veggie tales

I am using my blog to announce that post breastfeeding (2 years!), I have reverted to vegetarianism again.

I find though, that I have a more relaxed attitude towards this than previously. I guess this is partly because I have spent 4 years out of the last 5 eating meat. I have a policy of eating meat when I am pregnant or breastfeeding, as I prefer to give my children the bext nutrition possible, and not take any chances. Although I think it is better to avoid meat, for humanitarian and environmental reasons, still I do value human life over animal life, and so there are times when I think it is justifiable to eat meat. Last time I went back to vegetarianism after my eldest stopped feeding, I was much more back and white about it, but this time, I have not been as rigid. I eased myself back on, rather than say, have to go do a new grocery shop immediately, and I have been OK with friends feeding me meat, as they wouldn't know I was back to being veggie, though if they asked I did say I was veggie again. And I have allowed myself to have the occasional bit of fish. I think I am seeing my actions in the big picture - that if for some reason some meat passes my lips on the odd occasion, it won't detract from the good I am trying to do with my vegetarianism.

What I don't consider a reason, though, is my convenience - so it is back to cooking some double meals - with meat for others and none for myself.

piccie from freefoto.com

A simpler approach to ethics

On Australia Day I discussed 2 ethical issues with Sparky. Now, granted, in explaining the issues to Sparky, my own biases came through strongly, both because I was trying to explain simply, and because I was instilling values.

But I was struck by how simple these issues appeared to him.

He couldn't understand why anyone would buy cage eggs. It was easy for him: unhappy chickens = a bad thing. Then when I explained that they were cheaper and people cared more about that than the chickens, he wanted to know why the supermarket sold them. I explained that they sold them because people bought them. He suggested that as more people realised chickens were sad and bought the free range eggs, maybe the supermarket would stop selling them. I said I hoped so.

The other issue was the date of Australia Day. He wanted to know why some thought it should be a different day (reading news over my shoulder). I explained about the indigenous point of view. His reaction? Well, why not just make it a different day then? Indeed.

On that last point, I am taken by suggestions we should make it the day we become a republic --- now roll on the republic!

photo from image after

The right date?

Happy Australia Day! I am celebrating being Australian today, something I am very proud of. But today is not a happy day for indigenous Australians. Today for them is Invasion day, as the date commemorates the day the First Fleet landed. I agree with Australian of the Year Mick Dodson that a better date could be found.

He suggests Feb 13, the anniversary of The Apology. I like the symbolism of this, but I can understand that some others may not find this date as agreeable. Perhaps another date could be found that could be agreed upon. But let us have a conversation about it.

Feb 13 would be great for other less noble reasons - we could have a long weekend sometimes near Valentine's Day, and also near my wedding anniversary (Feb 10).

photo from Flicker used under this licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Australia stops to say sorry

I wonder whether today will be another one of those moments “I can remember where I was when”.

I was at home with my kids watching the televised apology. If you aren’t aussie, and want to know what was going on today here , go visit this site http://www.sgalliance.org.au/

About time. Although I found some of Brendan Nelson’s inclusions in his speech today odd, to say the least (didn’t he know today was about saying sorry? Not to quibble over policy, for instance?) – how wonderful was it to see both sides of parliament join in the apology today, especially there was a time there when we thought we would never see it happen?

Yes, so much more needs to be done. But sorry is always a very good start. Even my 3 year old could understand that as I explained it to him this morning.

I added my apology to my facebook status today, and I join many other bloggers in adding a sorry post too. You hear people say that they weren’t responsible. Well, I am Australian, and my country was responsible – for that I am deeply sorry. I am also a white anglo-saxon Australian – I personally benefit from the social inequity in our society in which an indigenous person may expect 17 less years of life on average. For that I am very sorry.

You also hear people say that the past generations who were responsible had good intentions. There are a couple of things to say to that. Firstly, it wasn’t that long ago. The policies that resulted in the stolen generations only ended about 1970. Secondly, people of good intention need to always be ready to say sorry when they cause harm, even if they did not mean to. Their intentions may somewhat explain what happened, but they do not excuse it. I am the descendent of Australians who lived when those policies were operative. I apologise for them. I do not know what they did at the time, whether they were actively involved or they passively made no protest. But whether they actively harmed or passively did not help, either sin needs an apology.

I want to tell you about my Grandma, dead now for almost 25 years. She was a loving, generous, sacrificial Christian woman. She was known for this. I remember how I thought as a child I had an extra Uncle, and I only discovered later that he was a man my grandmother took in to help him out – supposedly for 6 weeks, but it turned into years. There are many other stories like this. She was conservative politically, and I would not be surprised if she thought these policies were a good idea at the time. Certainly though, she voted for governments that enacted these policies. She was a woman of good intentions, and I’m pretty sure I know what she would want to do if she had the knowledge we have today. I’m pretty sure she would want to say sorry. As her granddaughter, I say sorry.

