved, right? Well... when a hen stops laying, will she be killed? If some of your hens end up dying (and it happens often enough because of predators and other things), and you want more eggs, you will have to get more hens. If you choose to get some fertile eggs and hatch them, some will turn out to be male. Roosters are unproductive compared to hens, only one being needed for each bunch of hens, and multiple roosters will often fight with each other over dominance in the flock. So then you are faced with the choice of what to do with the rooster. Even if you go and adopt some hens and bypass the choice of what to do with male chicks, those hens came from a batch of eggs that likely produced some roosters which may have been butchered, discarded as unprofitable or too much trouble to keep around. There are people who will give their roosters away for free on craigslist to people who want one for their flock of hens, but the reason they're giving them away for free is because people who actually want roosters are not nearly as common as unwanted roosters are.

I would eat eggs from hens which were treated like pets, meaning that they were valued for more than their egg-producing capabilities, and therefore guaranteed to be cared for even after they become unprofitable. Any roosters in the flock would also have to be treated in a similar way. I would only eat eggs under these conditions because hens do simply continue to lay eggs even without human intervention and in that case the eggs may as well be eaten. But as soon as I saw any hint of the chickens involved being treated as mere egg-producing machines instead of living beings who have a value separate from their usefulness to humans, I would not eat those eggs anymore.

Milk is more complicated because it is meant for the cow's baby. I really do not feel comfortable taking that milk from her and her baby, and I especially don't feel comfortable viewing milk as something which should be constantly available because it comes at the price of bringing new lives into the world, babies with an uncertain future, babies that will probably grow up to be exploited or killed and not valued as the individuals they are. With so many good milk alternatives I would feel very selfish if I insisted on taking a cow's milk, or a goat's milk, or any animal's milk. Humans weren't really meant to drink milk anyway... most people are at least slightly lactose intolerant and find that they get more congested when they drink milk, or have digestive issues.

Many of the other things that I try to avoid as a vegan should be obvious. Leather and fur comes at the price of an animal's life... It's kind of grotesque to wear someone else's skin when there are so many good plant and synthetic fibers.Why is it alright to wear a cow's skin, and yet the thought of killing one's dog or cat and wearing their fur is repulsive (at least for people with a heart)? Feathers are only okay to wear or use if they're just found rather than plucked from the animal. Anywhere feathers are packaged and sold, especially in large amounts, I'm sure that a bird or many birds had to die somewhere along the way. Gathering them from live birds is just not efficient enough; it doesn't make good business sense.

Beauty products and other things which are tested on animals or contain animal products are also unacceptable because if I pay for them, I am giving money to an organization which exploits animals and sees them as objects instead of living beings.

Honey is something I need to learn more about, because I don't know all the details of how it is harvested, but all the same I want to avoid exploiting even honey bees if I can. There are so many other good sweeteners. They made that honey for themselves... it's pretty selfish of us to let them do all the hard work and then take their food from them.

Wool is something I have been asked about once or twice. If shearing a sheep is really good for the sheep like some people have told me, and the sheep were kept as pets rather than money-makers, then that wool would be acceptable to use. I have heard of some farms that sell wool from rescued sheep in order to help fund their sanctuary. I would probably be fine with using wool from a place like that.

For me, it comes down to our attitude toward animals. They are not objects, they are living beings with a will to survive and a desire for love and safety and happiness. Even if I bought "cage-free" eggs (which doesn't even mean they're treated well, just not treated in the worst way) or milk from a "pasture-fed" cow, I would most likely be giving my money to someone who saw those animals primarily as economic units, money-makers. Even if those animals lived a relatively great life, if they were not loved by their owners enough that their owners would keep them even when they stopped producing, I wouldn't want to support that.

The first step toward violence is seeing the other person/animal/creature/whatever as an object. That's why racism happens, that's why war happens, that's why sexual, physical, verbal abuse happens and all other kinds of violence. Because most people can't bring themselves to feel okay about hurting another living thing unless they see it/him/her/them as completely different from themselves... they see it/her/him/them as something or someone that doesn't matter. As long as we see animals or people as objects, and think they're only valuable if they're doing something which profits us, we are making it easier for ourselves to hurt those animals or people. That attitude in itself is a form of violence.

