I don't talk about religion on Facebook.

 First, I read this:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-ross/an-open-letter-to-the-lutheran-church-missouri-synod/10151202745810771

And then I wrote this:

I wasn't able to comment on this letter because I read it through a friend of a friend, but I feel compelled to share it because it is so beautifully written. I don't talk much about religion or my own journey in and out of organized Christianity, but Sarah sums up not only my problem with the LCMS, but with the ELCA and every church I have ever tried to be a part of with the exception of the incredible First Congregational Church, Santa Cruz. http://www.fccsantacruz.org

I was a member of the ELCA; a church I have a lot of love for because it gave me a solid foundation and love-filled home as a young person and I won't throw throw the baby out with the bath water. Nearly every denomination of Christianity does good and great things to commend it along with the ways each denomination is steeped in hypocrisy.

(Note: Hypocrisy isn't even really my problem; we're all hypocrites when it comes down to it. That's just the way the world is set up. None of us get a free pass.  My problem is with the inability to acknowledge and accept one's own hypocrisy.)

My eyes were opened to the painful truth about my own church when I was in college. My mom went to seminary and was treated unfairly and not on equal ground with men or even other women by any means. As a single woman and single mother, she was asked wildly inappropriate and personal questions about her dating life and desire to remarry, questions that never would have been asked of a man. She wasn't given equal consideration for ordination in her chosen field of ministry as others on her same career path. All in the name of dogma and fear. (And I won't even get into the politics of homosexuality--and wasteful spending around it--in that church, but it's not something, I decided, I could continue to associate myself with as an adult.)

If it's not dogma about women in ministry or the acceptability of interfaith services, it's wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars "studying" something controversial before taking a stand for what is right. If it's not fear, it's complacency.

I love FCC Santa Cruz because they don't claim ownership of a "true" gospel. They don't force absolute doctrinal agreement on their members. They value being in relationship over being right. They value growth over certainty. The pastors give sermons about big questions and problems and don't try to provide small answers in pat Bible verses. Christ is glorified, but what that means to each individual is allowed to be personal. Communion is open to all who wish to partake--baptized or not, Christian or not. Their church service on Santa Cruz PRIDE Sunday is held walking down the streets, inviting and welcoming all to love and be loved within their walls. They take a stand in a way I have yet to find another church take a stand. I love them and I miss them.

I respect everyone's religious and/or spiritual path, except those that determine that anything different is bad or wrong. Sorry if that makes me the loathed and dreaded "post-modern" Christian, but that's how it is with me, after all I've seen in this world and all of the outstanding people I love: Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic and everything in between.

And that's really all I have to say about religion.

Follow me! :)

Quick post: I added widgets to make it easier to follow this blog via reader or email, since I don't and won't post the links on Facebook. Hence the name of the blog. :) So, follow if you want to keep up.

Also, I'm making a new blog dealing entirely with plant-based nutrition, cooking, gardening and home ec that you may also follow if you wish, and here is the link: http://veganlearner.blogspot.com/

On Veganism: Part 2 (Cats!)

Cats, cats, cats... I LOVE them. I love dogs too, but dogs are more adaptable to a vegetarian diet than cats and thus, cat ownership puts the vegan in a very sticky spot that most have not really discussed in great depth. For every bit of anecdotal evidence that a cat can thrive on a supplemented vegetarian diet, there is a horror story of a cat becoming severely ill, and suffering a painful death. Cats are carnivores. They kill animals not out of choice, and not cruelly (this requires an awareness cats do not possess), but because, unlike us, they absolutely must for survival. But domestic cats rely on us. Most, excepting maybe those who live on farms, can't hunt enough of their natural prey to sustain themselves.

It is impossible, here, to be dogmatic about vegan philosophy. The only possible solution to feeding other animals to domesticated cats is to euthanize most if not all of them. And obviously, I am against choosing to kill animals--for food or any other reason. Oh, the quandary. Technically, the way dogs and cats are euthanized is at least more 'humane' than the way turkeys and chickens are slaughtered. So if I were to outright choose the lesser of two evils in terms of pain and suffering, I'd have to admit that euthanizing house pets would be the way to go.

But. Not only am I very selfish in my reliance on my cats--they lower my stress, help my anxiety, help me sleep, and my relationship with them is as true as my relationship with any other friend--but I have to stop and wonder: if we did away with all domesticated and farm animals (note I say 'farm' not 'FARMED'), how would we form the kinds of relationships with animals that give us our compassion for them in the first place?

