vegeater.com

Interview w/ Joe, Part 1

November 25, 2007 – 8:37 pm

Early on in my vegetarianism (What’m I saying? It is early on in my vegetarianism! October 2007 marked my one-year veggiversary.) my friend Joe asked me some questions in an email about it for a school report. It was the first opportunity I had to flesh out some of my thinking about why I’m a vegetarian, and what it means. This was approximately February of this year. Some of this has evolved, and is ever-evolving, but I thought I’d share some of what I told him then, and revisit it in my mind. Here are a couple of excerpts in which I try to explain why I’m a vegetarian, and some of the path that brought me to it:

When did you first think about being a vegetarian, or begin to really like the idea?

Several years ago I was having some health problems and I began to read books and learn that food is important. I believe that eating is an intimate way we relate to the earth and engage in being human. So I began to think about where food comes from, and what is put into it or taken out, and food’s effects on our health and the environment, as well as the workers who produce it. And I changed the way I ate as a response to what I learned. I didn’t think about being a veg. until the past year when I became more convicted about stewardship of the environment and animals, world hunger, social justice, and thought about what the world will be like when Jesus comes back. I never really “liked” the idea. At first I was only doing a “vegetarian experiment”.

What are some reasons that you have decided to be vegetarian?

There are many. A) I believe the meat industry is very corrupt and don’t want to be a part of it (as a consumer). I don’t think it is at all what God intended the lives of animals to be. B) Excessive meat consumption by humans is very taxing to the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, soil erosion due to overgrazing, water use and pollution, and destruction of forests and wildlife habitat. C) Livestock are being fed more than half of the grain we produce in the US, while a billion people in the world are starving; this seems silly to me. D) I’m just not sure that God originally intended for us to eat animals; I suspect he allowed it as a concession to our fallen state. More and more I think that God loves animals, takes joy in them, and gave them intelligence and emotions. It seems to me that we are much too flippant with their suffering. E) It’s a way I take Jesus’ sacrifice seriously: by recognizing that there’s no longer any need for an animal to be sacrificed so that I might live (at least not in 2007). I think Jesus died to save the world, animals, humans, creation, and that when he returns, there will be peace among us all—no death or slaughter. So being vegetarian is a joyful, spiritual way that I anticipate the peaceable kingdom of Christ.

If there is anything I didn’t ask you that you would like to say, feel free to mention it.

Thanks for giving me a chance to articulate all this stuff. This is the first time I’ve done that. I am a person who can’t do anything wholeheartedly unless there is more than one reason to do it. The more reasons, the easier it is to do. I feel like I have so many good reasons to be a vegetarian, that it is easy. It is a tangible, concrete, daily way that I

· Lessen my personal negative impact on the environment

· Identify with the poor of the world who cannot afford meat

· Extend grace to animals

· Vote against the meat industry by withholding my dollars from it

· Anticipate Jesus’ kingdom

Incidentally, we are so serious about the Isaiah 11 thing, that our dog recently became a vegetarian too. We thought, well, we are anticipating the peaceful kingdom, why shouldn’t Sula? (although we are watching to make sure she does ok physically on veg food). Someday Sula and the rabbits she likes to chase will lie down to nap together without fear.

In contemplating these questions again, I realize that so far, these reasons still resonate with me. I am learning more about how to walk in them with integrity, but they are still my reasons. And they come together like a prism– three-dimensional, solid, refracting my experience and sorting it out into colors I can understand (remember the prisms in Pollyanna?). I never thought that it would inform my worldview so profoundly. I guess that’s why I have to talk about it.