Finally, as a side note, I'd like to mention that there are many studies which have been done that show that our planet cannot sustain itself if everyone keeps eating animal products every day. It takes so much more resources and energy to produce it, especially milk and meat, and animal products produce so much more waste and pollution than plant foods and products. Eating animal products also contributes to world hunger. So much grain is used in animal agriculture that there is not enough left over to sell at fair prices to starving people in other countries. Our apathy toward animals is causing suffering for other people as well. For myself, since I know about this connection, I feel that it would be a form of violence against both people and animals for me to continue to harm the earth in this way.

Thanksgiving - Giving Thanks for Life

Well, it's been over a week since my last post. I have been busy thinking about many other things in my life, but as I sat down today I realized that as always there have still been things happening in my life which relate to how I think about animals, and God. Thanksgiving is coming up, which is awesome because I firmly believe that gratitude is one of the biggest keys to happiness. We could all do with a little more of it, myself included, especially now while I'm worrying about the future.

One of the most basic things we all take for granted is the opportunity to keep living. Most of us, as far as we know, will wake up tomorrow with the same freedom to go out and seek our destinies in the world, to keep learning, loving, and experiencing all the things we thirst after in order to improve ourselves and our relationships with others. We have the right to live and to live happily. It's something I know I sometimes forget to be thankful for, especially when life is stressful.

I'm really excited for thanksgiving this year, not just because it is a break from school but because both my family back in Utah and my second family up here in Washington are (so I heard) thinking about or planning on having a vegetarian thanksgiving. Which means two great things, one being that I don't have to be around meat during the festivities, and the other being that this celebration of life will not involve unnecessary death. It also cheered me to hear of people leaving the local Co-Op with expensive non-factory raised turkeys, because if they're going to insist on eating turkey, at least they're not supporting this kind of cruelty.

I recently read a blog post from a fellow vegan in Bellingham (whose blog is called Vegan in Bellingham) about how she decided to give up meat because of one thanksgiving when she watched the tradition of the President pardoning the turkey on TV. I guess this happens every year--a turkey is taken out of the factory and the President formally pardons it, meaning it won't be slaughtered for meat. Whether the turkey lives a long, full life afterward is another story, but in any case I'm sure the President probably still has turkey (just a different turkey) for dinner anyway.

I wish I had the money to sponsor a rescued turkey, but it's $30... that would just be the icing on the happy cake of a nonviolent Thanksgiving. Still, I can't complain. Things are getting better all the time! *cue Beatles music*

This all hits home so much harder because recently yet another undercover video investigation of a factory farm was put up by Mercy for Animals about an egg farm which supplies McDonalds with a lot of the eggs it uses in its McMuffins and such. It's a typical factory farm from what I can see, and a lot of the cruelty charges were for typical factory practices such as suffocating the male chicks in plastic bags, keeping hens in battery cages with open sores and sharing the small space with birds who had already died and begun rotting, workers burning the beaks off the chicks. That's all normal factory procedure. It's always hard sharing these types of videos with friends because I know they're terrible to watch and everyone's first instinct is to believe that this is an isolated incident and the workers were just bad people. We don't want to believe that this is normal and happening all the time. But it is.

I know those are chickens, and I was talking about turkeys earlier, but a life is a life, so I think about them the same way. And anyway people probably eat eggs and chickens more often than they eat turkeys, so arguably the special focus on turkey in this season is just a relatively small addition to the already constant cycle of death and torment going on.

It was actually a video of an egg "farm" like the one in that video which prompted me to make the transition from vegetarian to vegan. I saw a short clip in the artistic film Baraka (a film I would highly recommend by the way. Be warned, there is no dialogue. It's very abstract but powerful.) The clip was relatively tame as far as being graphic went, but it still gave the idea of how harmful it is for both humans and animals to see living things as mere objects or numbers. In the part where the chicks are being sent spinning down a funnel to be sorted on conveyor belts, my classmates (in my Art History class at BYU-Hawaii) laughed. I couldn't tell if they honestly thought it was funny, or if it was a "that is too bizarre to be real" laugh. Either way, I remember instantly deciding I would never buy factory eggs again.

