CULTIVATING COMPASSION
field of international conflict resolution, mainly as a scholar of and advocate for religiously motivated peacemaking. I came to appreciate how people who engaged this work from different religious, spiritu - al, indigenous, and ethical traditions each brought something spe- cial to the table. Some focused on changing unjust systems; some on change of consciousness; and some on relationship-building, to name but three examples. It became clear there was no one right way, but rather the full spectrum of approaches was needed to “get the job done”—to progress toward peace, healing, and reconciliation. These days I ask, in a broader context, if we were to be more pro- tective of the natural ecosystems upon which the viability and quality of all life depend, would we not also, in time, become less destruc- tive (as through competition, socio-economic development, decline and decay, or warfare) of the infrastructures of human society? And still a step further, if the human race were to live in ways that re - spected,valued,andprotectedothernonhumanlifeformsaswellastheir natural living systems, might that not, in time, radically transform the way we treat those who are different from us—people of other cultures, regions, races, religions, gender identities, income levels, and climes? It would no longer be the ultimate insult to call someone “an animal,” “a pig,” “a chicken,” “a rat,” “a skunk,” “a fat cow”—and the list goes on! An extreme case in point was the systematic Nazi strategy of label - ing Jews as “vermin” in an effort to dehumanize them, justify herding them into concentration camps, and ultimately, exterminate the en- tire race. This story is told in Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust , by Charles Patterson, with a Foreword by Lucy Rosen Kaplan, who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors Vision For Living In Integrity... ...continued from page 19
and a former attorney for People for the Ethi- cal Treatment of Animals (Lantern Books, 2002). In short, if we were to stop exploiting Earth’s non-human species and instead were to honor and protect them, might we ultimately stop demoniz - ing those human identity groups that are different from our own, or what conflict resolution theory calls “the enemy other”? If we were to truly live as one with the fullness of being rather than objecti- fying the world around us and instrumentalizing it for our own small purpos-
Photo by Rishi Ragunathan on Unsplash es, what wonders might become visible to us that are currently be- yond our view? And outside of our reach? Here I summon a deeply wise quote from almost a century ago, by American writer and nat - uralist Henry Beston, writing in his book, The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod (Doubleday, 1928): “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated
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20—PATHWAYS—Summer 21
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