Ken Herar: January 2010

From vegetarianism to the Bahai' faith

Ken Herar, Special to the Times

Published: Tuesday, January 26, 2010

I hope everyone is keeping their New Year resolutions for those who dared to make them. In fact, four out of five people who make resolutions will break them.

A third won't even make it to the end of January. Well, add me to this list.

Becoming a vegetarian is not as easy as you think.

I am doing this for personal, not religious reasons. I intend to keep this commitment and need to focus and train myself from indulging in meat dishes.

That means less steak, chicken and more pasta or greens when eating out.

My mother and older brother are complete vegetarians and I admire them for this ultimate sacrifice.

Making a pledge such as this is something I decided to do after watching a few documentaries on how animals are sacrificed.

We need to preserve and improve the treatment of our wildlife habitat.

Last weekend, about 75 people participated in World Religion Day at the University of the Fraser Valley.

This day was initiated in 1950 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States.

The Bahai'is of Abbotsford and their co-sponsors, the English Corner Club of UFV, reflected of the positive lessons on the recent Copenhagen summit along with celebrating our diversity from scriptural guidance from several religious perspectives recognizing commonality on earth stewardship.

Abbotsford's Harold Rosen, a community interfaith educator, shared these reflections on the event.

"We saw two 10-minute videos on the oneness of humanity and religion.We had a pretty animated open discussion, as well - friendly, but challenging.

"Among the issues that surfaced were: sources of exclusiveness and inclusiveness in scriptural texts; the degree to which religions explicitly affirm their unity with the other religions; and ways that faith communities can work with each other on local problems like homelessness, prejudice and pollution," said Rosen.

I have been extremely busy locating and posting my previously written columns on my new blog site. Feel free to visit me at http://www.KenHerar.blogspot.com/

- Ken Herar is a freelance writer and writes about diverstiy. You can contact him at KenHerar@gmail.com