 That was about this time of the year, 2 years ago. I made a resolution that by January I would also cut out all factory dairy as well, and anything that had dairy and eggs in it that couldn't be traced to a smaller, less cruel farm. I have never regretted that decision. Do I sometimes miss certain foods? Every once in a while. But at times like this I can only rejoice knowing that my happiness and life does not have to come at so high a cost.

So, this thanksgiving, in whatever way you deem most in line with your own heart, give thanks for life. For the opportunity to keep learning and discovering new ways to be fulfilled. For a life that was meant to be lived to the fullest. For the ability to wake up every day to a new day, to seek happiness, to learn, and to comfort one another. In many ways even the most miserable times of our lives are bliss compared to the fate of some other souls. God gave life and a desire for love to all of us, and what a gift it is.

The Trouble With Caring

Hi guys. I'm feeling kind of down today, so I thought I'd try to write and see if that cheers me up.

The trouble with being an activist is that it means being discontent. There are a lot of times when I just wish I lived in a different world, when I wish I could go back to the simple view of the world where everything was okay and all I had to worry about was whether or not I could convince mom to give me enough computer time to roleplay to my heart's content. When music and art, family, friends and church were my entire world, and the world was therefore a wonderful place full of magic. When there wasn't anything I was fighting for except preserving what I already had. I was content with life.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to that sense of peace, of sanctuary. I wish I could shut off the part of my brain that looks at every experience, every book, every conversation, every meal, as something which can be socially critiqued and dissected to show the state of the human mind at any given age in history. I wish I could go to church without thinking about all the pain and alienation which is propagated by some of the ways people think about and discuss the gospel... I wish I could just focus on my own spiritual life as if I lived in a vacuum and my actions didn't affect everyone else. I wish I could think of Thanksgiving with warm fuzzies, without thinking about all the animal deaths and suffering that goes into that warm and happy family time.

But I can't. Yes, I still have spiritual warm fuzzy moments, I still enjoy holidays and spending time with my family. But it's not the same as it used to be, when I was blissful in my ignorance.

Now that I have become aware of these things, I can't just ignore them. They never completely go away.

So by opening my mind to these issues, have I doomed myself to a lifetime of never being fully at peace? Well... now that very sense of pain is my motivation. People never seek to change something if they're happy with how it is. I think in order to become an activist, I had to realize that the world as it currently is, is not the kind of world I want to live in. Things could be so much better. So the only way I can be at peace is if I feel that I am moving the world, or at least trying to move it, in the direction of that better world, where these issues will finally be laid to rest. Where violence will not be commonplace.

I think a lot of people find their peace with the world through accepting things as they are. That's why it's so hard to get people to think about certain things--it upsets their peace of mind. But if nobody was ever upset about how things were, they would never change. If all women everywhere always accepted that their husbands had a right to beat them, women would never have asked for equal human rights, and to be valued the same as men. If all slaves and slave masters had accepted that their relationship through slavery was the natural order of things, slavery would never have been abolished. Basically, if no one had ever suffered by opening their minds up to the possibility that the world is in fact NOT the way it should be, we would still be in the dark ages.

Yeah, I get exhausted by having to force myself to speak out. I am not a naturally confrontational person. I HATE upsetting people, even if maybe it needs to happen sometimes. I also am not very confident and easily doubt myself. But there is something inside me that keeps pushing. "SPEAK! SPEAK! SPEAK!"

It's annoying, but I think it's because I know I will never be at peace unless I am trying to move the world forward. I wish ignoring problems actually made them go away, but I know that life doesn't work that way.

All I can do is hope that God carries me through and gives me the strength to keep going. Because it's a lot better to be riding upright on the horse, rather than dragged by the stirrup.

Does Intelligence Determine Worth?

I need to share some thoughts, so this might seem a little disjointed at first, but bear with me.

I ran into two articles on the internet today. One was on MSNBC about three people who were keeping four mentally disabled adults chained up in a basement with only a jug of orange juice and some buckets to go to the bathroom in. I think it said something about how the perpetrators might have wanted to use their victims' identification and other information to get money or something. In any case, looking at the 200+ comments on the article, people were pretty outraged and disgusted at this crime, some saying the criminals should be treated the same way as they treated their victims.