In his book EATING ANIMALS, Jonathan Safran Foer makes a powerful connection between owning and loving a dog (or cat) and eating other animals. Historically, and in many countries still, people eat and have eaten dogs. In the USA, we are disgusted by that idea. We were outraged at the cruelty to dogs inflicted by Michael Vick when his dog fighting scandal made newspaper headlines in 2007. Certainly many were outraged while reading the morning news over bacon and eggs for breakfast; the pig that bacon came from likely treated just as cruelly--and sharing many mental, emotional and social traits with dogs.

Once we stop soothing that cognitive dissonance with flimsy, emotion-based justifications, we understand that eating a pig is just as morally reprehensible as eating a dog or a cat, animals that we count as beloved friends and family members.

Without that point of reference, how would humans find compassion for animals at all? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a real question and concern I have.

I'm not going to deny that humans are natural meat eaters. I'm not going to deny the myriad pitfalls and challenges of transitioning from to a balanced, healthy, well supplemented plant based diet. (Many stuck in the western way of eating simply 'go vegan' by cutting animal products and increasing the unhealthy carbs they've always eaten, a sure road to failure.) But the truth, the way I see it, is that the planet is simply no longer able to support a fast-growing, meat eating human population. It's evolve into herbivores or die, basically.

Sure, if we all ate perfectly ideal meat from perfectly ideal farms and slaughterhouses (or hunted our own meat in the wild) at a perfectly ideal (ie. 10x reduced) consumption level, this would help. But it wouldn't change the fact that our population is going nowhere but up, and the planet still can't sustain human carnivism in the long run.

So there is no perfect answer. I'm a hypocrite just like everybody else. I firmly believe that killing animals for food is morally wrong, but I buy their flesh nonetheless, processed into pellets to sustain the lives of my beloved cats. I don't know what to do about that at the moment, but denying it certainly doesn't help.

I hope that by spreading a message of facing the truth about our planet, our bodies, and what we eat head-on, that I am at least part of a larger movement for a more compassionate human species.

The one where I come out--as a vegetarian-in-process-of-becoming-vegan, and explain.

Yes, it’s true. I have, after much, much, much thought and deliberation and a year+ long journey, come to the realization that animals do not and should not belong to me to eat, wear, exploit or experiment on. I’m not joining PETA because I think they are a misogynist and virulent group that does more harm in the long run than good, but I have joined MFA. (As far as I see it, it’s kind of a Black Panthers vs. Dr. King philosophical difference.)

Here is what I believe, in case you’re interested. (If you’re not, skip the next three paragraphs.)

I’ve been convinced that farming animals to eat is a huge, and in fact almost singular, threat to our environment and public health. From pollution to antibiotic resistance to pandemic creating potential, farming animals is deadly and unnecessary.

And when it comes down to it; I don’t have the time or desire to properly farm or hunt my own meat. I won’t eat from even the very best family farms, partly because it’s economically elitist (unless, as my friend Mikey pointed out, you are willing to pay 10x more and eat 10x less). And at the core of my heart belief: even if someone could hand me the finest grass-fed, humanely slaughtered, heritage breed beef for free, I would say no, and I would say no because, having the cognitive ability to choose to create and end a sentient life for my own sustenance, when I don't need to eat that food for my survival, aware that I would be causing another creature to suffer (even in the best case scenario) at least some measure of terror if not terrible pain, and I don’t believe that that it is my right. I’ve been convinced that violence to one is violence to all.

Hypothetically; if aliens came down from space with a completely different intelligence and communication style, so different that translation and communication was virtually impossible, and the aliens decided they wanted to breed and eat us humans simply because they, like us, had evolved to be omnivores, on what philosophical grounds could I protest?

First, I don’t think I’m better than you if you disagree with my philosophy on eating animals. If you have read and watched and pondered and thought about the way food is made in this country (and, increasingly, the world) and still arrive at the conclusion that eating meat and animal products is something you will continue doing, that is a very personal choice and I respect it. I don’t have to agree with you to respect the thought you’ve put into it.

What I don’t respect is refusal to learn the truth about your food and the price of it; the price in terms of actual cash (property value and and healthcare dollars) impact on poor communities that surround farmed animal factories, the price in terms of ecological impact, and the price in terms of violence and suffering.

