Practicing the First Principle

The First Principle for many is aspirational it that it calls us to an ever wider circle of compassion and greater embodiment of this vision in thought, word, and deed.  Mere will power will not suffice to change our behavior and hearts. Intellectual rigor, growing in emotional and social intelligence, and spiritual practices all contribute to the slow shift that opens our hearts, minds, and hands to greater service in the world.  We cannot merely craft the right form for the First Principle, discuss it, and recite it -  we must practice it.

First Principle practices are those that move us toward an ethic and gestalt that embraces compassion towards all that is rapidly responsive, and increasingly powerful and relevant.  The following video is one such practice.  It includes an adaption for a Zuni Pueblo prayer:

I add my breath to your breath

That our days be long

That the days of all beings

May be-long.

In this video I speak of how this practice draws us to greater love towards others, including other species, those who hurt others, and our perceived enemies.  It takes place in Honduras and involves the Miskito people there who see their flourishing tied up with the well being of their lands and fellow beings, especially the scarlet macaw they protect.  They know they must nurture all of nature if all of nature is to flourish.

What Does "Person" Mean?

There are many ways that we can use the Unitarian Univeralist Principles to guide us to deeper reflection, emodied spirituality, and action.  One of the First Principle Project's goals is to see how a change in the Principles might incorporate the worth of individuals of other species.  Currently the project is emphasizing a change to the First Principle as a means to invite engagement, although suggestions for changing the Second and Seventh have been entertained, as well as adding an Eigth.

Another aproach inlcudes leaving the First Principle as it is, but shifting how we define "person."  For philosophers, "person" is a moral category and how person is defined varies and interweaves with moral consideration, such as in the book, "Can Animals and Machines Be Persons" by Justin Lieber.  In recent times, whether animals can be considered persons has been newsworthy.  In New York state during December 2014, a U.S. court threw out a case where animal rights lawyer Stephen Wise argued that Tommy, a chimpanzee, was a person and was entitled to rights.  In this same month, however, an Argentinian court ruled that an orangutan was a "non-human person" and ordered a zoo to free him.

Regardless of how and when (and if) we change any of our Prinicples, we can use them to invite us into deeper and more compasssionate living.

May the new year of 2015 bring such to you - more joy, more love, more compassion, and more flourishing for all.

Rev. LoraKim Joyner, DVM

Taking Care of Multiple Animals Helps us Take Care of Human Animals

Because it turns out, some of the best and most humanistic medicine is being practiced by doctors whose patients aren't human. And one of the best ways we can take care of the human patient is by paying close attention to how all the other patients on the planet live, grow, get sick and heal. - Barbara Natterson-Horowitz

From multiple locations across the internet I received a link to this TED talk by human cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz.  She "shares how a species-spanning approach to health can improve medical care of the human animal — particularly when it comes to mental health." As a veterinarian myself, and as a Unitarian Universalist minister and facilitator to the First Principle Project I share the same approach as hers, and in fact, always have.  I do not see a fundamental divide between any two species, and to place humans in a category above or by ourselves limits the benefit possible to ourselves and others.  These benefits include physical, mental, and spiritual health, ecosystem health, welfare of the multiple species within our communities, and for us humans, a sense of belonging and wholeness.  Seeing the inherent worth and dignity of every being opens up a world of possibility and wonder, and of care for all. 

One of her most compelling observations in this video follows in the quote below, and I invite you to ask yourself a similar question:

How might I be taking better care of humans if I see them as a human animal?

and also

How might I be taking better care of many species if I see our species as a human animal?

I'd love to hear your reflections on this question, as well as the video (you can read the transcript here).  Your comments can be written below.

I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts and reflections, because it would be lovely to travel with you on this fascinating journey of being alive amongst such diversity and preciousnous, On our way together I believe we Unitarian Universalists will come to hear how all are called to multispecies ministry and medicine, or said another way, to the caring and healing of many species.



Rev. Dr. LoraKim Joyner 

Physicians and scientists, we accept intellectually that our species, Homo sapiens, is merely one species, no more unique or special than any other. But in our hearts, we don't completely believe that. I feel it myself when I'm listening to Mozart or looking at pictures of the Mars Rover on my MacBook. I feel that tug of human exceptionalism, even as I recognize the scientifically isolating cost of seeing ourselves as a superior species, apart. Well, I'm trying these days. When I see a human patient now, I always ask, what do the animal doctors know about this problem that I don't know? And, might I be taking better care of my human patient if I saw them as a human animal patient?

Helping Nonhuman Animals Helps Humans

Some have reservations about expanding their circle of compassion to include other species, for it might detract from the very important work humans have left to do in caring for our own species at both the individual and societal level.  As far as I know, there are no studies suggesting that helping one demographic or species causes a human person to diminish their compassion for another.  Many in fact argue that as we increase our compassion for any other, we increase the chances that our capacity of compassion for all others will also increase. We don't know this to be absolutely true, but recent studies suggest, as do many faith traditions, that it is so.

