To honor life means to respect, appreciate, love and ultimately revere life and all forms that it is manifest in. It means to develop a healthy and balanced perspective of our role as humans among the collective of life we share this planet with. This is not meant to be a discourse on morality or advocacy for extreme measures or chaining one’s self to trees. The Barbequian view on life is simple; all forms of life are precious and to be respected and loved in their role.
This subject is one of great controversy, and while eastern philosophy has a huge head start on the western philosophy on life and our role as humans, we are becoming more aware that the delusion of superiority that we subscribe to is as barbaric as our treatment of the early inhabitants or those forced to be inhabitants of the American continent. We have a notorious background of a severe lack of respect for life in our culture that has become an integral part of it. Our struggles for the elimination of racism and discrimination, the amount of senseless violent crimes, and the predation and abuse of children are a blatant indicator of this fact. While I won’t address these indicators, there are less extreme indicators and many ways that we can more fully honor all life.
One more subtle indicator is the yearly ritual of “the hunt” in which otherwise “civilized” humans dress up in odd looking outfits armed with high powered fire arms and spend days tracking down and killing some of the most beautiful creatures on the earth under the pretense of “wildlife management”. While I was in college, I decided to take a course in wildlife management and found quickly that our arrogance and pretentiousness knows no bounds. I find it humorous and quite amusing that we think that we can in any way shape or form “manage” wildlife. As if Mother Nature is so stupid, it’s a good thing we finally showed up to help her out and show her how it´s done. Of course our background in eco-management speaks for itself so it should be no surprise that anyone with a brain (or not just wanting to justify their barbarism) would realize that the commonly held view of respect for life is not quite cutting it. Barbequia is about raising the bar and stretching our comfort zone while enjoying life, so our view will differ greatly from the common one.
With that said, it is important to note that we do not advocate or preach a particular degree of respect or a particular lifestyle as that is an individual choice. We do however want to share what we have identified as the lowest level of the concept from where we can all build upon. It is important to keep in mind that for the most part, we will cover the basic levels of honoring life. This does not mean that it is the “ideal”, it is merely the starting point from where we need to part – it is the lowest level for the weakest of the Barbequians to expound upon.
In order to have self-respect, we must have respect for others – in fact our level of self respect is prominently displayed for the world to see by the respect we show for those we come in contact with. While self-respect is a precursor to honoring one’s self, respect for life is a precursor to honoring life. So let’s look at the Barbequian approach to respect for and honoring life.
We recognize that every form of life has an integral and important purpose in the collective of creation, so we respect each life’s right to fulfill that purpose to its fullest extent. We also recognize that part of the cycle of life is death and through death others live and the cycle continues. We see in nature how the food chain works and we accept that for life to continue, some life must end. As human, we are omnivores, meaning that we are designed to eat a variety of foods from a variety of sources. In fact, we need that variety to be healthy. I am often asked if I am a vegetarian or vegan since my views on honoring life are no secret and to some seem very strange and even radical, and the answer is no, I am not. I have wonderful friends and family who are vegetarians out of respect for life and they refuse to eat animal protein and that may well be a higher level of the concept, more so now days that the technology is available through vitamin supplements to compensate for the very important elements we need and derive from meats. However, my approach is not as drastic. If we look to the early native inhabitants of our continent for some insight on the matter, we will learn that they did eat meat, they hunted and killed their meals, but they did it for the most part in a spirit of gratitude and respect. That is the key to the Barbequian approach – gratitude and respect. If we choose to eat meat, we can do so in a reverent way, and as our native ancestors, we can do so sparingly and without waste. We can be selective about the meats we choose, as there are many options for drug free, organically grown, free range and humanely killed sources of animal protein. By being selective about what we consume and where we get it we are not contributing to massive mechanized industries that raise animals in deplorable conditions with no regard for anything but profit, and still eat meats. It may be more expensive and less convenient to drive to the whole foods market to buy free-range, hormone free, humanely killed chicken than it is to run to the nearest grocery store and pick up a package of Tyson chicken; but it’s a lot easier, more convenient and cheaper than raising your own.
Honoring life does not stop at what we eat or what is killed so we can. We are surrounded by life that we tend to take for granted, ignore or outright abuse and yet it deserves more from us. More important to each one of us than what other life deserves, is the fact that we NEED this higher level of self respect that is developed and demonstrated through respect for life, if we are going to develop our full potential as sentient beings pursuing enlightenment. If we look at this concept logically, the honoring of life can be developed within the individual first through honoring of one’s self, and the 3rd party effects are the natural consequence of this. In today’s society, we are bombarded with negativity, guilt and a lack of self-esteem that makes this approach more difficult. However, the reverse approach works as well. As we strive to develop a love, respect and honor for life around us, it will inevitably have a positive effect on the level of love, respect and honor we have for our self. The beauty is it works either way you approach it.
There are endless examples in our daily life and activities where our attention and focus is needed in order to implement and continually increase our level of respect and honoring of all life. We will address many in general terms and others in more detail. Yet, all of this is merely intended to pique ones consciousness of the matter and open the endless possibilities and opportunities to implement this concept according to our level of emotional, spiritual and moral maturity and awareness.