integration

My astrologically-inclined friends know me as the quintessence of a Gemini: two halves wrestling. Here are the two questions that I'm grappling with today. It may not seem immediately apparent, but they are connected.

First, I'm trying to define myself within my, for lack of a better explanation, faith community. Quick rundown: I grew up secular, opted for atheism, converted to Mormonism, left the Church, and reverted back to atheism, and now, almost four years later, I find myself longing for a community of shared values.

I definitely don't believe in gods or an afterlife; I would be hard-pressed to explain what is meant by "divinity," and if Christ existed at all, I don't believe in his purported miracles or resurrection. So I'm pretty solidly non-theist.

But I've been participating with a Quaker community and that's become really important to me. They know I'm not a believer, and they don't seem to care. That's comfortable for me - to a point. In Meeting, we don't have rituals; we don't discuss God. So I'm rarely confronted with the difference between us. It's a simple thing we do, sitting in silence for an hour, then talking about whatever thoughts or experiences we had in the silence, and making plans for community service.

When I read Quaker books or history or blogs, though, I realize that I'm on a different page from many Friends, and then I get all self-doubting, wondering if I really belong there.

My atheist friends don't understand this at all. Why do you need religion? they ask. If you need community, join a softball league. Start a book club. But for the love of FSM, don't get sucked into the opiate of the masses again. And that's all well and good. I'd like to be a derby girl. I have a disproportionate number of librarian friends with whom I can discuss books. But the deepest craving of my heart to do good, to be good? I'm not sure where that fits in between body checks and The Ladies Auxiliary.

It's hard to explain what I get out of Meetings with the Quakers, since I'm so resoundingly turned off by ritual or dogma of any sort and therefore can't define my longing as being about religion itself. It's something special to sit with other people and talk about our highest aspirations for ourselves and the rest of humanity - that's all I can say about it, really.

Shifting gears now.

At heart, vegetarianism is something I've wanted since I was 7 years old; it's always been my impulse. I was vegan for about four years, until I became seriously invested in agricultural issues and opted to buy eggs from the farmer's market and then joined a goatshare. I started eating fish at the urging of my doctor, when my organ function was impaired, my vitamin D status was non-existent, and I couldn't properly assimilate protein or stay awake for more than five minutes at a time. So I started eating fish and taking a D3 supplement, and several years of vegetarian aspiration came to an end. And I did feel better.

I never had plans to eat other kinds of meat. I just can't accept that responsibility. And I've noticed recently that I don't feel much difference either way when I eat fish now, some six months later. I stopped taking the D3 supplement after a few months because the rainy season ended and I was spending lots of time in the sun. I can't afford to be tested again, but I intend to take the supplement through the rainy season every year because I never want to feel that way again. At the same time, I'm not sure that the fish is doing much good - I suspect that raising my vitamin D level via supplementation made the most difference - so I wonder if I have a reason to eat it anymore.

At a barbecue last week, a friend put a huge chunk of beef on the grill and then joked, "I hope there aren't any vegetarians here." Everyone swiveled their heads around to Jeremy and me, uncertain if that was true for us. So I said, "Oh, we're not vegetarians. We just don't eat meat." Everyone laughed, but I didn't mean it flippantly. That moment crystallized for me what I feel about meat right now.

I'm not a vegetarian, regardless of my diet, because my concern about industrial agriculture has become greater than my belief that we ought not raise animals for food. It seems that we absolutely must include animals in agriculture if we want a healthier world, for the only alternative to animal inputs of manure, blood, feather, and bone is petroleum, and that, to me, is untenable. The most important thing now, besides collectively decreasing our meat intake, is finding a compassionate way to integrate animals into small-scale agricultural systems.

It's also true that I've become a traveler of the dark side. Even as a person who doesn't really eat meat, I have much more in common with the WAPF than I do with anyone who considers Earth Balance to be an actual food. But that philosophy aims a tremendous amount of hatred and derision at vegetarians. So I don't belong there, either, because I still believe there's something amazingly optimistic and noble about vegetarianism - the idea that one not only should walk through the world without unnecessarily destroying life, but can. That concept rings my bell, even as I raise chickens and live with the fact that my roosters are destined for our friend's stock pot.

So where do these two question coalesce? They both deal with the issue of goodness, and how very much I want it for myself. I am not a good person. I am lazy and envious and I can be brutally unkind and unbearably hypocritical. But when I sit in Meeting with the Quakers, counting the minutes and listening to the ceaseless wheel of my thoughts, I realize that there's something really powerful about coming together in this way. There's something really good about it, something that makes me a better person. And I want to believe that there is a place for me, that it's simply the case that we use entirely different language to explicate the same ideas, and we can be open-hearted enough to hear each other anyway.

Similarly, there's something really good about slavishly preserving life, and wanting to protect animals, the most defenseless among us, from harm. I want to chase after this aspiration, but without dogmatic self-righteousness. I don't need to identify as a vegetarian - that's not important to me anymore. But truthfully, even with the influence of WAPF propaganda and my ideal of a localized, integrated, closed-loop agricultural system, even with my understanding that there is no life free of death, I would really prefer to minimize the number of animals killed on my behalf.

In these two areas, I am seeking integration, some way to feel comfortable and appropriate. If you have any insights, please share them. And thanks for listening.

(This post is a part of Vegetarian Foodie Fridays.)