An Animal World as One

An Animal World as One

Guest Author:  Christopher D. Sims
Spoken Word Artist
Unitarian Universalist

The following poem comes from me asking Christopher Sims how he experienced the First Principle Project and possible bylaw change to the First Principle (inherent worth and dignity of every being).  We added discussion questions below for your journaling or small group discussion.

In the inner city, the concrete jungle,
we are animals inside a cage surrounded
by hate and rage. We are engaged in
activities that call for peace, unity, civility.

The concrete jungle adjusts to
whoever is in office. I many ways,
it is just us. No real justice.

As a person of color in the concrete jungle
I am concerned about my sisters, my brothers.

My hermanas and my hombres just the same,
because the concrete jungle has us singing
a collective blues, feeling the same pain.

As we harmonize, there’s a jungle
with wildlife we are not connected to.
About this disconnection what should
we do?

I say we leave our lairs to go outside
and breathe deeply fresh air. Say a
universal prayer that recognizes
our collective worth and dignity. Under
our glorious sun that’s how it should be.

As the reflection in the mirror looks back
at me, I contemplate Black Lives Matter
and the plight to include other beings.
Possibly creating new language in complex
times when people of color find our voices
still not being heard.

The animals, our relatives, have feelings
too. A polluted and warming planet they share
with us. Imagine what they’re thinking
as we lose Gaia’s trust.

How do we take care of the oppressed
and protect the animals in their habitats?

The climate is changing fast so we need
to organize, react. We need to create
policies and solutions that benefit people
and our fellow beings.

 How about conversations that leads

to Unitarian Universalist legislation
that honors every being without creating
a segregation of life? I think we have it in
us if we crafted it right.

© Christopher D. Sims

February 4, 2017

Discussion Questions

  

1. Where do you feel in your life that you are caged and need liberation? What does liberation look like for you? How do you get there?

2. Where do you experience that others are caged and need liberation? What does liberation look like for others? How do they get there?

3. Where do you experience that many different kinds of people and animals are caged and need liberation? What are the oppressive forces that keep our society and biotic communities imprisoned?  What does liberation look like for all of us together?  How do we all get there?

4. Where do you feel disconnected from others, nature, and other beings? How can your congregation help you, and the many others with the profound sense of disconnection experienced by so many in modern life?

5. How might considering that all beings have inherent worth and dignity nurture you and help you connect to others, the earth, and life?

6. How do you live with tension that others are like you, and are not like you? How might erasing the line between those with worth and dignity, and those without (in human perception) help you live and care for others who are different from you? In other words, how might a First Principle Practice, as it is now, or when it is changed, help us build communities of justice and flourishing?

ON NOT EATING THAT TURKEY: RELIGIOUS SOCIALISM AND RELIGIOUS VEGANISM

Today's  Guest Author Rev. M. Lara Hoke

Minister, Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Andover, Massachusetts

Unitarian Universalist Animal Ministry Board Member

“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” ― Paul Farmer

This Thanksgiving, I don’t know what will bother my friends around the table more—that I’m a democratic socialist or that I’m a vegan.

Some of my democratic socialist friends tell me that the problem with vegans is that we don’t care enough about people and the oppressions they face. I’ve had progressive friends who support the Black Lives Matter movement say that standing up for animal rights is alienating because it suggests that we care more about animals than about people of color. To me, this makes no more sense than my right-wing friends telling me that if I support Black Lives Matter it means that I am anti-police. I support the Black Lives Matter movement and I am grateful that the police – the good ones, who outnumber the bad – would risk their lives to keep me safe if it ever came to that.

Some of my vegan friends tell me that the problem with democratic socialists is that we don’t care enough about non-human animals. They point out that although democratic socialists and other political “lefties” think of ourselves as cutting edge and historically marginalized by the establishment, it is animal-rights activists and radical environmental activists who are targeted by the establishment. Just read Green Is the New Red by Will Potter, they say.

