Finding CreatureKind was like finding a home. A home where I could bring my Christ loving, Black, Queer, and plant-based eating self to the table and receive celebration without judgement.
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Faith. Growing up, it never failed that I found myself
in a church of some kind every Sunday morning. My grandmother, a leader of
our church, used to sit in the exact same pew week after week. She loved me
and our family. For many of us, she was home and she never met someone she
did not care for like her own kin. Even more, she loved God and proudly
proclaimed her faith. When I think of a Christian, I think of my
grandmother. Her love of the Lord has taught me what means to follow Christ.
She has instilled in me a belief to be faithful in all things, even beyond
that which I can see. She was faith, and that faith also she instilled in me
and my family.
Family. I’m so incredibly privileged to be part of such a
wonderful family. I can’t stress this enough. My family is able to love each
other, to grow aside one another, and ultimately support each other without
giving it second thought or question. We gather with food, we gather because
of each our bond, and we also gather because of our faith. No meal goes
without a proper blessing to acknowledge our continued faith and belief in
the grace that God has given us for that meal. There is a rhythm to the meal
and a way in which the conversations always lead back to the heart of it:
our continued belief in God who makes sure we never had to go without, or at
least not for long.
Food. More than anything else, all creatures of God gather
around food. Food is for all; humans and non-humans alike. As food is
central to the nourishment and sustaining of life, it is essential for
healthy hearts and minds. Food—how it is produced, accessed, or
consumed—brings an impact on God’s earth and the lives of its inhabitants.
We, human creatures, at the very least owe it to the Body of Christ,
including our non-human siblings, to understand how the food on our tables
impact their lives. How does our communal plate affect the real lives of
created beings near and far?
Holidays. Gathering around special dates is important to
many of us. These times provide humans ways to consider our connections to
each other and to the rest of the world. These times of celebration and
sometimes of grief provide us essential opportunities for considering how
human and non human animals come together around the communal table. How
might we be connected to each other and to God via the food we eat when we
gather? How might the food that connects and comforts us also be sources of
comfort for non-human animals? For many people, food is comfort and food is
home. The bread of the body and the spirit of life, it is home in a way that
only home can be. How can food be home and shelter and comfort to those with
whom we are entrusted with care?
How are we able to know that change is possible if we have never
experienced change for ourselves?
When my family gathers for holidays, faith, food, and family come together.
There is always a rhythm and a pattern that, as I grew up, began to bring a
source of comfort in an ever-chaotic world. On Mother’s Day we would often
have a specific, but not so dissimilar, meal than what we would have during
the big holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas). Those holidays brought an
extra special meal following the traditional American meals while adding in
touches of our lived experiences as Black people, who like many, live on
Indigenous lands. Central to all of these meals, though, was some sort of
meat. Yes, veggies and fixings dressed the meat, but meat was always the
center of it. For many years I failed to question the presence of meat
because I thought that it had to be that way. How are we able to know that
change is possible if we have never experienced change for ourselves?
In the last several years though, I began to reexamine my own relationship
with food, mainly around what the continued consumption of animals means not
only for me but for others as well. Who suffers alongside our animal friends
before they become holiday centerpieces? I came to understand that no
life—human or non-human—enters or leaves this world without a great cost.
When any class of living being (plant, animal, or human) no longer lives,
there is an impact on all of us. Nothing is perfect, but I am not striving
to create a society that is perfect. I am striving to work with others to
create a society that is just when it comes to the lives of animals.
There are opportunities for us all here. Traditions are traditions because
we have made them so, but change and innovation are necessary for us all if
humans and non-human animals want to continue to exist on God’s created
Earth. Traditions at gatherings will need to change as care and concern for
those most impacted by animal agriculture, BIPOC growers and climate
refugees, come to the forefront. Change can start at the center of our
tables.
Food. It all means something different for me now. I want
to eat in a way that causes as little harm as possible to animals and even
less harm to those whose jobs and livelihoods depend on farmed animal
agriculture. During holidays, this means choosing to create, in abundance
and without waste, a meal that I can feel good about consuming. Change is
imminent and that is okay.
Family. My work as an advocate on behalf of all life, human or not, begins
and yet does not end with my family. It might be throughout our lives that
those closest to us may never truly understand our decisions and we may
never understand theirs. That is okay. I am hoping, though, to continue to
have the conversation about what it means to be a person of faith who takes
great care and shows great concern for non-human life. It is well within the
bounds of our faith to want to care for all living creatures. After all,
they were here first.
Faith. Faith can and will always be at the center of this
for me. Finding CreatureKind was like finding a home. A home where I could
bring my Christ loving, Black, Queer, and plant-based eating self to the
table and receive celebration without judgement. We are in a disciplined
pursuit of less. Consuming fewer of our animal kin and their products,
creating less harm. Living lives that by producing less helps all of us to
create more. That is what I am hoping for. I am hoping that we as people of
deep faith can continue to have conversations and engage with one another
about how our ethics for animals start with our faith and can and should be
guided by such.
Ciyadh currently lives in Austin, Texas. She is a graduate student at the University of Georgia. Ciyadh was raised in the Baptist church and still identifies as such. During her CreatureKind Fellowship, she is working on a podcast about Christians and how their faith supports their animal advocacy work.
Return to Animals: Tradition - Philosophy - Religion
Read more at Animal Rights/Vegan Activist Strategies