In the words of Frank Reese Jr. (called by some “The Last Poultry Farmer” for his singular stance on preserving true heritage turkeys), about his turkeys: “People tell me it’s just too much to pay for a turkey. I tell them, then don’t eat turkey.”

Reese could not be more right. Reported inflation rates seem to vary dramatically depending on your source and what is counted as part of the “average” cost of that item.  Yet for some unfathomable reason the price of meat has not followed the inflation patterns of virtually everything else we spend money on. Not even close. People, for whatever reason, have deemed the food we eat to be of the very lowest worth.

The food we eat to form our bodies and the bodies of our children, the food we pay to have grown on our behalf which covers a significant portion of our living space—our planet—and all we really care about is a good deal. You may protest, you may choose and eat differently. Obviously, I protest! But you and I are individuals. The collective “we” has given filthy, unfathomably cruel, unsustainable food production a hearty stamp of approval.

Frank Reese charges $187 for an 18 pound Christmas holiday turkey. That’s what it is. That’s what it costs for a real farmer, the kind we all swooned about in the much talked about Super Bowl Dodge Ram ad, to raise a real turkey. To hatch it, contain it, give it the space to engage in its natural behaviors, keep it safe and fed, and give it the proper amount of time to grow to slaughter weight without its genes being cruelly manipulated. That’s the cost to slow down the slaughter plant to half speed, to make sure each of Reese’s turkeys is held and properly killed at slaughter, minimizing suffering. Every time.

I’ve never tasted one of these turkeys. Though in more recent years I bought my Thanksgiving turkeys more conscientiously (or so I believed), when I was growing up, we often had Butterball turkeys for Thanksgiving, as I suspect many of you did.

Butterball charges about $18 for an 18 pound turkey. That’s what it is. That’s the reduced cost that reflects the genetic alterations, the antibiotic overdoses (that pose an extreme threat to antibiotic use for human health), the saline injection into the bird's corpse to moisten the flesh and increase weight, the filthy and cramped living conditions, the horrific slaughter process, the thousands of diseased, trampled, screaming birds that can barely support their own weight with their legs. That’s the cost of a turkey from a factory that is currently being prosecuted and, historically, actually convicted of criminal cruelty to animals.  Workers were filmed “kicking and stomping turkeys, dragging them by their wings and necks, and slamming them onto the ground, on top of other birds or on transport crates.” The birds suffered from “serious untreated illnesses and injuries, including open sores, infections, and broken bones.” Butterball is not the exception in America—they are the rule.

I could go on and on about the identical horrors of the beef, pork, dairy and poultry industries, but I won’t. If you haven't already, I think you should watch some of the many films made about this, or read some of the many books, and know exactly what is happening to make your food. I don’t think you should avoid knowing about the cruelty you may be endorsing because it would be hard to change. I did this for way too long, and it’s not something I’m proud of.

It’s a reasonable argument that humans are meat eaters by nature. It’s not a reasonable argument that animals should be treated in this way, ever, for any reason, including your budget. If you choose to eat meat, please, please, please be 100% sure that you know where it's coming from. Truly good farmers WANT you to know. Your checkbook will know. If there isn't 110% clarity on where a product comes from, the logic follows that there is something to hide.

(Coming up soon—a follow up blog: my distraught quandary over keeping domesticated cats—who, yes, are carnivores and must eat meat to survive, yet have been bred to be dependent on humans for survival. What is our responsibility? Because I always like a good challenge to my absolutes! And I recognize that in the end, despite our best efforts and actions, we are all hypocrites. There is no escaping it, and I believe that’s the way God/the Universe intends it to be, so that none of us can legitimately get too high up on our high horses.)

On Dystopian Novels and Political Divide

As a children's bookseller at a fine independent bookstore, I get to have the increasingly rare experience of ‘hand-selling,’ that is to say, actually talking to my customers’ faces about the books I enjoy and recommend. It’s a dying art in a post-Amazon world, and I’m grateful to accept my paltry wage in exchange for doing something I’m passionate about.

As booksellers and YA readers know, one of the hottest trends on the YA shelves these days is the dystopian novel. The Hunger Games triggered a slew of grim, futuristic copycats in the same way Twilight began an onslaught of paranormal romance. When these trends hit, a big question in the minds of readers everywhere is always: why?