Once upon a time, the mentally handicapped were not so well thought of in society, nor so well protected. Once upon a time, limits on a person's mental functioning also meant limits on the worth of that person's life. It's wonderful to see that this is, for the most part, no longer the case. People see the mentally disabled as real people who deserve protection and love. Varying levels of intelligence have no real influence on our judgment of the worth of fellow human beings.We see what these criminals did as unacceptable, perhaps even more despicable because their victims were childlike and vulnerable... exploiting them for their own purposes is generally agreed to be wrong.

Will there be a time when the same can be said for animals? People justify exploiting animals because human beings have a higher intellectual capacity than other animals. Smart adult animals have about the same mental capacity as human children... probably roughly similar to what these adult victims have. Animals are vulnerable and childlike in many ways. But we see them as inferior because of having less mental capacity. So, it's okay for us to lock them in concrete or steel enclosures for extended periods of time, letting them live in their own waste, without regard for their emotional health, without regard for their physical suffering. Because they're not as smart as we are. And there's money to be made off them.

Why is it different? Because we're human, and they're not? Is it just because we only look out for our own kind? How is that so different from saying it's okay to enslave people of other races, because we're white, and they're not?

Well, some people get outraged when they see videos of abuse at meat, egg, and dairy farms... but they don't believe that this sort of thing happens all the time. They think it's just an isolated incident... they say the individual person beating the animal should be arrested, and this is often true, but there's more going on than just one case of a single psychotic farm worker. They can't see, or else choose to ignore the fact that it's the industry itself which is encouraging this abuse. It's the way we think about animals. As objects. As inferior because of intelligence, because of a different physical shape or color... or something.

I wish there were some way to open people's eyes, and get them thinking. What is the difference, really?

The other thing I read today was a post from the Action for Animals newsfeed on my facebook page. As much as I dislike bringing up the Holocaust.... It talks about how some people didn't want to believe that the concentration camps of the Holocaust were real, and that it was just individual, evil officers in isolated incidents of abuse. Looking back now, most people agree that the concentration camps were real, and that thousands of people died there, because they were seen as inferior. It was the way that people thought about the Jews, the mentally disabled, and other "Others" which brought about this black mark in history.

The beginnings of this kind of tragedy still live inside of all of us. Any time we think of another living being as inferior, as an object which can be disposed of at our whims, which has no inherent value in itself... we are echoing the root cause, the spirit of the Holocaust.

So I invite you to read it, and think about it. It's not very long. Just think about it. What is the difference? Is there one?

The Article: We Can't See The Truth Through Rose-Colored Glasses.

In This Beautiful World...

So, as a disclaimer, I don't mean to offend anyone with this comic. I just had to get some feelings out, about an experience I had while watching General Conference at the institute. This was the Saturday Afternoon session.
Also, the last two panels did not happen in reality, they're just a sort of "IF I said everything I thought, this is what might happen" thing, and my paranoia about how other people respond to my veganness. It's really easy to get called a militant vegan when really you're just... being a vegan. And not even trying to be vegan in anybody's face. It's just that everybody's being non-vegan in your face... yeah okay now I'm starting to sound all cynical like other vegan bloggers and I don't mean to be, this is just for fun!
Ironically, in the Sunday Afternoon session, no one was eating chicken, but one of the speakers talked about eating chicken as an answer to his prayer.... I'm still trying to digest that one (no pun intended).

 Since blogger shrinks the picture down so that you can't read it... um. Here's a link to a big one.

A day in the life: Good and Bad

This post is a small example of how an average day as a Vegan LDS person goes for me. It's a true story, and happened today.

So, for those who aren't LDS, Institute is where college-age LDS people go on weekdays to socialize with other college-age LDS people and sit in lessons having to do with church topics. The Institute next to Western Washington University (my college) has a thing called Friday Forum. It's where people can come on Friday afternoon for a free lunch and listen to a speaker or do an activity.

Last year I only came to Friday Forum intermittently because I never knew if there would be anything other than salad for me to eat. I'm the only vegan at the Institute, so I don't expect them to plan their meals around me. I would often eat something before coming, just in case. But it was also difficult for me to sit next to a bunch of people who were eating meat. Meat is something I have a hard time being around. Imagine being in a room full of body parts. That's a little bit of how it feels. Inevitably you start thinking about how those body parts were once a living thing that was then hacked up into pieces.

