Animal Rights and Gratefulness, for the Animals and for Each Other

Note: This is twice as long as it should be. And at times awfully mushy. Sorry. But it's what came out. And although I usually include the image attribution at the end of the post, this time I want to be sure to give credit and thanks right here at the top. The lovely image at left comes courtesy of talented animal advocate Ari Moore.

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For animal rights advocates, focusing on what we have to be grateful for in the realm of true animal rights can sometimes be difficult. I've written before about the reasons with which we are all too familiar, about the marginalization, the slow pace of progress, the magnitude of suffering and death and injustice, the seeming smallness of our individual impact.

For me this year, there have been periods, on the animal advocacy front and in personal areas both, during which I've struggled to see the good, when I haven't been able to see past the battles of the day, month, or year. But I'm working on being more consciously grateful and more consistently hopeful -- because I am indeed lucky in many ways, including in my fortune to be part of such an urgent, meaningful movement made up of remarkable people who are changing the world, a little more every day, a movement in which there is much to be grateful for.

I am particularly grateful for people like Harold Brown, Howard Lyman and Willow Jean Lyman, Cheri Ezell-Vandersluis and Jim Vandersluis, Virgil Butler, and all those in this world whose stories and paths have shared similar twists and turns, who serve as proof that any of us can begin to see animals and our relationships with them differently, to dramatic degrees, no matter where we've come from, how we were raised, or what our life and work look like today.

They are the brave, gentle souls I point to when animal ag insists, "You don't understand rural culture or animal farming; you don't know what you're talking about"; when mainstream animal welfare and sustainable/slow food insist, "The problem is factory farming; local, small, ‘humane' farms are the answer"; when anyone says, "But I could never do that -- I could never stop eating meat and cheese." The people in this movement who've traveled from one end of the spectrum to the other perhaps carry some of the greatest burdens in their hearts, but they also have some of the greatest potential to open other people's hearts and help their fellow animals in ways most of us can only imagine. And I hope they know they have the thanks and love and immense respect of everyone in this movement.

I am grateful that we live in a world in which most of us do have a choice about how we live and what we eat, that we can choose nonviolence and compassion and consistency in our values. I am grateful that month after month, year after year, it's becoming increasingly easier and less out-of-the-norm to live and eat compassionately, as a vegan, no matter where you dwell.

I am grateful for sanctuaries, for sanctuary operators, for sanctuary volunteers.

I am grateful for musicians and writers and filmmakers and innovators who take their talents and use them to advocate for a more just world, to speak for the most oppressed on this planet, and/or to show people that there are (and to provide them with) more compassionate options.

I am grateful for people like my friend Michelle, the Stop Genocide blogger here, people who pour their  heart, mind, and soul into advocating for fellow humans, but who also understand that compassion is not finite and make room in their hearts and their day-to-day lives and choices for their fellow animals as well.

I am grateful for Chance and for Mabel, who daily bring me joy and remind me of how universal our core experiences and feelings are.

I am grateful for Melvin, whose face and story I will surely think of every time turkeys come up, for years to come. I am grateful for the people who worked to give him the very best life they could, who loved him enough to tell his story, his gorgeous, heartbreaking story.

I am grateful to Kelso, whose sweet face in some ways jump-started my path from from just a vegan to an activist, whose eyes I looked into as he looked (and licked) me over, having been taken away from his mother far too soon. I stood there with him and fought off tears as the simultaneous weight and simplicity of it all hit me. How could anyone -- anyone -- look into those eyes and want to kill him and cut him apart, for a steak, for a hamburger, for a glass of milk? He was someone.

I am grateful for this supportive, interconnected community that stretches not just across states and regions, but across oceans and around this planet. Never would I have guessed a few short years ago that soon, many of the people whom I treasure most and with whom I feel the most kinship would be friends I see maybe once a year or haven't yet met in person at all, but who all share something fundamental in their hearts and a certain way of moving in this world and among our fellow animals.

I am grateful for you, dear readers and friends. Your constant flow of messages over the last 14 months, through comments, compliments, private messages, and contact off-site, have filled my eyes and my heart repeatedly. Your warmth, your kindness, and your compassion, not only for the animals for whom we're fighting, but also for me personally, have been  overwhelming. I am grateful for who you are and how you strive to live your lives. I am grateful for how open you have been to reexamining your traditions and learned beliefs and changing your ways of living, even when making those changes or facing certain truths can be difficult or painful. And I am honored that so many of you have shared your stories and journeys with me and that my words have sometimes helped to open something inside you.

Every single message has been something special to me, even when I haven't been able to respond. You have renewed my faith in the human potential to change -- and in our potential to then change the world together -- every time that faith has started to fade. You are a primary reason I've been able to immerse myself in the difficult and emotional world of animal rights daily without crumbling. I treasure each simple compliment, each note of encouragement, and each lovely message saying those incredible words -- "Thank you for writing this; I'm going vegan now" -- and I draw strength and hope from all of them. [Edit: Oh geez. How could I forget to mention how grateful I am for all that you have taught me in our comment conversations and for how you have helped me reexamine my own perspectives? For how you have increased and broadened my knowledge, with your unique perspectives and your areas of expertise and experience that put me to shame? You have done these things. And I thank you.]

And finally, I am grateful for each person who today has paused to think of the tens of millions of turkeys whose bodies other people are bizarrely giving thanks for, while unaware of (or trying not to think of) what they're actually expressing gratitude for -- I am grateful for each person who recognizes, today and every day, that tradition doesn't make something right, for each person who is taking a stand in his or her life for the millions every day whose suffering we humans disregard and downplay and whose lives we humans take, without justifiable reason.

I am grateful for much. And I am hopeful for much more.