Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
Cynthia Schaefer
[email protected]
November 2003
My Dearest, My Father, My Brother, My Husband, My Son, My Friend, My Love:
Generations upon generation of you have been told that you had a responsibility to protect and defend me, your Mother, Sister, Wife, Daughter, Friend and Love. By the millions you have marched off to war to strike against other Fathers, Brothers, Husbands, Sons, Friends and Lovers in the name of keeping me "safe". You have suffered and slaughtered to protect "our" way of life from "them". Please, please stop. There is only one thing that you can protect me from, and that is the darkness that engulfs me when you go to war. When you stand to fight, you place me in a prison darker and deeper than anything "they" could find for me. When you stand in a place of violence, regardless of what justification there seems to be, it is a certainty that I am deeply and permanently injured by your act of violence. Nothing could injure me more than the loss of your light, your being here, whole and able to share our life.
Even if you do return, with your body intact, we both can feel the cost to your soul. Can you feel the weight of my terrible sorrow at the knowledge that you bear that wound in my name? Can you imagine what it feels like to know that price you paid in my name, when the truth is that there never needed to be a single act of violence? Can you see the horrific injustice done when the magnificence that is inside you that could be creating ways for us to grow together as men and women, Muslims and Jews, Blacks and Whites is instead wasted as fodder for a conflict that really doesn't matter? If all the energy you spent bombing was spent building instead, we would already live in the perfect place. If all the time you spend trying to force another to bend to your will was instead spent trying to find your way to bend to the will of your highest good, then none anywhere on this planet would ever strike another.
Look into your heart. Look into my heart. It no longer has to be that way. If you really choose to protect me, to defend me, then set aside your guns and bombs and fists and knives. Create with me. You are no longer expendable, regardless of what your leaders may tell you. You aren't an "acceptable loss", nor does your sacrifice have any meaning whatsoever when you leave me here without you. I love you. It is only by creating a different world that any of us have a chance. Look into my eyes and know that being a man isn't about what you will destroy in the name of "protection"; it's about what you can create in the name of love.
With All My Love,
Your Mother,
Your Sister,
Your Daughter,
Your Wife,
Your Friend,
Your Love
Cynthia
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