In regards to eating meat

[Monica]

After a year? are you really sure this will be working for you at all?

My first thought when I read about Joe eating meat only 2-3 times per week was: "Cool!!! That's really awesome!"

rather than, "OMG you're eating still eating meat 2-3 times per week!"

Any reduction in meat is to be commended, in my opinion, because it is helping to reduce animal suffering, is better for one's health, and shows a desire and commitment to improve one's diet and possibly spirituality (if it's spiritually motivated, which isn't true for all vegetarians).

It's not an all-or-nothing thing. I personally embrace any efforts in the direction of healing the planet by working towards a non-violent diet.

My best friend of 30 years, and my husband of 27 years, both took nearly all that time to go 100% vegetarian!

My friend, ironically, is the one who gave me 1 of the 2 books that provided the catalyst for my going veg: Survival in the 21st Century. My friend read it and was so blown away, she bought 10 copies and gave them as Christmas gifts to all her friends! We had a little 'New Age Awareness Center' where we meditated for world peace once a week. I remember very well, when she handed out the gifts. She was so excited! She said she had discovered the answers to the diet issue. I still have my highlighted, dog-eared copy that she gave me, with her inscription "Merry Christmas Monica, 1982, Love Sandy."

Well, guess what? Sandy tried to follow that diet and couldn't pull it off. I tried too and couldn't pull it off. Why? Well because we went from typical SAD (Standard American Diet) of meat and junk, to sprouts and wheatgrass.

The shift was too drastic!

She elected to go back to eating meat, and in fact told me that she craved it and couldn't be without it, despite her desire to be a vegetarian. I settled on a middle-of-the-road vegetarian, mostly vegan, with only occasional cheese and eggs, diet.

She tried several times, throughout the years, and kept going back and forth. Finally, a couple of years ago, she had a major spiritual awakening, and after that could not stomach the thought of eating animals. This is the person who worked in the grocery store deli and nearly had a nervous breakdown in the meat freezer, because she perceived it as a morgue with body parts.

She has been 100% veg for a couple of years now, with no turning back. We remained best friends throughout, by the way. Diet never came between us.

My husband had been 95% vegetarian for the first 27 years we were together. He would sometimes go 6 months without any meat, and then he would go thru phases wherein he would eat fish (usually shrimp, which he was partial to) about once a week, socially. We never had any meat in the house, which was just as much his wish as it was mine.

About a year ago, he made the decision, quite on his own, to make the commitment to 100% vegetarian.

These are the 2 people I love the most in the world, along with my son of course. I loved and accepted them, veg or not. Both of them stayed in the 'transitional' phase a very long time, but the goal was always in view. The goal was always a given.

The question is:
can we still love and accept another even if their choices may be diametrically opposed to ours.

Absolutely! We can love and accept others, even if we disagree with their choices.

can we refrain from labelling someone STS just because we disagree?

I haven't seen anyone label anyone STS for eating meat, here on this thread.

Can we try to be non judmental?

This is a tricky one. Often, a person feels judged simply because the other person disagrees. No judgment was intended. For example, it has happened to me many times in which I'd be at a restaurant and order vegetarian food, and not say a single word to my friends about what they were eating, and they started getting defensive, as though I have judged them.

Recently, someone told me they felt guilty for eating meat, and then felt judged by me when they found out I didn't eat meat.

In both of these cases, I did nothing to judge them. I was simply being who I am. I was accepting them, even though I choose not to accept their choice for myself.

I would invite them to ask themselves why they are feeling guilty or judged! Perhaps it has nothing to do with me, but with their own guidance which they may or may not be heeding. It's convenient to say I am judging them, when, in reality, they were feeling guilty without me saying a word.

Can we try to not dismiss a Q'uo channeling as "tainted" and influenced by the meat-eating entity who channeled, just because it does not support vegetarianism as exclusively as we think it should?

If the channeling session is indeed being dismissed just because we disagree with it, then I would agree with you.

On the other hand, it is also a valid viewpoint that the channeling may indeed have had some degree of distortion. This has nothing to do with personal opinion necessarily, but is a reality when the topic has a strong emotional charge. In other words, it's common for channelings to become distorted when the channel has strong feelings on the subject. Carla would be the first to admit that, although she is very careful to stay tuned to the highest frequency, she is not 100% immune to distortion.

It is my personal opinion that that particular session had more distortion than normal, due to the personal nature of the subject. I stand by that assertion and it's not because the view disagrees with my own.

In fact, I feel the same way about another session, in which the view actually agrees with my own, but I think it's slightly distorted.

Remember: we are all behind the veil. We are all distorted. No one has the whole truth, each has a fragment of it.

Agreed! Well said!

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sometimes vegetarian argumentation comes across as if there is only one way to go. The vegetarian way. Almost as if there should be no free will on the subject.

I invite the meat eaters to try to understand how vegetarians feel about this. We feel the same about animal suffering, as we do about human suffering. Should humans have the freedom to inflict suffering on other humans?

One person's freedom ends where another's begins.

We all have free will. Humans hurt other humans all the time. But we cannot say that they have the right to do that. They have the free will to do that, but not the right.

Humans have the free will to eat animals, just as they have the free will to hurt other humans. That is a fact and cannot be disputed.

Whether they have the right to do that, is another issue.

Quite simply, it is asking too much to expect a vegetarian to say, "Go ahead and cause suffering to the animals. Go ahead and slaughter them. It's your choice."

That is asking too much.