Loving Beyond Agreement

A dear friend recently invited me to meet four new piglets on her farm.

There was no way I was saying no to that.

Baby pigs?

Absolutely.

I was already imagining tiny noses just waiting to be booped.

When I arrived, there they were—four little piglets racing around their mama with all the enthusiasm only babies seem to possess.

They zoomed.

They explored.

They climbed over one another.

They were joyful in the way only very young animals can be.

I stood there smiling, completely captivated.

And then I remembered something.

My friend raises pigs for food.

For a long time, that was difficult for me.

When people ask about our farms, I jokingly say,

"Mine is the snuggle farm...hers is the food farm."

It usually gets a laugh.

But behind the joke was something I genuinely struggled with.

How could I allow myself to fall in love with these little piglets, knowing what their future would be?

For a while, I wondered if visiting the farm made me inauthentic.

Was I betraying my own values?

Was I pretending not to feel what I was feeling?

Eventually, I asked my friend a question I'd been carrying for a long time.

"How do you cuddle them...love them...and then later...let them go?"

She didn't become defensive.

She didn't try to convince me.

She simply shared her heart.

She told me that she eats meat.

And if she is going to eat meat, she wants to know that the animals who nourish her family lived beautiful lives.

Lives where they were respected.

Cared for.

Loved.

Not treated as commodities.

Not forgotten.

When their lives ended, she wanted that ending to be held with gratitude rather than taken for granted.

I stood there quietly taking in her words.

Did they erase my feelings?

No.

Did they change my own choices?

No.

But something else changed.

I realized that understanding someone isn't the same thing as agreeing with them.

And that distinction matters.

What the Piglets Taught Me

I think I had been approaching this as though there had to be a correct answer.

Either I honored my own feelings...

or I honored my friend's.

Either I loved the piglets...

or I accepted the reality of what her farm was.

Either she was right...

or I was.

But standing there watching four little piglets joyfully race around their mama, none of those neat little boxes seemed large enough.

Life is complicated.

Love is complicated.

People are complicated.

And perhaps compassion has to be large enough to hold some of that complexity.

I've spent much of my life loving animals.

The deeper that love becomes, the more sensitive I've become to the way humans interact with them.

There are things I feel strongly about.

There are choices I make because of those feelings.

And I don't think opening my heart requires me to abandon any of them.

But neither does honoring my own values require me to close my heart to someone who sees something differently.

That's what my friend gave me that day.

She didn't ask me to agree.

She allowed me to understand.

And I realized I could offer her the same thing.

I could listen without surrendering myself.

That feels important to me.

Because we're living in a world that constantly seems to ask us to choose a side.

Agree or disagree.

Right or wrong.

With me or against me.

Sometimes even listening to another perspective can feel as though we're betraying our own.

But maybe listening isn't betrayal.

Maybe listening is simply listening.

I can hear another person's heart and still hear my own.

I can understand why someone makes a choice without making the same choice myself.

I can love someone without needing them to become more like me.

And perhaps most importantly...

I can allow something to remain complicated without forcing myself to resolve it.

That's new for me.

I like answers.

I like figuring things out.

I like things tied up neatly with a little bow that says, Well, now we know.

Four piglets did not give me that.

Rude, honestly.

They gave me something harder.

They gave me a question I had to learn to hold.

And perhaps that was the lesson.

The piglets didn't ask me to decide who was right.

They didn't ask me to defend my beliefs.

They certainly didn't stop being ridiculously adorable while I wrestled with the moral complexities of human existence.

They simply lived.

Played.

Explored.

Loved their mama.

And allowed me to love them for the time I was there.

Maybe some things aren't asking us for an answer.

Maybe they're asking us to remain tender enough to feel the discomfort...

curious enough to listen...

and grounded enough to remain true to ourselves.

Understanding doesn't require agreement.

And love doesn't always require sameness.

Sometimes love asks whether our hearts can remain open even when the answer isn't simple.

You May Be Wondering...

Can I respect someone whose choices about animals are different from mine?

I think that's something each of us has to answer for ourselves.

There may be differences we can hold with compassion, and there may be choices that cross boundaries we aren't willing to cross.

For me, the lesson wasn't that every choice is equally right or that my own values no longer matter.

Quite the opposite.

I discovered that I could remain rooted in what I believe without requiring someone else to believe exactly as I do.

I could ask a difficult question.

She could answer honestly.

I could listen.

And neither of us had to win.

That may be one of the greatest gifts those four little piglets gave me.

They reminded me that an open heart doesn't have to be an undecided one.

I can know what I believe and still make room to understand someone else's heart.

And yes...

I can absolutely boop the piglets' noses while I'm figuring it out.

May you see the world through the eyes of love, remembering that we are all part of one living, sacred whole.