Judy Carman, Lecompton, is the author of “Peace to All Beings” and co-author of “The Missing Peace.” She blogs at peacetoallbeings.com:

In his “Hunter’s Poem” Lemuel T. Ward described his final hunt. He shot two geese who fell to the ground near him. He watched as the male bird called to his mate. “And she dragged herself to his side,” he wrote, “…Then covering him with her broken wing, and gasping with failing breath; she laid her head against his breast; a feeble honk, then death….” With tears streaming down his face, Ward buried the birds and threw his gun in the bay, never to hunt again.

The Buddha said, “All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt?” Ward saw himself in those dying geese, and he could never again do such harm.

After decades of hunting and fishing, Steve Hindi had a spiritual awakening of compassion. He buried the fish, birds, and mammals he had killed and hung on his walls and became a vegan activist. Regarding the violence that fish experience, he said “…I know they suffer tremendously, just as we would if subjected to such horrendous treatment.”

Deep in our souls we feel a kinship with all creation. Nearly every religion, at its core, teaches nonviolence and love for all life. Norm Phelps concludes in The Dominion of Love: Animal Rights According to the Bible that “We have no moral right to make choices that destroy the happiness and steal the lives of helpless beings who are absolutely at our mercy.”

The Jain religion promotes living a life of harmlessness to all living beings. St. Francis of Assisi said we must not hurt animals and that we actually have “a higher mission–to be of service to them…” May we all awaken to our highest calling and finally bring peace to earth for all beings.

— Send email to Judy Carman at judycarman@ymail.com