Why I’m [kind of, mostly] a vegetarian. Let me start off by saying that I like eating animals. In my early university days, I probably ate a bacon sandwich at least four times a week. This was on top of my regular meat-with-every-meal intake. I come from an Italian family. Growing up in South Africa, these two cultural combinations meant that meat was always very high on the meal priority list. But it has been [...]
My Facebook friend S'thabiso gives this topic a little bit of a different spin as she addresses: 5 questions you ask guaranteed to break the peace with any 'black' vegetarian If you have prior to reading this asked any of the below please kindly proceed to the nearest tree and hug it tightly and ask Zeus to advocate on your behalf for mother nature to forgive you - repeat this three times whiles doing a [...]
I was always taught to show love to animals, dogs, cats, cows, pigs, horses, etc. But never was I really challenged to think about the meat that was lying in front of me to eat. Meat was different than those cute animals we would see in someone’s yard or pasture. Or at least I thought. I made the decision to switch to being a vegetarian 12 years ago. Being born and raised in Texas it [...]
Growing up I was never the world’s greatest lover of animals. I liked dogs because they were fun and horses because well... Zorro, but most of the rest of the animal kingdom tended to inspire fear more than awe. I remember as a kid going to the Cape Town museum and having nightmares of blue whales eating me. Later I developed a slightly irrational fear of birds and monkeys… So it was quite a surprise [...]
This is a much longer extract from the book 'Blood Brothers' by Elias Chacour, which i do encourage everyone to read. Both as a glimpse into the Israel/Palestine history and situation, but also as a much deeper journey of faith and wrestling with ideas of God and kingdom. This passage it helps to have read the rest of the book to understand the full story of, but a brief background is that Abu Mouhib is [...]
This short extract from 'Blood Brothers: The Dramatic Story of a Palestinian Christian Working for Peace in Israel' really jumped out at me and i think speaks for itself: It was during our final spring days at Saint Sulpice that my kindly mentor, Father Longère, touched a deeply resonant note, like a voice out of eternity. I had come to value his wisdom, his remarkable way of challenging us, spurring us to deeper thought on [...]
As you all know by now, Pearls Before Swine is my favourite comic strip and if you ever have some time to enrich, you can take a look at a whole bunch of the cartoons i have shared over here. And usually he is just random or clever or biting cynically silly fun, but every now and then he draws a strip which makes you stop and go, "Wo!" and maybe even think for a [...]
A couple of weeks ago we had our Spaghetti conversation about race, location and boundary, which you can catch up on over here. Our friend Babs, was one of the guests who joined us and she had this reflection to add: A conversation about where you live becomes a conversation about your life, and in South Africa, becomes a picture of what the past means to different people and how it affects how we live [...]
My friend Dre, who shared some excellent feedback to Bob's first email over here, responded to his latest response in a comment but i asked her if i could rather share it as a post cos everyone should read this, especially but not solely, Bob. Dre for president!: Bob, you didn’t respond to MY post! *sniff sniff* I feel so left out! (kidding, I’ll be fine ;) But seriously, I do appreciate your response to the [...]
About two weeks ago i published an email from a friend of mine who is white, male, South African and presently living in the UK who had some thoughts, feelings, questions and frustrations about life in South Africa and some of the conversations we'd been having on here. i shared his email under the guise of 'Bob' and invited a few of my friends to respond, all of which you can catch up with over [...]