Let's Talk: The Silence of the Goats
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I had a different post planned for today, one about not stressing over the holidays. Maybe I'll get back to it. But something else happened. Something that affected me deeply. I want to share it with you.
Bruce and I went to a slaughter yesterday. A goat slaughter. Why the picture of a pig? I'll get to that.
It was a kosher slaughter--with a shochet, a butcher who slaughters animals in strict adherence to Jewish law.
What does that mean? Basically, the shochet and the animal must make personal contact at the moment of death. He slits its throat while looking the animal directly in the eye. If an animal were to blink or look away, the meat cannot be sold to observant Jews.
Of the ten goats killed, several looked away. And so were available for purchase--by goyim like me.
I don't want to get too graphic here. But here's what happened. Bruce and I walked down a muddy, rutted road to some rickety outbuildings. As we approached, there were seven bloody hides hanging off a fence. We rounded the corner just as they were sawing the head off one carcass.
The smell of death was thick. Overpowering. I threaded my way between two carcasses skewered on metal hooks and made my way back to the table where they were selling the meat.
I was scared going in. Scared I was going to be sick. Scared I'd be the goy puking at this ritual, religious slaughter.
Instead, I stood behind Bruce as he picked out the cuts from a chest freezer and tears began rolling down my cheeks. I hurt inside. I began to cry.
I didn't want to look away. I watched what they were doing to those animals on the hooks. I wanted to know. Not from some prurient interest. Not because of some stupid locavore BS. But because this is what it means to eat what I eat.
The people cutting up those goats hanging from the hooks were as gentle and as kind a people as I've ever seen. They were soft-spoken and peaceful. They kept patting the carcasses as they skinned them. Almost petting the animals. They talked about the goats. About how this one was so playful. But not in a snide, joking way. They were serious, almost reverent. Several times, I was told, they said a quick prayer, thanking God for the goat, for its life, as they patted it--before disemboweling it.
I won't go on. It was gruesome. Horrible. It's one thing to see it on TV. There's a distance, a gap between you and it. There's another thing to stand there, your shoes in the bloody hay, your head reeling.
And yet it was somehow also sacred. Yes, sacred. Not a word I would have thought. But that was also part of my tears. The whole scene was somehow very human, very religious. So I wanted to tell you about it.
So why the pig at the top of this post? Because that's our pig, Bruce's and mine. That's the pig we drove to slaughter. In fact, that pig is going to its death in that picture. Those are Bruce's boots on the fence rail. It's a story told in HAM: AN OBSESSION WITH THE HINDQUARTER. I'll leave that story to the book. Believe it or not, it's an amazing story, if you haven't read it, both funny and redemptive.
For now, I'd like to leave me crying at a goat slaughter in a ramshackle barn amid muddy fields in very rural New England.
Because it's important. Did it make me a sudden vegetarian? No. Did it hurt? Yes.
Because taking a life hurts. And it should. We've lost that. And with it, some of the compassion I saw among those observant Jews, butchering the goats.
My experience affirmed some resolutions I've already made. You may already know these, but I'll repeat them here. I only eat meat if I can shake the hand of the person who raised the animal--and was involved in its slaughter. I only eat meat that I know comes from animals raised humanely--and killed humanely. I believe in that eye contact. Because it hurts. Because it should.
I'm not a fanatic. I cannot foist my ethics on my friends and family. If I'm invited to your house and you make a chicken from a big-box warehouse store, I'll eat it with gusto.
But in what I can control, I have found my ethical lines. Amid my tears.
Which means I'm eating a lot less meat these days. Which means I am actively involved in the process of life and death that leads to eating.
From those tears come understanding. As Emily Dickinson said of her own maturation: "A session wiser, and fainter, too, as Wiseness is." From those tears come compassion. From those tears come thanksgiving.
Reader Comments (16)
This post is wonderful and real and sensitive.. thank you for sharing your humanity.
