ARCO's Abolitionists - A Vegan Forum

I don't know how they experienced their arrival at the sanctuary - that moment when the van doors opened and the light of day filled their eyes for the first time in their lives - but I know that, for one breathless moment, when we first looked at the 100 souls safely tucked inside, we didn't see the tangled mess of soiled feathers, the open sores, the broken bones, the chopped off beaks, the mocked lives. All we saw - in one breath of infinite relief and elation - was 100 souls who will go on breathing.

And, for one instant, the glow of their living presence obscured everything else - the wreckage we'd made of their lives for our amusement, the despair still engulfing the 50 billion left behind, the darkness of a humanity that imposes untold misery for a taste.

For one rich instant, we luxuriated in the sweetness of those 100 happy endings. Then, we embraced anew the toil of rising, standing, bearing, shouldering, suffering, nurturing 100 new beginnings.