One scientific study showed that vegetarians and vegans had higher activation in brain areas associated with empathy than did omnivores when viewing scenes of either humans or nonhumans suffering.  This might suggest that empathy is associated across species lines, and those with higher empathy for nonhumans have higher empathy for humans.  Similarly, a study with children given humane education showed that empathy towards nonhuman animals is correlated with empathy towards humans.

What does our Unitarian Universalist faith have to say about the connection between caring for humans and nonhumans?  The First Principle Project's goal is to involve many in this question, with the hope of deepening faith, and increasing healing, wholeness, and compassionate action in the world towards all others. 

Here is as story of one Unitarian who exemplified how caring across species lines is related.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded by Unitarian Henry Bergh. He urged the New York legislature to pass the charter incorporating the ASPCA -- which it did, on April 10, 1866. Nine days later, an anti-cruelty law was passed, and the ASPCA granted the right to enforce it.

This step toward animal protection occurred before there were any protections against child abuse on the books. Eight years later in 1874 when Etta Wheeler sought to take action against the abuses to 10-yr-old Mary Ellen McCormack, she was frustrated by the lack of anti-cruelty to children legislation. So she turned to the ASPCA and the anti-cruelty laws they were charged with enforcing. Henry Bergh saw the girl, like the horses he routinely saved from violent stable owners, as a vulnerable member of the animal kingdom needing the protection of the state.  He arranged for the case to be argued, and it went to the NY Supreme Court, which ordered Mary Ellen removed from her abusive mother.

Bergh also prompted the formation, in 1874, of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC).

Here is a clear case where better treatment of animals helped humans get better treatment, and how one man did all he could not just for nonhuman animals, but for humans as well.

Can you think of other instances? If so, please post them here in the comment section. 

The First Principle Project is about sharing our stories, experiences, feelings, and thoughts so that together we can care for the many, including our beautiful human selves.  

May it be so.

Rev. LoraKim Joyner, DVM

First Principle Project Facilitator

For more about Henry Bergh and his transspecies work, click here and here.

For the obituary of Henry Berg, click here.

On Smushing Bugs

The First Principle Project (FPP), in operation since August 2013, has stoked conversations, reflection, and study regarding human's relation to and care of others, including those of other species.  Inviting and engaging each other in how to think and act in a multispecies world is one of the primary goals of the FPP.  We seek to wrestle with how we hold as precious the needs of all beings, without devaluing the beauty of humans having a flourishing life for themselves.  Indeed, we may come to share the understanding that human flourishing depends on seeing the inherent worth and dignity of indivdiuals of other species.

A recent article in the New York Times, On Smushing Bugs, lifts up how the FPP is about making life better for humans while considering the well being of other species, and this effort is no small thing, for Unitarian Univeralists, or for the author.  He begins by realting how insects and mice die at the hands of humans.  The author suggests that the Buddhist ideal of killing none and showing compassion to all in our actions is all but out of reach; "it's impossible even to live and move through this world without killing something....I helplessly kill dozens, if not hundreds, of animals daily with my big, dumb, blundering existence."  

For the author, though, these tragic, and often unavoidable results, do not diminish the worth of the other or the impact on humans; "A bug may be a small, unimportant thing, but maybe killing or saving one isn't. Everytme I smush a bug I can feel myself smushing something else too - an impulse towards mercy, a little throb of remorse. Maybe it would feel better to decide that killing even a bug matters.  Does devaluing tiny insignificant lives lead to callousness about larger, more important ones...?"

His grappling with this issue is what is happening when Unitarian Universalists consider changing the First Principle to the "inherent worth and dignity of every being."  How do we reconcile that they have worth when our outward actions continue to harm and maim?  How indeed....

I have no answsers to this question, other than that I am clear that taking up the question, with one another, may lead to greater flourishing and less harm for all.  In our stories, uncertainities, and yes, grief, we embody an understanding that might just heal the wounds we inflict upon ourselves thinking we are apart from the beauty of the many and the all, and hence we become more welcoming to ourselves and others humans, as well as other species.

The author ends his opinion piece with a story how he rescued some raccoons from a dumpster.  "Maybe I"m not a hero in the raccoon community. But whenever I think of all the harm I've done in this world, through cruelty or carelessness, or just by the unavoidable crime of being in it, I try to remember how I felt standing there, watching them go."   I assume that he felt good saving the raccoons, and from that action, he was also saving himself.

By caring for others, we care for ourselves.

Action with reflection leads him to seeing how he can be more compassionate in the world. This is the goal of the FPP - reflection and action woven together, ever leading us forward to a better world.

We are all caught in a web of harm and benefit - and we all subject to intersectionality, which is the intersection  between forms or systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. This intersectionality also binds us in beauty and tragedy.

By opening our hearts and minds to this reality, we open our arms to welcome each and all to belonging as worthy individuals on this planet.  In so doing, we find ourselves truly at home, with a growing spirituality, consciousness, and compassion that considers and cares for all.

Together we find a way towards the greatest reconciliation and restoration that this complex life can offer.

May it be so.

Rev. Dr. LoraKim Joyner

First Principle Project Facilitator

Please Take This Survey On Changing Our Principles

Dear Unitarian Universalists,

   Please take this survey, and distribute it widely to other Unitarian Universalists, so we can gather the wisdom and move forward with power and possibility. 

