To My Lovely OWL Class

I could not figure out how to post the potential OWL t-shirt design on here, but I assure you all, we can create something more fun and more “us.” Let’s talk about it on Sunday.

Resources for Sharing Information and Sparking Discussion About Vegetarian Issues With Your Congregation

A Unitarian Universalist for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (UFETA) member, Charlie Talbert, shared this with the UFETA list the other day and I thought it was really well done and could be quite helpful for those that are interested. Please feel free to share with others.

Thanks for raising the vegetarian issue to your group. I’m happy to suggest some resources. Many who want to raise this topic in their congregation find that people often want to avoid the topic, which is unfortunate.

I was telling someone at GA last year about a workshop I had just attended at GA, with Doug Muder presenting. He’s a favorite Unitarian Universalist writer of mine. He made an analogy between effective advocacy and Captain Cook’s strategy for greeting island cultures that he discovered in the 1700s. Some of his crew would leave items of interest on the beach and row back out to their sailing ship. Afterwards the island inhabitants would cautiously approach the beach and investigate what the Europeans had offered them. They might then similarly leave items they considered valuable on the beach and retreat, giving the Europeans an opportunity to row back in and have a look. This careful, non-threatening approach facilitated communication and mutual understanding between these groups where who were wide apart in traditions, culture, and language.

As you probably know, some Unitarian Universalist congregations have experienced some controversy over the idea of banning meat in the congregation all together. I believe it’s ineffective to try to ban animal products at congregational functions. The suffering inherent in animal agriculture is too entrenched, too accepted by even Unitarian Universalists - who have a heritage of questioning traditions that institutionalize cruelty - to be challenged so directly.

Members of UFETA regularly share what’s going on in their congregations on this issue, and exchange information and ideas. Perhaps some members of your fellowship would be interested in joining the listserve. UFETA’s website is at http://www25.uua.org/ufeta/. Instructions for joining the listserve are at http://lists.uua.org/mailman/listinfo/ufeta

Advocacy can take two approaches that can be summed up by two words: unnecessary suffering.

It’s the “suffering” part that sometimes makes people squeamish. That’s why much of our denominational advocacy focuses on the “unnecessary” part - that shows a vegetarian diet can be tasty, satisfying, and healthy. We have presented “Cooking With The Compassionate Cooks” at my congregation here in Kenosha and one close by in Racine.

This DVD is upbeat, entertaining and full of information about nutrition, basic ingredients, and delicious but simple recipes. We have prepared some of the dishes demonstrated in the DVD and served them afterwards. We have also displayed the ingredients (e.g. tofu, seitan, tempeh) with information about where they can be obtained in our community.

The founder of Compassionate Cooks began her cooking classes at First Unitarian in Oakland when she was a member there. She is now well known in vegetarian cooking circles and has appeared on the Cooking Channel. You can see more information about her and her DVD at http://www.compassionatecooks.com/ .

Vegetarian food can be not only tasty and satisfying, it can be much healthier than a diet with animal products. People are increasingly accepting this, but the protein and other nutrient myths are still out there. No group I’m aware of challenges these myths more authoritatively than the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine. Their website offers a lot of useful nutritional information that can be downloaded or purchased for sharing with others www.pcrm.org/.

But showing the pleasures and health benefits of a vegetarian diet is not enough to persuade some people to consider their food choices. They like to eat animal products. They’re tolerant of those who don’t, but they don’t what to be “told what to do.” To them, this is a “freedom” issue, and freedom is fundamental to Unitarian Universalism. In my opinion, it’s an admirable “live and let live” ethic that - in this case - humans want to apply selectively: to themselves but not to other animals.

The moral issue is a sensitive one, but I believe it’s a legitimate one for religion to consider. In my observation, it’s usually the more conservative people who object to it the most, which is why Matthew Scully’s writings are so important.

Scully is a political conservative and former senior speechwriter for President Bush. His 2002 book, Dominion - The Power of Man, The Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, has influenced many people, including me. You can get an idea of his considerable writing abilities from his 2005 cover story “Fear Factories: The Case for Compassionate Conservatism - for Animals” for Patrick Buchanan’s magazine, The American Conservative. www.matthewscully.com/fear_factories.htm. Our UFETA chapter has made this article available at our church. The word “conservative” can spark some curiosity in a UU congregation!