With the greatest respect,
Marie Z
FROM BRUCE
As we walked down that muddy road, in the misty rain, and heard the sound of sawing, I was uneasy. I didn't expect to see that the sawing was a head coming off, probably expected a roast being cut in half. Hell, I've used a hack saw for that at home. But this was an important part of being a carnivore. Never forgetting that something was killed so we can eat it. The detail that I remember most was that head. After it was removed, the gentle butcher placed it beneath the carcass as he gutted it. It sat there, not tossed off, no way to forget that the chops and steaks being prepared came from an animal with a personality that could be seen in its eyes. And only when the entire thing was carved, weighted, wrapped, and priced was that head put off to the side with the hides. I knew the animal that I will feast on during this coming winter. I know the men and women who raised it, fed it, cared for it, and as humanely as possible, ended its life. This is the way I prefer to eat meat.
Thank you for this, both of you. Thank you very much.
Supremely powerful. Thank you both for sharing!
Thank you for sharing this story.
Thank you for being brave enough to face the reality of what eating meat means, and for telling us about it. I don't think consumption gets any more mindful than this, and I'll continue to try to follow your example as best I can.
Wow -- I mean, wow. It's like my thoughts and sentiments just came out through your mouth... or (more accurately) fingertips. Thank you, thank you for this post.
An awakening!
What a powerful and beautiful message
Thank you, Mark and Bruce. Knowledge is both a blessing and a curse, the more we learn, the more we need to adjust our own personal ethical bar to a level that sits comfortably with our consciences. On a smaller scale, having our own backyard chickens has forced us to consider our meat choices as well. We don't have access in the inner city to the actual farmers who bred the meat we eat, nor can we afford to go down that path, but we do ask and make choices as much as we can. Almost all the meat and eggs we eat are now free range - I say almost because, as you point out, we can't control all variables when we eat at restaurants or in other people's homes.
Thanks for the share both you guys. You've really been brave enough to spell out what eating meat is all about and indeed camp up with a brave post.
Thank you so much for this post. You are so right. Taking a life hurts, and it should hurt. Any creature that gives its life for our sustenance deserves this compassion and respect. Thank you thank you for sharing this experience.
Thank you all for your very kind words about this post. We've been traveling for two days--and are now in Austin--so I haven't been quick on the reply. It was a powerful experience that still haunts me. I have been thinking of a line from the old Episcopalian/Anglican liturgy: "In the midst of life, we are in death." I think most religions try to reverse that and claim that somehow, in death, we are still in life. But I like that old conundrum: in the midst of life we are in death. To eat is to kill. Even plants. I suppose someone somewhere could eat only seeds and nuts--but even so, they are destroying the possibility of life. I realize that tearing up a potato plant to eat the tubers is hardly the same thing as killing a goat--and yet, and yet, and yet. To eat is to engage profoundly in the life/death matrix that is our world. Perhaps that's why some of us taking eating so seriously. Perhaps that's also why others find it so easy to turn it into a cliche or a banality.
M.
i just want to echo the thanks of others - it is a very important and powerful post. one can not even imagine the pain and fear that animals feel when they are killed in a slaughter house......
Never having been to a slaughter house I don't know what sort of attitude the workers have, but I grew up on a small family farm, so had seen small animals, mostly chickens, killed so we could eat them. Nobody ever demeaned the process or was jolly about taking even a chicken's life. As you observed, folks understood the sanctity of life and the sacrifice of a living creature, though it didn't deter them (or me) from eating meat. Thanks for a wonderful post.
Nothing new to contribute here, but I do want to echo the thank you. You are a beautiful writer and I have loved this blog ever since I found it several months ago. But this post tops the cake. Thank you for your raw emotion and your honesty. It's not easy to be that exposed, thank you for giving me alot to think about
Thanks, Annette. I really appreciate your kind words. I'm so glad the post was meaningful. I'm still a little shaky over the whole experience, even a few weeks later. I went to Greek restaurant in Dallas last night--and actually shied away from the lamb.
M.