{"id":701,"date":"2011-06-18T15:30:21","date_gmt":"2011-06-18T19:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=701"},"modified":"2011-06-18T15:30:21","modified_gmt":"2011-06-18T19:30:21","slug":"beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html","title":{"rendered":"beginner’s heart and piggies, all the way home ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have a complicated relationship w\/ vegetarianism. I’ve been vegetarian at several times during my life, sometimes for as long as a year or more. But my best beloved is a die-hard meat eater (Lady GaGa is lucky there wasn’t a grill nearby, is all I can say), and he is my best beloved.<\/p>\n

Pretty\u00a0 much I gave up complete vegetarianism when I had my first child (who’s getting married next month to a wonderful<\/em> woman — that’s another story…:)). It was too hard, and I had too many other things on my mind.<\/p>\n

But I’ve always felt there’s too much death in the world to contribute more than I need to. I don’t eat huge quantities of meat, and I’m careful to buy only from sources I know: humanely raised, organic and\/or local. \"\"<\/a>Still, there’s no getting around the fact that meat means a conscious being — an animal w\/ a life — died to feed me. And I go back & forth on that sacrifice, and its relevance to beginner’s heart.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong: I have no problems w\/ anyone else eating meat. It’s almost as personal a decision as who you love :). Besides, I agree w\/ Barbara Kingsolver, in her wonderful book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle<\/em><\/a>: <\/em>she argues that domestic livestock — cattle, pigs and most sheep — won’t last very long in a vegetarian culture. Sheep fare best, as they offer wool. But pigs & cattle? They eat too much for most folks to keep them as pets. Their entire <\/em>raison d’\u00eatre <\/em>is as food. So I’m still ambivalent about no meat at all.<\/p>\n

But I know there won’t be pork any more. At least not for a long long time. The universe (and a hundred+ fearful little piggy faces) has spoken…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>See the livestock truck above? Imagine each of the perforations framing a piggy face, like the one on the left. Imagine the little pinky-white snouts pushed all the way through the round ‘windows,’ and ears flying in the wind created by 80 mph highway speeds. Young Yorkshires or American Landraces or Chester Whites — as smart as dogs, pigs are. and obviously frantic…<\/p>\n

Now put yourself in my little blue car, pacing the pig truck for miles — more than 50 of them. Watching as the squealing, terrified pigs stuck their noses and ears and rumps against the metal walls of the truck, jostled by speed and each other.<\/p>\n

One of those memorable moments when you can’t help but think the universe is talking to you. And it’s saying — Enough already w\/ the pork. Eat more veggies…or fruit.. .or…:) <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>I hope it waits a bit before I have to cut out chicken…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a complicated relationship w\/ vegetarianism. I’ve been vegetarian at several times during my life, sometimes for as long as a year or more. But my best beloved is a die-hard meat eater (Lady GaGa is lucky there wasn’t a grill nearby, is all I can say), and he is my best beloved. Pretty\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,15,41],"tags":[11,1181,1187,80,1206],"class_list":["post-701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-compassion","category-food","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-pigs","tag-vegetarianism"],"yoast_head":"\nbeginner's heart and piggies, all the way home ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have a complicated relationship w\/ vegetarianism. I've been vegetarian at several times during my life, sometimes for as long as a year or more. But my\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"beginner's heart and piggies, all the way home ~ - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have a complicated relationship w\/ vegetarianism. I've been vegetarian at several times during my life, sometimes for as long as a year or more. But my\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-18T19:30:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2011\/06\/pig-livestock-truck-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"beginner's heart and piggies, all the way home ~ - Beginner's Heart","description":"I have a complicated relationship w\/ vegetarianism. I've been vegetarian at several times during my life, sometimes for as long as a year or more. But my","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"beginner's heart and piggies, all the way home ~ - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"I have a complicated relationship w\/ vegetarianism. I've been vegetarian at several times during my life, sometimes for as long as a year or more. But my","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2011-06-18T19:30:21+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2011\/06\/pig-livestock-truck-150x150.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html","name":"beginner's heart and piggies, all the way home ~ - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2011\/06\/pig-livestock-truck-150x150.jpg","datePublished":"2011-06-18T19:30:21+00:00","dateModified":"2011-06-18T19:30:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"I have a complicated relationship w\/ vegetarianism. I've been vegetarian at several times during my life, sometimes for as long as a year or more. But my","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2011\/06\/pig-livestock-truck-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2011\/06\/pig-livestock-truck-150x150.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/beginners-heart-and-piggies-all-the-way-home.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"beginner’s heart and piggies, all the way home ~"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":728,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}