But, usually there isn't so much meat that I can't stand being there. This year, we have a new missionary couple who is really nice. The first day of the class I decided to go to, "The Gospel and the Productive Life", I was the only one who showed up. Thus, by a twist of fate, I got to tell them a lot more about myself than I've ever told anyone at the Institute. I was wearing a "Vegan Power" temporary tattoo on my cheek, and when they asked me about my major I started talking passionately about Cultural Studies and how important it is to understand the lived experiences of people who are different from us... and how that works into my approach to the church. Somehow the topic came around to veganism and how that tied in to that, because it was around when I became Vegan (while going to BYU-Hawaii, an LDS school) that I was also learning how to empathize with difference and what it was like to be a minority. I was a racial minority in the town I lived in, in Hawaii... I was a minority on campus because I was a vegan, and I was a religious minority in the rest of Hawaii which was fairly nonreligious, or at least nonChristian. Similarly I am a religious minority at Western and I am also still a minority because of being vegan....

So, we got off to a good start. Today I was very touched, because they went out of their way to make today's meal edible for me. They had previously asked me to give them a small list of meals which could easily be veganized (like spaghetti with two separate sauces, burrito bars, things like that), so I had, and included a little information about Earth Balance and Vegenaise. So, we were having Hawaiian Haystacks today and they showed me that they had bought a thing of Earth Balance, Vegenaise, and Coconut Milk (the pourable kind) just for me. I mixed them all together with the rice to make it creamy and it was much more enjoyable with the vegetables and pineapple than it would have been as just plain rice. I was really glad. This made me feel welcome and more comfortable in the group. It was a wonderful positive experience which connected positive LDS values with positive vegan values.

Afterward, I was hanging out in the couch/socializing area near the doors and having a pleasant conversation with one of the other girls about favorite TV shows, bands, and books. Suddenly everyone is crowding around the doors and I go over there to find out that a bird has flown into them and was lying on the sidewalk looking pretty dead.

Someone said "that is so funny" and I said "that's really sad, it's not funny at all!"
Then this one guy started joking about how he waxes his windows really clean hoping that birds will kill themselves running into them. I said "my respect for you has just dropped by 50 percent." Which was an understatement. He said "Good!" but then continued to make jokes about the bird.

But really, this type of comment is the quickest way to make me consider any future friendship with such a person impossible. It produces the same result of horror in me as hearing someone joke about child sexual abuse would produce for most normal people who have a conscience.

I went and got a paper towel so I could move the bird somewhere else, out of the way where it could die in peace. The girl I was talking to earlier was already out there with her gloves on, and she helped me put it on the paper towel and lay it over in the ivy. When we got back the joking guy said "I like how you just left the napkin under it" and I tried to explain that I was afraid to pull it out from under the bird because if it was only stunned and its neck or spine was injured that could make it worse. But he said something like "right, don't want to pull it out and send it flying--whoops!" and laughed again.

It is really difficult for me to not feel angry when someone speaks this way, so disrespectfully. Encountering someone like this at an LDS institute is really disappointing. I understand that the church is not a collection of perfect people... but I know that the root of this kind of behavior comes from a belief that certain things or being are not worth respecting. I find it very disturbing and sad. I could hardly stand staying in the same room with this person and as I am sitting here writing this his presence across the room is still making me uncomfortable.

I guess one thing which is an obvious lesson from this experience, one which I have already learned, is that the world is not divided cleanly into black and white. It's unlikely that one can walk into an LDS institute and find it full of people who only feel Christlike love and compassion for their fellow beings, and respect for the creations of God. Likewise, it's unlikely that one can walk into a gathering of Vegans and find them all to be perfectly applying the principle of compassion and nonviolence to everyone and everything they are involved with. There is a higher standard of ethics, morality, and love which transcends religious membership or particular diets, but which should ideally, certainly influence these identities. Thus I believe it is dangerous to assume that someone in a certain religious group is morally superior to someone without religious affiliation.

