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14 January 2008 Issue
2. Remarkable Video about Jessica the Hippo
Leafleting
Rick writes: Jenna and I leafleted the 9:00, 10:15 and noon music masses at St. Patrick's Cathedral in midtown Manhattan today. There was much security present outside including a police officer with a fully automatic rifle and several Secret Service agents as the First Lady of Ghana was attending mass.
We handed out 900 booklets mostly to people entering or exiting the cathedral and I gave one to the First Lady as well!
Personal Outreach
Susan writes: When my friend and I got together at a buffet restaurant last October, we ended up having a serious discussion about why I am vegan. She told me that as a teenager, she had been turned off by her dad's constant talk about nutrition after he converted to a vegetarian diet for health reasons. So she didn't "hear" me at first when I explained the ethical reasons why I don't buy/support/eat flesh and animal products.
Finally, though, toward the end of our conversation, the light broke through the clouds, and she started to "get" what I was saying. The breakthrough happened when I told her to look up Genesis 1:29,30 when she got home. At first she argued that there was nothing about not eating animals in the first chapter of Genesis. But I told her that when she read the chapter again, she would see what I was meant. She promised to do so.
Sure enough, the minute she got home that day, she ran to her Bible. When she read the Genesis verses that she had never really "seen," much less thought through, they opened a new world for her, she said.
Then she prayed for a couple weeks about this subject, and poured over other verses in the Bible. She finally came to the conclusion, in her mind and in her heart, that she no longer had any valid reason to "use" animals. Eating their dead bodies is in complete contradiction of her love for them, she realized -- and moreover is a violation of God's deep love of and gentle care for His creatures.
So, as a result of her newfound Biblical enlightenment, she now lives her compassion for animals. She said she no longer eats meat except on rare occasions when she feels she will offend another if she doesn't partake. I'm sure even that feeling will fade as she grows in her conviction that it is even worse to offend the innocent animals and that it is helpful to everyone in her presence when she meekly, lovingly takes a stand for Truth, for Life, for Love (three names that best describe God's nature and substance).
Learning of her new-found conviction and conversion encourages me to keep up the good fight. In saying that, I realize that this wasn't a case of me just spouting words, which don't have any power in and of themselves. It's because my friend knows that I live love -- not only for animals but for all creation -- in my daily practice that she was willing to reconsider her position. In other words, she admired my non-hypocrisy! But even if we don't say anything to others, we can be assured that our silent, clear-headed, pure-hearted, clean-handed example is rubbing off on others, even when we're not aware of it.
Surely this redeeming experience was God's doing -- not a person exerting human pressure on another person. All the power and glory goes to Him.
2. Remarkable Video about Jessica the Hippo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3NueKXS6dk
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