Now, lets try to make things better.

Goats and pills

A cyber friend recently blogged about the ethics of those charity gift catalogues (such as the world's most useful gift catalogue) from which you can buy a gift for someone you know but in reality the gift goes to a person or community in need (eg goat, medical supplies)while the person just gets a card telling them money has been given on their behalf. These catalogues have proliferated recently, I guess because this is a chance of having some of the money that flows around at Christmas rather than all of it swelling the coffers of multinationals - and fair enough really, on their part. I wrote a lengthy comment and thought I would share it and also expand on it, as it has been something on my mind.

Here is my original comment:
"I have thought about this and I am ambivalent - so much so that I haven't done it. It strikes me that giving money that is NOT earmarked for someone else's gift is more charitable - money you would have spent on yourself. Giving the money you would have given to someone else anyway strikes me as wanting to have your cake and eat it to - to not sacrifice anything for yourself but still be seen as charitable. Perhaps then the card idea is better, though it still has the trumpeting your own goodness thing about it. On the other hand, I expect the people who got the much needed goat or medical supplies, really don't care how the money was given - so if this strategy means more money when it is needed, then maybe it is a good thing. I suspect the better way to do it might be to: tell people you want presents given to you to be charity ones OR to give money you have received as a present to charity (as long as the giver is happy with this). And then I think that it isn't wrong to get some nice gifts at Christmas either - God intended for us to enjoy his creation. So a hard question all told......"

In addition, I would like to say that what prevents me from getting all self righteous about this issue though is that this stategy does see money reach those who desperately need it. And I don't think I give enough to these people. So, when I start do that, maybe I can get self righteous about it! So if anyone does do this on my behalf, I will try to accept the gift humbly and with thanks for those who needed it more than me! though maybe not if it is an anniversary gift from my husband :).

I are very bryght

Well, after some attempts, I have now managed to get the perfect score (50) on the vocab test game I mentioned a couple of posts back that gives rice to the hungry.
This says that I have:
a) an amazing vocab
b) a heart for the hungry
c) an amazing ability to waste time
d) a self esteem that needs shoring up through proving myself in games of limited application in the outside world...........
ahh! but the sense of achievement feels so good................
well, I was having some downtime from looking after a sick Owl all day, as he projectile vomited in the morning, all over me, twice. which also explains why Sparky went to bed with a sore tum last night. Plus tonight we had a blackout when I was putting them to bed (but the power is back on for House on tv tonight yay!).

Help is just a click away

One of the funny little byproducts of the Internet is charity clicking - basically how it works is you go on to a charity site and click a button and this donates to the charity - the donation is given by advertisers to the site (so you also help the longevity of charity clicking by visiting these advertisers at least once in a while or otherwise they will decide it isn't worth the money).
I've known about this site -the hunger site - for years - it is the original charity click site since 1999. It has expanded and now also has affiliated sites for breast cancer literacy, child health, the rainforest and animal rescue.

There are now tonnes of them - so you now find sites that produce directories of them (and also enable you to bulk click - though again, this practice makes it even more likely that charity clicking will become unprofitable for advertisers, unless you do visit them occasionally as well).

I go through stages - sometimes I am a committed clicker, and at other times very infrequent - it does cost my time, and you have to weigh up your time constraints versus actual beneficial outcome - some sites seem to be more generous than others - more cash for your click if you like. Also, it can lead to a feeling of having done your bit just by clicking, when you should also put your hand in your own pocket!

Clicking is not very exciting though so a new site a friend had on her blog (2nd ref to this blog in 2 days!) is the answer to that (though way too addictive and definitely is catering to your pride, which may not be a good idea) - its called Free Rice, and you test your vocab and each word correct donates rice. And yes, this is boasting - I have managed so far to get to a rating of 47/50 (48/50 now)... see BBC news service for an article on this game.

Slavery alive and kicking

I had just typed a whole post on this in word and lost it. But I feel strongly about this, so here we go again. I have just been looking into this in my sermon preparation for Micah 6:6-8:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

I have been thinking about this recently, because of reading about a movie out called the jammed about the sex slavery trade in Australia, a film which has been struggling to find distribution, and also because a friend asked me to join a group on Facebook against human trafficking.

Here are some sobering stats:
27 Million estimated slaves worldwide
1.2 million estimated children trafficked every year
1000 estimated sex slaves in Australia - the extent of all forms of slavery in Australia is not known - yes read that again - slavery exists in Australia today!

Another recent film, that I haven't yet seen but would like to (Besides the important and engrossing subject matter, the adorable Ioan Gruffudd is in it), Amazing Grace, looks at the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade 200 years ago, an achievement Christians can be proud to have been important change agents in. But we cannot rest on our laurels! When we understand the value given to human beings in the Bible, that we are in the image of God, we should not be content until slavery has been abolished everywhere.

What can you do? start by looking at these websites:

The antislavery project
Stop the Traffik
World Vision Australia