I thought long and hard about the Twilight effect, and spoke about it at some length in my recent graduate lecture at Vermont College of Fine Arts. In the same way, after finishing the first book in the best-selling new dystopian trilogy, Divergent, and having some interesting chats about it with customers, I found myself thinking about the whys of dystopians.

A quick skim of internet news editorials and the blogosphere provides a plethora of answers. Most have to do with young readers wanting a safe imaginary space to deal with horrific things, or the need to face the uncertainty of the future with a sense of readiness for the worst. Others touch briefly on the logical progression of the world we live in now plausibly ending up as a real-life dystopian, Stepford sort of society, where everyone falls in line, nobody asks questions, and those who have or seize power are always unrelentingly evil.

My real fascination lies in why this progression seems so frighteningly possible. How did we get here, as a nation? Why is there so much hatred and painful tension around every difference in political and social thought? You can blame technology increasingly replacing real human contact, the two-party system, 9/11 and the resulting war and recession, aggressive partisan rezoning of congressional districts, massive numbers of lobbyists. I am suspicious of all of the above, but reluctant to lay the blame down in front of anybody but me. And you. We’re LETTING “them” do it.

But when I imagine our founding fathers hanging out, creating a foundation on which to build a country, for crying out loud (much more important work than you are doing debating taxes with your friend’s sister on Facebook), I like to imagine that there was a healthy separation between the judgment of one’s political ideas and his personal character. I can imagine our white-wigged ancestors ripping each other to shreds, red-faced and blustering, as they hammered out the wording of the Constitution, and then in the evening coming together to share a brandy and sing pub songs. Okay, so maybe that’s a touch idealistic, but my point remains. I think we are willing to type things we would NEVER say, and that we are in grave peril of losing the art of making real, personal connections with those we disagree with.

Say what we all will about colonial society’s flaws, these wealthy, white, landholding men had nothing but time. Literally. Mundane daily tasks were completed by wives, servants and slaves, and there was no such thing as email. The only option our forefathers had was spending hours upon hours sitting in each other’s presence, speaking and listening. I imagine that there were genuine friendships there, in spite of differences of opinion, that there were passionate defenses and real listening, growth of mind and the resulting brilliance of compromise. I have to believe when I look at the Constitution, which most everybody—Democrat and Republican—wants to lay claim to, that it was born of that kind of challenging yet very possible relationship.

In our two-party country, a mentality of condescension and disgust, superiority and judgment, and above all, fear—the kind that makes your heart squeeze and your blood boil, that makes you feel like being in the very presence of a vocally opinionated conservative/liberal is going to make you ill—seems to lead us to quickly dismiss each other and put up impenetrable defensive walls. Whether we have the courage to acknowledge it or not, most of us write off the side we see as the enemy as stupid, lazy, ignorant and fearful. I do it all the time. Against my own will, I still think I’m right, even as I write this. It has become the poison that runs through all of our veins, and we must battle our very selves in order to stop it.

A prominent feature of the dystopian novel is the division of society into factions or sectors or states, separated by some major difference in priority or values. The solution we will eventually settle for, these novels predict, is one in which we choose to completely cut ourselves off from the discomfort of living with the Other, deciding that the only possible route to peace and prosperity is total avoidance of that which conflicts with our selves. Yet inevitably, in the stories, this system is always on the brink of backfiring. Those of truly evil nature take advantage of a society made up of groups of people who do not communicate, and in their cleverness find a way to turn each group against the others, deflecting the evil of the few onto the supposed goodness of the masses.

There are already seeds of the desire to build this kind of world, in our times. Right now. On a recent trip to Portland, I found out that there is a strong-willed minority leading a movement for Portland’s secession from the Union. They want to build a small Utopian nation where trade is always fair, food is always sustainably grown, community bonds are a primary priority, and goods are always conflict and cruelty-free.  To me; a progressive, co-op loving, DIY, recycling kind of girl, this sounds impossibly tempting on the surface. How nice to be able to build a world for yourself where you would never have to feel guilty, never have to stop and wonder if a starving seven-year-old Vietnamese child sewed the shirt you’re putting on in the morning. If your father maybe killed her grandfather, 40 years ago. To not have to worry about dangerous chemicals and hormones invading your children’s growing bodies, to know that everyone is getting their fair share and nobody is allowed to have so much wealth and power that they can keep someone else in a powerless, subservient position by force.