Our UFETA and Green Sanctuary chapters have also displayed this pamphlet www.veganoutreach.org/cc.pdf on their table. It has drawn attention particularly among our congregation’s younger members. Vegan Outreach is a primarily volunteer organization that hands out over a million of its pamphlets every year at colleges and high schools, primarily in the U.S. Its posters were used in the two-page advocacy ads that UFETA sponsored in the UU World in May 2006 and May 2007. (This May the UU World will have a statement signed by 40 or so Unitarian Universalist ministers and seminarians.) We also make available PETA’s Vegetarian Starter Kit, which offers a concise overview of the issues and some very appealing pictures of veg food.

I would also recommend the DVD Peaceable Kingdom. It has influenced a number of people in our congregation, including our minister and her partner, who went from vegetarian to vegan after seeing it. It’s produced by Tribe of Heart www.tribeofheart.org/, and its other film, The Witness, is also outstanding. You can see a trailer for the yet to be released newest version of Peaceable Kingdom at www.tribeofheart.org/tohhtml/pk3previewhome.htm. Tribe of Heart is not distributing the older versions any longer.

If your fellowship has Christian members, then I would recommend materials from the Christian Vegetarian Association www.all-creatures.org/cva/ . Its DVD “Honoring God’s Creation” is wonderful. It includes Fr. John Dear, a board member of the CVA who coincidentally will be speaking at GA in Ft. Lauderdale on Jesus and the question of peace.

Many Unitarian Universalist congregations provide lay led services. If yours does, then members in your fellowship may want to use the opportunity to provide a sermon. Some of these are available at the UFETA website under the “Resources” tab.

As you may know, one of two Study Action Issues that the GA is currently considering for 2008-2011 is “Ethical Eating: Food and Environmental Justice”. If it is selected as an SAI, this would present an excellent opportunity for discussion in your fellowship. You can find more information about it at www.uua.org/socialjustice/issuesprocess/currentissues/55648.shtml

Thanks for taking the time to raise this very important issue in your congregation.

-By Charlie Talbert, May 2008

Privilege, Justice, and Sustainability

Over at My Moxie Life, Jacqueline writes about Why Food Isn’t My Politics (also mentioned at The Interdependent Web). She writes about how she and her family became vegetarian and…

Three years after that we moved to an intentional community in Missouri for a year. We, again wanted to experience living as lightly on the earth, community, and a back to the land ideal. It was while living with 70 other people from all walks of life that I began to shift my ideas about food…

What I began to realize was that food is only a choice for those who have the financial privilege to make that choice. It is an economics thing. If you come from a lower economic background or a definitive cultural background you will have food ideas around that. You MAY choose to break out of those ideas, but often, in the circumstances you CAN’T. You eat what is offered, and if you are lucky you are grateful.

It was the white middle and upper middle class kids that were offensively food oriented. THEY were making the RIGHT moral choice and they let you know in no uncertain terms that they were better because of it. Well, that screams of economic superiority, a bit of racism, and holier then thou attitudes.

These were CONSTANT conversations at East Wind while I was there and because of that tension and my wanting to understand where everyone was coming from I chose that food was something to be thankful for in whatever form it takes.

Education and poverty were more important to me then what someone served me at dinner.

So, we moved back to San Francisco omnivores… and have stayed that way.

I started to comment over at her blog, but the comment got a bit long so I thought I would post it here. I completely hear this idea that often liberals or other do-gooding folks go around being like, “Gosh, look at us. Shopping at Whole Foods, getting our vegetarian, local, organic food while we cruise around in our Prius. Golly, we are sure doing good by the world. Too bad there are those other people who are ruining the planet!” I know these people. I try not to be one. Probably I don’t always succeed.

So first, I want to affirm Jacqueline’s struggles with this issue and say that such struggles resonate with my experience (perhaps, um, too closely….). Yet, I think there are two important additional things to consider here.

First, I think we need to be careful not to set up a false dichotomy between “food politics”, and other (race and class or education) politics. Being attentive to the ways that our diet impacts the world around us - the natural world, humans, and other animals - is one important way to seek to live out our convictions related to compassion for suffering, non-violence, environmental justice, and human rights. Vegetarianism isn’t just all about saving the animals/lessening their suffering. It is also about trying to live more sustainably so that future humans have an earth to live on, and it is about being attentive to the ways that meat consumption, violence, the meat packing industry, immigration, race, class, food shortages, food riots, global warming, etc. are all related. Vegetarianism or veganism is, of course, not only way to address such concerns. But, I don’t see our food choices (to the extent that we have choices about our diet) as separate from bigger questions about justice, environment, class, etc.

