Practicing Compassion

Compassion is a trait we often overlook, but one that is vital to being a good Christian or just a good human. We know that the Bible talks about compassion, but what does it mean in our day-to-day lives? And how does compassion relate to eating plant-based? Let's dig deep today, friends, and live with compassion.

What is compassion?

It sounds like there's an obvious answer. Being nice to others. Caring about other people.

I think there's more under the surface, though. Compassion is about knowing and understanding when others are harmed or enduring misfortunes. It's about being sympathetic and empathetic.

The first step to compassion is knowledge. Before we can start thinking about how to act on our feelings, we need to learn about the places in our lives where we need to bring compassion.

It is easy to see where we can be compassionate with our friends or the people we interact with on a daily basis. But much of our daily lives involve things that we don't think much about. Have you ever wondered where your food came from? How did it get from the earliest stages of life to your plate? What happens in the farm-to-table process that you might care about?

There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes. Things that we don't hear about.

Let's look at a bowl of ice cream we might eat for dessert.

As you know, traditional ice cream is made from cow's milk. How did that milk get to the factory that made your ice cream?

Mass produced ice cream means many cows producing lots of milk.

But a cow needs to be lactating to produce milk. And female cows won't begin lactating until they have become pregnant and birthed their calf.

So in order to create the volume of milk needed to produce your ice cream and other dairy products, female cows are raped to make them pregnant.

Then, the cows have babies and farmers can extract the milk, as the mama cows cry for their babies who were taken away from them. Dairy farmers take calves from their moms because all the milk is needed for the ice cream or other dairy product. The babies are sent away. Females are raised to produce milk like their mothers and males go out for slaughter.

This is extreme.

But it happens so consumers can eat ice cream or drink milk.

And it is just one of many terrible things that occur in the animal agriculture world to feed us humans. If you want to learn more, I encourage you to do more research. it is imperative to think about where all of you food comes from. We need to educate ourselves on the processes of the food system.

Once we know what happens to our food, what do we do next? How do we address something in our world that is so terrible?

We have to feel. And then we have to act.

Our compassion calls us to feel sympathy for the animals treated poorly and then act on those feelings of compassion. To me, the solution is simple: don't contribute. Don't contribute to the harming of animals. Don't contribute to the inhumane acts that take place on commercial farms.

That may sound extreme or difficult. But it's what God calls us to do. He wants us to love the creatures on this earth.

So let's do that. Let's stop contributing to an industry that harms animals just to put ice cream in our dessert bowls. The solution doesn't have to be By taking one step at a time, we can grow in our faith and practice the compassion we are called to.