Turkey Burgers and Non-Dual Thinking

BREAKFAST: 2 pieces of toast. 1/2 banana. 
LUNCH: tortilla casserole. salad. 1/2 banana. carrots
DINNER: Turkey Burger from Epic Burger. fries. organic ketchup!




ORIGIN OF ONE ITEM: Turkey burger. Not all-natural beef or very veggie, according to Epic Burger, just "tasty." but hopefully it was at least "hormone-free"? These words appear in artistic fashion on the website, but it's vague as to if that includes my ground turkey. 

I did find that ground turkey has very high rates of salmonella. But going organic cut "super-bug"salmonella in just 1 generation of birds. 

THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION:
I picked turkey because I didn't want to go with beef--too problematic. And avoided the veggie--to expensive. It's so easy to slip into dualisms like beef vs veggie. Or conventional vs organic. Or Mac vs PC(another blog another time). Thank God for turkey burgers. The 3rd way. 


And we do this dual-thinking with ourselves and Creation. We talk about our relationship to nature as an "us" and "it." It is something to be transcended or overcome. It is outside/something we get back to/return to/ become one with. Any way you speak of it, it is "other."  


Is there a 3rd way here too? How else might we think or speak? Phil Hefner, senior fellow at the Zygon Center for Religion and Science, urges us to think of our relationship to creation as familial, in kinship terms. Like a sibling, sometimes we feel close to creation, other times we abuse it, call it names (darn rain!). 


When we do this, our food choices are not us choosing how and when to care for creation. Because we care for our cars. But we love our family. Eating can become a way to recognize  that, like family, our connection to creation is not uni-directional or optional. We are not stewarding creation. We ARE creation. Hefner calls us created co-creators. 


Erika


PS And this is just one way to think about it. Abby can tell you another. Or at least she'll tell you the nerdy problems with saying "created co-creators."