Secondly, I struggle with the idea that if everyone/poor people/lots of people can’t do _________ (fill the blank with an attempt to be more sustainable/attempt at social justice activity), then it is a privileged thing to do and we are being too privileged/spoiled/snobby if we do this thing. I feel like this would apply to most volunteering, many if not most home energy efficiency measures, to many forms of education (expensive colleges/any colleges/many forms of homeschooling/private schools, etc.), buying organic/locally grown food, having the time and energy to grow a garden, driving a hybrid car, etc. The problem seems not to be that by doing these things (such as being vegetarian) we are not attending to the real problems like race or education, but rather that often our attitudes about our various “do-gooding” activities (like being vegetarian) are problematic.

The problem could thus be framed as the attitude that “We are doing the right thing (as privileged, liberals) while they (poor, others) are not,” rather then the problem being framed as the particular action we are taking (in the case of Jacqueline’s post, vegetarianism). If we look at it like this, the solution would not to be to stop doing action X, but to change our attitudes about action X.

For me, it is all about finding a balance between calling on each other and calling on ourselves to live as sustainably and justly as we can, while at the same time, being understanding that we can only do what we can do. I find it challenging, with vegetarianism, but also issues like hyper-consumerism, sexism, racism, classism, etc. to know how to best challenge my fellow humans try to live justly and more sustainably, while at the same time acknowledging the wide range of limitations to what each of us can do as individuals, families, communities, and countries. Certainly, to some extent, I believe all of us are called to call to humanity to be more just, more loving, less violent, and to live more sustainably, and to live out these principles in our own lives. But how much is too much calling? And how are we to do it without infringing too much on individual prerogatives, given that we cannot all do it all? And, are there different standards for calling upon fellow Unitarian Universalists, than, say, the general public?

Thanks to the post at Moxie Life for helping me to continue to grapple with some of these questions.

Tuesday Funny

I stumbled upon this and for some reason it tickled my funny bone. Just thinking of this first century Jew who spoke Aramaic somehow turning into this:

from http://photo.ringo.com/161/161348517O964703318.jpg

Murray Seems Recovered

So, our little foster cat (likely to be permanent cat since really, who wants to adopt a cat with a history of an unknown neurological disorder that doesn’t like to be touched?) Murray has almost fully recovered from what we thought would be a terminal illness. You can read about his adventure here and here (and here) if you are so inclined. We took him to three doctors and no one had a very convincing explanation for what was happening. Except that it was neurological and it was getting worse. Poor little guy just laid in his little bed by the heater for over a month. But, we treated him with a homeopathic thing (which we were a little skeptical about - how could those three little tablets somehow heal a progressive neurological condition that was causing him not to be able to walk?). But, one week later, we noticed a marked improvement. Two months later he seems almost as good as new - maybe a little on the slow side but he was never the brightest bulb in the bunch. Although sometimes our alternative health vet seems a little just like “well, just keep and eye on [whatever cat is sick]” and just give them [fill in homeopathic remedy] thus far, we have fostered over 50 cats and kittens in five years and no one has died or had to have even a really expensive treatment. Phineas was the most expensive - he had to go to an eye specialist and other stuff for $500 (which, by the way, was covered by an animal loving reader of this blog!!!) and he ended up just fine and in a super loving home with only slight reduced vision. So three cheers for alternative medicine. Of course, can I prove that the homeopathic treatments work? No, but it does seem to correlate that within a week of the treatment the little cuddle monsters get better. For more information on alternative and complimentary veterinary medicine, please visit the American Holistic Veterinary Medicine Association,The Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy or The Academy of Veterinary Acupuncture. You can also find practitioners in your area on those sites.

a prayer

I have posted a few other prayers here before and hope to do so more regularly. Please feel free to use without attribution in a religious service. If you reproduce online, please link to this blog and include attribution.

*

all of all

love of all love, peace of all peace, depth of depth

so often, in the midst of all we do, as we are washing dishes… sending email… going to work… and doing all the things we do day in and day out,

we can forget that our time here on this earth is both a gift and a miracle.

do not let us forget.

because sooner than we think, a tomorrow will come and it will be our last tomorrow and we will have missed the miracle. we will have emailed, and worked, and complained, and watched tv through the miracle.

we will have let the sunrises, the fresh air, the warmth of a bed, the taste of our orange juice, the first snows, and the cricket chirping slip by as we go about doing all of our so important things.

we will have let our pain and struggles and our tasks and achievements and our accumulation of things obscure the enchantment and richness that can be life.

love of all love, peace of peace, depth of depth –

let us find the holy in all that makes up our life.

let us slow down. stop doing. and learn to simply be.

may we find the holy in our coffee, in the spider whose lovely eight legs carry her effortlessly over her web, in the kiss goodnight, in the hot meal, fuzzy blanket, and in the chill of the dark night air. may we be seekers and makers of the holy.

amen and blessed be.