To take the survey on Facebook, click here.

 If you don't want to take it on facebook, you can take it here.

   This survey guides you in reflecting on your UU faith as expressed in our Principles, and how changing them might bring more flourishing to this earth and her beings.

   In gratitude,

   Rev. LoraKim Joyner

   First Principle Project Facilitator

Norman Phelps Speaks on the First Principle Project

Guest Author:  Norm Phelps

Animal Rights Activist and Author (The Dominion of Love: Animal Rights According to the Bible (2002), The Great Compassion: Buddhism and Animal Rights (2004), and The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA (2007).

Excerpt from a longer blog post: An Open Letter to My Fellow UUs on Animal Liberation

The First Principle Project

Disclaimer: I have had and continue to have no involvement with the First Principle Project. I am writing strictly as an individual and the views expressed here, as throughout this article, are my own.

For the benefit of readers who are not UUs, Unitarian-Universalism is a non-creedal denomination. There is no specific set of doctrines to which one must swear allegiance. In place of a creed, we have a set of Seven Principles, which outline the commonalities that bind us together. The First Principle, a commitment to “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” is the subject of a pro-animal initiative known as the First Principle Project (FPP). Initially created by Unitarian-Universalist Animal Ministry (UUAM), and facilitated by UU minister and wildlife veterinarian LoraKim Joyner, FPP campaigns to amend the First Principle in order to bring animals as individuals clearly and plainly under its protection.

Let me start by saying that as far as I am concerned, the First Principle—exactly as it is written—should provide the same degree of protection and nurture to animals that it provides to human beings. As I explained earlier, nonhuman animals—especially the mammals, birds, and fish that we enjoy eating—are people in every meaningful sense of the word.

But because the preponderance of UUs view it through the frame of humanism, the First Principle as written protects only human beings. Most UUs interpret “person” as a synonym for “human” and consider our relationship to animals to be governed by the Seventh Principle, “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Thus, most UUs adopt a conventional environmental or ecological attitude toward animals and advocate protecting species and ecosystems, but not individual animals. This is a morally deficient response to the fact of animal sentience and personhood.

The First Principle Project proposes to change the First Principle to read, “the inherent worth and dignity of every being,” so that it expresses a worldview similar to what Albert Schweitzer termed “reverence for life.” Schweitzer viewed all living beings as individuals, not as species or populations, and so does The First Principle Project.

I wholeheartedly support The First Principle Project for reasons that should be clear from what I have said thus far. Because the locus of sentience is the individual, all sentient beings need compassion and respect as individuals. No one would think that so long as homo sapiens was not endangered, the enslavement and slaughter of individual human beings was morally acceptable. The same principle should hold for nonhuman animals, as well. Personally, I would prefer that an amended First Principle refer to “every sentient being,” because I fear that some will insist on interpreting “every being” to include plants and will argue that since even vegans eat plants, the consistency principle permits us to eat animals as well. This would be a misuse of the consistency principle, but I suspect we will nonetheless hear the argument made. But one of the things that makes being a UU so stimulating is that no two of us ever (or hardly ever) agree entirely about anything. And if each of us insists on their own favorite wording, we will never get anywhere. And so, I support amending the First Principle exactly as FPP proposes.

One thing that I find especially interesting about The First Principle Project website, including the Resource Guide, is that it never once states that eating the flesh of enslaved and murdered animals is inconsistent with respecting “the inherent worth and dignity of every being.” In fact, it mentions vegetarianism and veganism only in a worksheet and even there it takes extraordinary care to assure that the language is sterile and value-neutral. “Inherent worth” is quite a different matter from “instrumental worth.” When we eat the flesh of slaughtered animals, we are allotting them only instrumental worth and denying them inherent worth. To respect the inherent worth of any being, you must respect their life, and take it only under the pressure of dire necessity, as in defending yourself or someone else from attack. Enslaving and slaughtering an innocent being for one’s own pleasure—gustatory or otherwise—is a gross insult to that being’s inherent dignity.

Why this tiptoeing around the fundamental moral issue? Why this reticence where the bedrock question of right and wrong, good and evil is concerned? I do not know for certain, but it seems to me likely that the leaders of the FPP fear that a more direct approach would trigger a reflexively negative reaction from so many UUs, clergy and laity alike, that the FPP would be doomed before it ever got started. And based on my experience trying to get ethically unambiguous language inserted into the Statement of Conscience on Ethical Eating, this is a legitimate concern. And this sad reality brings us back to the larger question: Why is the UUA—and why are UU congregations and members around the country—defending the enslavement and slaughter of 65 billion innocent sentient beings every year? What has happened to us? Why did we stand still while others were moving the moral agenda forward? And, more importantly, How can we get back on track? How can we reclaim the UU heritage of moving the moral frontier forward? On the answer to that question hangs not only the fate of nonhuman people, but the fate of Unitarian-Universalism as well. If we do not get on the right side of the definitive social justice issue of our time, future generations of UUs will look back at us and see little to be proud of.