Cruelty-filled holiday shopping

Department stores are filled to the brim with violent war toys, products made with slave labor, fur and fur trim from tortured animals, and cosmetics that have been tested on the helpless, voiceless ones. Grocery stores are overflowing with the corpses of animals recently killed, along with milk, cheese, and egg products from cows and chickens living in misery and destined for an early, violent death themselves.

But there are signs of hope

Agonizing over the overwhelming animal cruelty that existed many years ago, Albert Schweitzer prophesied, “But the time is coming when people will be amazed that the human race existed so long before it recognized that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with real ethics. Ethics is in its unqualified form extended responsibility to everything that has life."

We—you and I—are living very close to that coming age. It certainly got much worse for the animals after

Schweitzer spoke those golden words, but now the tide is turning. In among the cruelty-filled items, we find tofu and soymilk in regular grocery stores and the word “vegan” in common usage. There are vegan books for children and hundreds of vegan cookbooks. The good news, the great accomplishments of activists, the number of animals rescued could fill volumes. We are coming to that “time” of which Schweitzer spoke.

This week let us hold Schweitzer’s vision in our hearts and also keep vigil for those who are being killed for “traditions” that haven’t yet died.

Within every human being there dwells the potential Ethical and Compassionate Human, “Homo Ahimsa,” During this week of the frantic holiday rush, let us take time to envision and know that we are very close to the tipping point when all human beings will awaken to the truth of who they are, and all animals will be liberated from human cruelty. The elusive peace that people dream of (especially at this time of year) will come, but only when animals are welcomed into the global circle of compassion and peace.

And let us also hold in our hearts in memory and in love every single individual animal who has been brutally killed for misguided “traditional” holiday meals.

Thank you for your faithful prayers and visionary thoughts. Thanks to all of you, compassion is encircling the earth for all beings. Thank you for your devotion to truth, love, liberation and peace for all beings.

With Love, peace, and gratitude from Judy, and Will, Madeleine, and the Circle of Compassion team.

If you haven’t already done so, please join us at the Prayer Circle for Animals facebook page.

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