I am carnivorous.  I eat the flesh of my fellow animals.  Being the sort of person who respects life and pets cats, I perceive a possible conflict here.  How do I resolve this conflict?  Good question.  I'm fifty-five years old, and I just resolved it today.  As you've guessed, I'm going to tell you how.  I'm a wordy bastard, so it's going to take a while.  If you're short of time, not interested in the journey, or just like to read the answers at the back of the book first, you may click on cut to the chase.

Yes, Mother, I know I was conceived on your wedding night.  I was using the other definition of bastard.

Over the course of my life I have had many widely varied feelings about meat.  I've never been a vegetarian, but I think I've covered the rest of the entire range of beliefs on the subject over the years or sometimes from one hour to the next.  I don't hold these beliefs now, but I don't hold them wrong either.  I was not mistaken when I believed them, only different than I am now.

Once upon a time, I didn't know I was a carnivore.  I knew in some intellectual sense that meat came from dead animals, but in my heart I knew only that meat came from Safeway.  No real connection existed for me between the hamburger on my plate and the cow in the field.

Later, I knew I was a carnivore and I was damn proud of it.  I was the elite of the animal kingdom, the top of the food chain.  If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat?

Another belief I've held is that it's OK to eat animals as long as you're willing to kill them.  If you wouldn't hunt and fish, you were either a vegetarian or a hypocrite.  This didn't last long for me, because I really don't feel comfortable about hunting.  That's just me, mind you.  If you hunt for food, I'm completely OK with that.  And, I occasionally fish.  And I totally respect people who do neither but still eat meat.

I said I'm OK with hunting for food.  I have a serious ethical conflict with the idea of hunting or fishing for sport.  If you're not going to eat it, don't kill it.  People who abuse animals rarely stop there.

I have sometimes thought about giving up red meat.  Thought about it, laughed about it, and forgot about it.

Abalone?  Despite my Jewish heritage, I'd eat that even if I became a vegetarian.  Those things act more like plants than animals, and they sure do taste yummy.

I do not eat veal.  Calves for veal are raised in cages so small they can't even turn around, let alone go anywhere.  Apparently, the meat is supposed to taste better or be more tender if the animal gets no exercise whatsoever for its entire life.  I'm OK with killing animals for my food, but I draw the line at torture.

I do not eat whale, dolphin, or any of the great apes, not the orangutan nor the chimpanzee, not the gorilla nor you.  I suppose I'm an intellect elitist on this one.  So be it.  If it's too close to my self-image I won't eat it unless I'm starving.  If it can play Scrabble, I won't even kill it to save my own life unless it's trying to kill me.

Today while eating my (entirely vegetarian) lunch, I was reading a book about Buddhism lent to me by a friend, a co-worker, a namesake of my mother.  Not all Buddhists are vegetarians, and this book dealt hardly at all with the subject of meat.  There was only one passage I saw, but that passage leapt off the page and grabbed my heart.

...  not only humans, but animals, birds, fish, and other creatures are all sacred and should be treated with respect.  Humans do not have any right to rule over them.  When their lives are taken so we can have food, we must be grateful to them for their sacrifice.¹

I shall give the same thanks when I cook meat for myself or others, and I shall give those thanks a third time when I catch a fish.  Oh, all right, if I catch a fish.

Those thanks will be mostly aloud, but may be silent when social circumstance or self-interest so dictate.  Wish me the courage to keep the instances of silence to an irreducable minimum.