We all have a lot of growing and learning to do. I am staring out the window now at the still-unmoving body of the bird and wishing, hoping, that I was not the only one who was so disturbed and saddened by how its death was laughed at. I am so grateful for the true love which motivated Sarah to help me move its body, and which motivated Brother and Sister Mumford to buy vegan foods to make me feel welcome. I am conflicted about what to do in response to what I have experienced today. My gut response is to avoid the laughing guy if I should ever see him again, because being in his presence is too painful and makes me angry... and I don't want to be angry. I know it is my duty to forgive him, but I will need a lot of help to be able to willingly be around him again.

What the world might see as being worthless, God may value very much. The worth of souls is great in the sight of God.
Matthew 10:29

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

Dreams etc.

I hope to keep this entry relatively short, though I may not succeed since it taps into a lot of really deep concepts and feelings.

Last night I had what I call a "vegan dream". I call them this because I never used to have these dreams before I became a vegan... or if I did, they didn't have the same effect on me. These dreams usually have to do with either someone being unconscionably cruel to animals and acting like it's perfectly normal... or else they have to do with eating something which seems to be made of plants and finding that it has turned into meat... or being forced to eat meat. For example, in one dream someone was forcing me to eat an entire can of tuna by itself. In another, I was meeting with a group for school at someone's house, and I opened the microwave to find that one of the guys had put a live chicken in there and turned it on... the chicken was alive but charred horribly and I knew it was going to die a slow and painful death.

My dream last night wasn't quite so VISUALLY disturbing, but it still left me feeling terrible when I woke up. I was staying with a family I don't know... there was a young man in the family who I was hanging out with, and we were tromping around in the wilderness. We passed a pool and the guy grabbed a fish and slammed its skull against a rock, killing it. And then he discarded it. And then later he was joking about killing otters for fun. In the dream, I was so upset I was yelling tearfully at him. I remember asking "how can you see them as objects?" but it was as if he didn't understand my question. There was a cultural disconnect between us. He just thought I was being completely weird and couldn't see why I was upset.

Now, you may look at that and say "well, if being vegan causes disturbing dreams, why would I want to be vegan?"

I'm writing this journal entry as a disclaimer for anyone who might try veganism and find that it is difficult. I hate telling people "it's hard being vegan" because that will scare them away faster than anything. I enjoy being vegan, and honestly, I don't have that much trouble finding the foods I need. That is not the issue. The hardest part is definitely the sadness of realizing that the world is not the way you thought it was, and knowing how the actions of good people who you know and love are still causing suffering. It's the sadness of knowing that it will be a long time before a significant percentage of the world is convinced that they can make a difference for animals and be healthier for it.

I know that people will probably look at what I've just written and call me a militant vegan for saying that non-vegans are causing suffering. I don't want to be militant. I have wrestled with guilt for making people feel guilty without meaning to. I don't want to guilt anyone into changing because then it's not a real change, and it denies them the spiritual benefits of making the choice on their own, out of love and compassion. But if I do not speak out then I feel even guiltier, because I am not doing my duty as a voice for the silent.

It is a hard transition. It changes the way I see seemingly innocent daily activities. An invitation to go get ice cream at Dairy Queen is no longer just a social opportunity, it's a moral choice... a choice of whether or not to support the treating of animals as objects without rights or feelings. Of course I can go to Dairy Queen and just not get any ice cream, in which case it becomes merely a social opportunity again, but that conflict will always be there. With it comes an opportunity to remind myself of why I chose this path. Which is more important... refusing to cooperate with violence, or indulging in yummy stuff to make things less awkward in my group of friends?

In the process of becoming more open to a connection with animals and their suffering, as well as their own intrinsic value, I inevitably exposed myself to a lot of sadness. It is the same as when I choose to engage in a relationship with a person. If that person is suffering, I feel sad. If I feel like a part of a community, or if I am sympathetic toward a community that is not my own, I am saddened when something happens to negatively affect that community. It's even more potent if I know someone in that community. So, 9/11 affected the people who died and their families the most, but it also created a huge effect within the hearts of other Americans, because other Americans feel a connection to the people in New York as fellow citizens of this country, as well as simply being fellow human beings capable of loss and emotional suffering. I began to feel that connection with the animal community, and inevitably it gives me a certain weight in the back of my mind.