My problem with it, though, is that it would be an illusion. My problem with it is that I’m not willing to give up on my country and my world. I’m not willing to accept that personally opting out of being part of the problem absolves me of the responsibility to be an active part of the solution. Or if the problem can’t be solved (and I honestly don’t think it can be, not totally, and certainly not quickly), neither do I accept the invitation to live a guiltless life. Sometimes it is very important to be uncomfortable, to feel small and powerless, to cry with the frustration of your own limitations. In his powerful book of the same name, my pal Jeff Goins calls this becoming Wrecked. I call it simply choosing to remain human.

My biggest problem with the idea of the nation of Portland it is that it might work beautifully, and that others might be inspired and look to it as an example upon which to build their own tiny countries based on their own ideals. Or sectors. Or factions. Do you choose the Nation of Portland or the Nation of Birmingham? Abnegation or Erudite?

It’s easy. It’s a cheap thrill to imagine how plausible it could be to cut yourself off from contributing to the world’s problems and those you see as Other, and living in blissful ignorance, deluded into believing you are no longer responsible. Who doesn’t love the idea of a quick fix? But our human frailty will always find the way to creep back in and poison everything, as dystopian stories remind us. There is simply no way around it. There is no such thing as a quick fix. Any real progress will be painfully slow, and it is our responsibility to endure the pain. Every structure we could conceive of will fail us, except for one, and we can find the answer in every single great story that has ever been written: Love. Jesus, Ghandi, Aslan, Gandalf, Harry Potter and Katniss all teach us the same lesson in different clothing.

You have to find a way to not only ‘tolerate’ your gay or Republican neighbor, but to love and respect him as dearly as your own family.  You have to find a way to lower your heart rate and listen, carefully considering your liberal cousin’s passionate thoughts about military spending, no matter how counterintuitive they seem to you. You have to find a way to head over to your Jewish friends’ home after church to enjoy a meal in the Sukkah and stumble through the Hebrew prayers feeling like an idiot outsider, you have to push aside your disgust over a homeless man vomiting on the city bus and find compassion to replace it. You have to pick up a book you don’t want to read and read it anyway. We have to find a way to choose being in relationship over being right.

In short, we all have to do things that are really, really hard. Things that involve putting our self-worth in our capacity to love, rather than our politics, education, religion, philosophy or need to be accepted by others. We have to not be selfishly afraid of being hungry or uncomfortable or even going to hell. We have to hit the brakes hard if we’re going to save our country from breaking off into factions, from becoming filled with zombies.

I can’t exactly say I’m optimistic that this will happen, but I do know that in the end I can only control myself. And I’m going to act as I believe. I’m never going to let go of hope and faith in my fellow humans. I choose to believe that teenagers are thinking so much about a dystopian future because something deep inside of their still wide-open minds is begging them to make themselves aware of where we’re heading if things don’t change; to grow up to be stronger and braver than their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. I’m going to continue to let myself feel exasperated with my country sometimes, but I’m also going to let myself feel that pride that washes over me when I stand in front of the White House or our Liberty Bell or read the words: United We Stand, Divided We Fall. 

May Love guide our way into the uncertain future.

ETA: I just read this story and it is feeding my thinking about divisiveness and how we see the Other... it's hilarious and tragically depressing at the same time. Check it out: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/05/28/070528fi_fiction_saunders?currentPage=1

I Have Had This Idea Several Times

Will I stick with it? Who's to say. My track record would say no, but I say things can always change. I often have the burning desire to write blogs; but then I use it up and am satisfied and don't feel like writing anymore for the day. Not so good for a (supposed) fiction writer.

But I don't speak my mind on Facebook, because I figure it's good to have a voice; yes, but if people want to know what I think about President Obama, abortion, eating meat, the fiscal cliff or Jesus Christ, they'll ask me. I don't need to force my views on such sensitive subjects on a crowd made up of mostly friendly acquaintances. I'd like to keep those acquaintances friendly, thanks.

Now, if someone comes here and reads what I have to say and decides not to be my acquaintance anymore, that's an entirely different thing, because... you asked for it, y'all. Dot blogspot. Dot com.

Some things I've been salivating to write about lately: vegetarianism, American political divide, fertility issues, family, the illusion of safety and certainty, Myers-Briggs and relationships, work and employment compatibility, rude questions and honesty, and riding a bike.

If you want to read about those things (and who knows what else may strike me!), check back soon. If not, rest assured, that I will rarely (never say never!) write about these things in my facebook status. :)