Goodbye Meat (sort of)

I have made a very dramatic decision. I am going to become a "social vegetarian." I just made that up. I never thought I would come to this...I even secretly resented "vegetarians" and their foolishness for abstain from the trancendant delights of meat.

Until last night.

I was driving our family to house church and saw a cat in the middle of the road. It had one leg raised into the air, swinging around, reaching. It had been hit and was writhing around in the middle of the street. It almost made me sick right there. I was at first horrified at the sight. And then I become intensely angry at myself for not showing mercy to the animal...I was too cowardly. What struck me most about this was how unnecessary it was. We don't NEED to drive around in our cars killing animals. We don't NEED to. Humans might be dying from just our need for gas...but I'm not sure of that. I do know that many people die each year from car accidents...it's not necessary.

So what the heck does this have to do with eating meat? Well...like I said, I was mad...my first instinct was to say something crazy like "we aren't going to own a car anymore!" which would have been...crazy. (Maybe some day.) What did grow from this was the intense sorrow I felt for that animal...one of God's creatures...that didn't NEED to die. Well...I do know that our consumption of meat results in an incredibly unnecessary waste of animal well being and life. I don't doubt that the meat on sale in the grocery store is the end of that gruesome trail. I couldn't bring myself to take responsibility for that cat's life. I can take responsibility for what I eat. It's very simple.

I later went back with a shovel and a box... cleaned the cat (who had by then been hit several more times) off the street and dumped him off a bridge into the river.

I decided that from now on, if I don't KNOW where the meat came from, KNOW that the animals had decent lives...lived well (for animals), and know that the people who raised and killed them actually cared a little for them... I won't eat it. That means for convenience sake, I will probably now just tell people I am vegetarian...

I will still eat meat, if I can take the responsibility to enter into that relationship with the animals and farmers...

By the way, I'm not saying that I think this is for everybody...I wish it where, but thats too big for me... I am not holding the rest of my family to this code...it is my own personal choice.