Both groups talk about intersectionality of justice issues, yet sometimes fail to see the connections between democratic socialism and veganism.

Article II of the DSA Constitution and Bylaws states, “We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane social order based on… non-oppressive relationships” (see: http://www.dsausa.org/constitution). The vast majority of meat and other animal products comes from factory farms, which create enormous suffering for animals and those who work there. Animals live in filth, packed together too tightly to move, with no access to the outdoors. When it comes time to kill them – which could be considered a mercy killing, given their living conditions – they are not killed mercifully. Although bludgeoned or crushed, some are still alive as they are skinned.

And factory farming involves human suffering, as well.  According to the Food Empowerment Project (seehttp://www.foodispower.org/factory-farm-workers/), “Factory farm workers are consistently exposed to a variety of harmful gases and particulate matter and also suffer from repetitive stress injuries. [They suffer from] chronic aches and pains, respiratory disorders, cardiovascular complications and premature death.” Many of the workers are undocumented and thus afraid to protest unsafe and unhealthy conditions. I would like to help my vegan friends make these connections between animal and human suffering and consider that unfettered capitalism is the common culprit.

Full disclosure: I have been a vegan for about one-and-a-half years. For 15 years before that, I was a vegetarian (with occasional lapses into pescatarianism). I did not become a vegetarian because of animals at all. I became a vegetarian because I read that four pounds of grain led to just one pound of meat. Thus, more humans would have food to eat if we grew more grain for human consumption. I became a vegetarian because I learned that factory farms create an enormous amount of pollution. As Jonathan Safran Foer points out in Eating Animals, factory farming is “the number one cause of global warming, it’s responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than everything else put together and the UN has said it's one of the top two or three causes of every single environmental problem on the planet.” My vegetarianism grew out of humanitarian concerns and a desire to care for the planet. I would like to help my democratic socialist comrades make the connections between not eating animals or animal products and ecology and humanitarian concerns.

Some omnivores will claim that a vegan diet is more expensive, adding another layer of elitism. For those of us who are middle class or wealthy and living in western industrial countries, being a vegan is not necessarily more expensive than eating animal products. For low-income people in the United States, the situation is both constrained and complex. We need to fight for low-income Americans to have increasing access to healthful food options; it should be a high priority for vegans. The situation is very different in other parts of the world, where some humans need to hunt and fish and use animal products to have enough to eat. Even in places with largely vegetarian diets, there is a need for access to more and better food.

A. Breeze Harper points out that “dietary habits and food production connect to … the dismantling or maintenance of environmental racism, speciesism, ecological devastation, health disparities, institutional racism, overconsumption, and other social injustices” (read more in Harper’s book, Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society). This, in a nutshell, is why I believe veganism and democratic socialism go hand in hand. As a person of faith, I feel called to be both a religious democratic socialist and a religious vegan.

Back to the first question: Which is more bothersome to my tablemates this holiday, my democratic socialism or my veganism?  I’m not sure, but I do know that it will be easier to get through Thanksgiving without mentioning that I’m a democratic socialist. (However, I wouldn’t bet against my mentioning both.)

Rev. M. Lara Hoke is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Andover, Massachusetts. She believes, as Mahatma Gandhi said, "Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." Lara discovered DSA when she was a student at Harvard Divinity School, taking a course with Cornel West. This Thanksgiving, she is grateful that her family,including her in-laws, have been so gracious about her veganism. Lara wants all the turkeys out there to know that although she became a vegetarian for humans and the environment, she became a vegan primarily because of her love for animals.

Why I Choose the Conversation but Not the Goal (Yet)

Guest Author:   Rev. Karen Brammer

Minsiter, Fourth Unitarian Fellowship, in Mohegan Lake, New York

Green Sanctuary Manager, Unitarian Universalist Association

The mission of the First Principle Project is a beautiful thing. One of the objectives is to encourage conversations that might lead to a change in the language of the first of our seven principles. “We covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person” would expand to include non-humans as well. “We covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every being." I honor and welcome the conversation about this possible change, and I do not believe adopting the change is the right course unless and until some other things happen.