A Map of the World of Progressive Politics

The Progressive Studies Project has produced an awesome interactive map of the world of progressive politics. It is done with “The Brain” software where each “thought/idea” is linked to related thoughts. So, for instance, Barack Obama is linked to Obama Campaign 2008, Obama Campaign Literature, Trinity United Church of Christ, Harvard Law School Alumni, African-American Democrats, Progressive Community Organizers, etc. or the thought/idea Progressive Strategy Types is linked to Progressive Electoral Strategy, Green Party Strategy, Progressive Grand Strategy, Progressive Movement Strategy, etc. It is a work in progress, but should be amazingly helpful to see connections for those that are interested in how the progressive world works. The only down side is that the software has not yet enabled a search function, but that should come along soon.

PatientsLikeMe: A different sort of website for chronically ill people

This article in the New York Times profiles a new website PatientsLikeMe.com which is more than your typical online community for people with particular illnesses. As someone who struggled with chronic illness for a long time, I am all too familiar with the affirmation that comes with finding people who are struggling with the same (often undiagnosed or improperly diagnosed) illness that you are - and with the deep sadness, heartache, drama, and misinformation that often comes with people who have not been adequately treated by the traditional Western medical establishment. This new website, though, goes a step further than just providing a space for people to congregate, support, and share information anecdotally. From the Times

At first glance, the Web site looks like just any other online community, a kind of MySpace for the afflicted. Members have user names, post pictures of themselves and post updates and encouragements. As such, it’s related to the chat rooms and online communities that have inhabited the Internet for more than a decade.

But PatientsLikeMe seeks to go a mile deeper than health-information sites like WebMD or online support groups like Daily Strength. The members of PatientsLikeMe don’t just share their experiences anecdotally; they quantify them, breaking down their symptoms and treatments into hard data. They note what hurts, where and for how long. They list their drugs and dosages and score how well they alleviate their symptoms. All this gets compiled over time, aggregated and crunched into tidy bar graphs and progress curves by the software behind the site. And it’s all open for comparison and analysis. By telling so much, the members of PatientsLikeMe are creating a rich database of disease treatment and patient experience.

I think this will be particularly helpful for people whose diagnosis is with something fuzzy or not well understood - perhaps even give people with a collection of symptoms and no exact diagnosis to see that “Yes, there are people who have similar symptoms and X treatment has worked with X number of people.” This is so much more helpful than “My cousin tried this doctor in Upstate New York and she said yada yada yada,” which is very much how people with undiagnosed chronic illnesses often find relief (or not). It would be interesting to see if there is a place to include diagnosis in the tradition of Chinese medicine, since many find that this often speaks better (and better addresses) their problem when Western medicine can’t come up with much. I sort of wish that it wasn’t, in part, funded by pharmaceutical companies, but I must say that I prefer that to it being a pay-site. Although ads might be better than funding by pharma. That said, if it helps them develop better, less harmful, more effective treatments for people…the better, I suppose

On Fun

This is seriously one of the hardest questions of my life. What do I do for fun? What brings me joy? A rush? Relaxation? You know, just fun. If you go back through pictures of me as a girl, a smiling child I am not. I have always been pretty serious.

As the first year of my doctoral work is coming close to an end (only a month a half left), and I tally up the years I have been in school (twenty-three years, not counting preschool and a break from 02-03), I have come to wonder to what extent I have mistaken work and achievement for fun. Or maybe I have the wrong idea of fun, and some of us are just not wired for fun-as-typically conceived (Is writing a paper fun? This is not clear to me). I used to insist that there was too much suffering in the world and that, in fact, no one should be having fun while there was so much pain. Clearly, I have rethought this. I am all for fun and joy and enjoyment. Perhaps, in some ways, it is what makes the suffering in our lives bearable.

But I just can’t figure out what is fun for me. That doesn’t cost a lot. I like massages and vacations. But these are rare and costly. I like to sleep. I enjoy reading and school and even my work. But does this count as fun? I like to knit, but I wouldn’t say I consider it fun. I guess I am talking about letting lose, vegging, laughing, and truly enjoying it. No guilt that you are not writing your paper cleaning the kitchen volunteering at the church doing taxes or swiffering the floor that hasn’t been cleaned for three weeks.

One of the things that I really do enjoy (enjoy=fun? still unclear to me) is blogging so I am going to try to do that more. Maybe I’ll take up sky diving too. Ha. Just kidding. Oh, aren’t I funny. A riot. So much fun.

How do you have fun?

Cuddle Parties

I saw this promoted on a UU listserve and it sounds like my worst nightmare. Touching people I don’t know and probably having to talk to them as well.