I begin to see the world differently, just how prevalent violence is as a form of pleasure, fun, and scapegoating. People don't even realize it because the recipients of their violence have become objects in their minds--they don't make the connection, they don't realize that their victims have a right to happiness just as they do, that they have the same desires for love, safety and survival as they do. But it's still doing harm... because it blinds us to the obvious truth of what is right and wrong.

There were lots of times I had to let myself cry because of what I knew was going on in the world. But the good news is this... my conscience regarding animals is clear, and I feel a deeper and more fulfilling connection with them. I feel more confidence in my own conscience, my own ability to discern what is genuinely harmful to the spirit, and what I should be striving for, as well as what I should not settle for. I am learning to take the compassion I feel for animals and apply that commitment of "do no harm" to my interactions with other people, including when we are talking about points on which we disagree. That is why I feel so guilty when I unintentionally make people feel guilty for how they are living.

If I have made you feel guilty, I apologize. If I have encouraged you to think, and if I have made you feel sorrow on behalf of another creature, I do not apologize.

What's LfE About?

Hello there! Welcome to my Vegan blog. At the suggestion of a friend, I have decided to start blogging about life as a religious vegan. Part of this decision comes from my observation that there are very few blogs or websites about the experience of Vegans who are of my religious denomination (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and many Vegan blogs are full of snark due to the nasty nature of today's world.

I became Vegan because I love animals, was horrified by how they are treated, and was amazed at the incredible spiritual journey I experienced as I learned to think differently about the relationship between humans, animals, and God. Therefore I want to focus mainly on how being a Vegan has made my life better and contributed to my spiritual growth. Inevitably, I will have to share bad news on this blog as well, since the world has a long way to go before all violence against the innocent is eliminated.

At the side of the page you will see links to many websites. These are all websites which I have found helpful, informative, encouraging, inspiring, or amusing, in my journey toward greater compassion in Veganism, so I am sharing them with you in hopes that they will be helpful to you as well.

Being Vegan, to me, ties into a greater sense of conscience and social justice. I will be focusing mostly on animals, and particularly on "food animals" since they get the worst end of the deal and are the most ignored (people are much more horrified by abuse of a puppy than a piglet, even though a piglet has the same capability for pain and sorrow and is probably actually smarter than most puppies). However, I may end up posting things which have to do with greater issues of human and animal rights, environmental issues, health issues, and cultural sensitivity. I believe all of these things intertwine and they are all important. They will only change if people's hearts do.

 I chose the name Longing for Eden as the title of this blog because, as a Christian and a "Mormon", I grew up hearing about the harmony between humans, animals, and God in the Garden of Eden before the world fell into sinfulness. "Be the change you wish to see in the world", says Gandhi (one of my heroes), and that is what, as a Vegan, I am trying to do. I am trying to live the ideal way, the way we would all be living if the world was still like the Garden of Eden. Some people may say that this is a futile effort, because the world fell when Adam ate the forbidden fruit, and people's (and animal's) natures are such that there cannot be harmony or nonviolence in this life. I disagree.

I believe that humans were the ones who broke the peace between themselves, animals, and God. Therefore, we humans are responsible to put it right (with the help of God, of course). We broke it, we fix it. Some LDS people believe that when Jesus comes again, the world will magically be changed into an Eden-like paradise and no one will want to hurt anyone or anything anymore. But we also believe God will not force people to change or take away their agency. Therefore, the only way we will be ready for a world of compassion and peace is if we try right now to change our own hearts and the state of the world.

I would say more, but I'll save it for later blogs.

In any case, that's why I picked the title. Also, I like the initials: LfE. They make me think of "Life". Or "Leafy" (leafy greens being something we should all eat more of). Or even, if I say each letter, it kind of reminds me of the word "Elephant" (okay maybe that's a stretch)--Elephants are amazing animals. 

It could also stand for "Living for Eden", "Loving for Eden", "Love for Everyone" "Life for Everyone", something about Eating... because we all love Eating...

Well, anyway. This is my first time doing a focused blog, so you might have to bear with me a little bit as I learn the ins and outs. I will be sharing good Vegan products I find, perhaps some recipes, book reviews, Vegan news, and thoughts on current events.

Thanks for reading!