First, there may be many more UUs who embrace, at least in part, the First Principle mission, if not the objective. I think it is really possible that in every congregation there is at least one UU who has the sensibility and passion to organize others in support of a particular species of beings from butterflies to cranes, and wolves to whales. Compared to other kinds of things UUs work on, this can be a relatively ‘easy’ campaign to mount in a congregation. We love our bird and bat houses, especially as hands-on grounding for religious education of all ages. Supporting the individual beings within a species connects beautifully to many UU hearts and souls, including mine.  We/I are often very willing to contemplate and put time, sustained action and money into caring for individual creatures and species as part of our Beloved Community.

But far more difficult it seems is contemplating and putting time, sustained action and money into developing Beloved Community that intentionally brings us into right relationship across human cultures. In two decades as a UU, I think we and I have made progress. But I notice a strong thread running through our congregations as I consult with dozens of leaders through the UUA Green Sanctuary Program.

The Green Sanctuary Program requires congregations to do environmental justice projects that grow through and in relationship to people in marginalized communities. Some do it very well, but for most this is tremendously difficult for us because, too often we lack those direct, partnered connections. We seem not to overcome cultural boundaries to include marginalized communities as part of ‘our’ Beloved Community. We care, for sure. But overall, it seems we tend to contribute money as our social justice work, or do projects that do not bring us into direct relationship with those we hope will benefit from our work.

To advocate a change in the First Principle, I would need many more of us to build intentional bridges over human boundaries. Over these bridges, we can more often listen in order to be changed by the stories from the “other side”, and become real neighbors and allies (maybe through environmental work). I have difficulty increasing the reach of the first principle to non-human individuals when we have so much more intentional human bridge-building to do.

I am inspired by the dedication and commitment of our UU leaders to the environment whose collective creativity is profoundly hopeful. I adore hearing the stories when we incorporate class and race in our environmental analysis, and practice the humility and skills to be good allies. The stories that get shared enrich us all. Building leadership across boundaries is often slow and not easy, but the effort has a powerful impact on congregational life. When congregations do the work in this way, their inspiration and excitement runs somehow deeper and broader. It builds the capacity of our sight and our souls.

Building capacity of hearts and souls may be another outcome of the conversations around the First Principle Project.  Those who face environmental degradation and climate change head-on (I speak more here of working to change it rather than surviving it) have to grow our larger selves or spirits in order to face the truth and continue to respond from a place of possibility and gratitude. If we don’t, we more often operate from despair, alienate others and miss the opportunity to include them in the movement for change.

As people look at changing the First Principle, this kind of pain may rightfully surface even more. Specifically, in the environmental movement we often spearhead campaigns to ‘eliminate’ invasive species. We destroy plants by the thousands, and remove and kill species of fish, mollusks, birds and mammals in order to support ecological diversity. If we are called to honor the dignity and worth of every member of an ‘invasive’ species we decide to destroy, then the First Principle change may be problematic. Choosing to go forward to destroy “invasives” in order to protect the larger ecological systems our hearts have to grow big enough to register, rather than ignore, the implications for the individuals within the invasive species.  

Being awake in this way is overwhelming for me sometimes, and I know for others as well. I believe as a person of faith, I am called to remain open as I try to make changes in the world. To me, work for Beloved Community includes relationship to non-human beings and environment.  Building connection to people our culture separates me from is core to my understanding of Beloved Community. Each springs from the same impulse to live my beliefs and work for a better world. One without the other will ultimately fail.

So bring on the conversation to change the First Principle, knowing that we need all the conversations and actions, from as many different perspectives and angles as we can muster. It will be important though, to remember that work towards Beloved Community will likely require us to work with competing values and needs even as we seek to “affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every being”.