The Stanford Inn by the Sea - Resort and Spa

We advertise in VegNews Magazine which advocates a vegan lifestyle. Sometimes our association with VegNews is a source of problems for some of their readers. Our guests and potential guests should know that the Inn reflects that we have not been vegan our entire lives.

Last week, spurred by one of their readers, a staff member of VegNews called to ask if we could remove down products for those readers who are vegan. “Of course!” we answered. But this brings us to an essential issue: what to do with existing animal products once we decided to not buy such products.

We believe it is irresponsible to not completely use the products we already have. It is difficult and unethical to just trash clean and still useful down pillows, comforters and feather beds. (We wash and dry them in our equipment.)

Destroying feather beds and down products does not enhance the life of any animal. In fact it denigrates their lives even more. We have chosen to continue to use these products until replacing them due to wear or until we give them to staff to use them in their homes.

Adhering to a philosophy to the extent that it trivializes the gifts of animals to our lives is just wrong.

It is one our coldest nights this year, it’s late and two raccoons, a mother and her baby, who visit every night, are watching us - or that is our dogs, Gypsy and Murphy who are intently watching them. The stare-off reminds us of our love for animals. We contribute to their wellbeing by not in anyway supporting feed lots, piggeries, over fishing and so on. We eat a whole foods, plant based diet.

It occurs to us this winter solstice that “keeping Christmas” is perhaps easier for us because each day we have to think about what we eat – particularly if we are traveling. Thinking about what we eat reminds us of our commitment to other species; our commitment to supporting sustainable agriculture and it reminds us of our hypocrisy - we wear leather on our feet and leather around our waists. We are not offering you righteousness: Jeff is often angry, blundering into the others’ feelings. But we are offering our experience – that eating kindly benefits us in ways we never imagined. We have more energy than others much younger, we feel energy moving through us, we feel connected to this wonderful earth and we have taken it for granted. We simply have had no need to announce these experiences. Until now.

Now we know that our way of eating has unanticipated benefits from reducing global warming and pollution to averting chronic diseases. With regard to chronic disease, check out http://drmcdougall.com/. John McDougall is a leader in treating a variety of chronic diseases with diet. If you know someone with MS, you might check out Dr. Roy Swank's site at http://www.swankmsdiet.org/ and for specific recommendations regarding heat disease, check out Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's site http://www.heartattackproof.com/. All three doctors share a passion for healing and found that the methods they had learned often failed to treat more than symptoms. They sought to reverse disease and increase vitality. Although the Dr. Swank and Dr. Esselstyn are now retired, Dr. McDougall continues his practice in Santa Rosa, California.

Follow this blog for additional information regarding the reduction of carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide equivalents by adoption of a vegan, whole foods diet.

Staff at the Humane Society in Burlington, Iowa had a problem – a litter of kittens without a mother. Lily, a Labrador cross, whose puppies had been adopted was still lactating. The Humane Society placed the kittens with Lily who nursed them. Adopting them, Lily cleaned and protected her new charges.

Steve Hartman in Assignment America on CBS Evening News (5/9/08) reported Lily’s story and noted other exceptional relationships: a mother cat who offered an orphaned fawn to join her litter, a goat who adopted a colt and most remarkable of all, National Geographic filmed a leopard adopting a baby baboon after killing its mother for a meal. The leopard stretched out and nursed the baby.

These stories demonstrate the incredible power of the instinct to nurture. It is the same instinct thwarted in even the most “humane” dairies, where cows are not allowed to nurse their calves after birthing them.

Perhaps all of us might choose to nurture others.

I am a minister in the Universal Church of the Master (UCM), a Christian church whose members believe that the spirituality and mastery of Jesus, through training, meditation, discipline can be to some degree expressed by ordinary human beings. Each of us is capable of great service to others - of great love. It is therefore no surprise that UCM ministers embrace the concept of marriage by two people regardless of their sex.

Specifically, "UCM was founded in 1908 as a church in which members are encouraged to develop and exercise their spiritual powers. We discourage adherence to rigid dogmas and tenets, believing that each person must find and travel his/her own path in the Light, and that no single set of fixed rules is applicable to everyone in their spiritual quest." http://www.u-c-m.org/new/about.php

I have been willing to join in marriage any two people who love one another. Last fall two fantastic women came to me to be joined in marriage the next year, October, 2008. Each of these women in their professions served others in their work: they were loving, exceptional people. For whatever reason, we lost contact with them. Then the California Supreme Court decided that same sex marriages were essentially "constitutional" and shortly thereafter two women, a physician and a systems engineer called from Pennsylvania to ask that I preside over their elopement. On the second day following the "legalization" of same sex marriages, I officiated their marriage with one of our staff photographing the event and serving as the witness.

The ceremony was in Mancha's Garden under the wedding pergola. There were just the four of us, Amelia and Livia from Pennsylvania, Jill who coordinates weddings for the Inn, and me. Amelia and Livia were very much moved by the ceremony. They cried in celebration of their relationship. The energy from their official marriage was palpable, joyful and overwhelming sweeping Jill and me into its joyfulness.

I had never experienced any two people embrace their marriage with such joy. I have married many couples, more than a few who just had chosen to "make it official," or "decided to have children,' or "wanted to celebrate their living together with a wedding." These weddings have been joyful, tearful and moving. But the heterosexual couples could choose whether or not to marry. Two women or two men prior to the California Supreme Court's decision could not choose marriage except in Massachusetts - and that is a huge difference. Livia and Amelia's joy is that of an explosive release, of the achievement and a recognition not possible before.

I am using this blog to thank Amelia and Livia - two beautiful people now joined in marriage who taught me so much. I wish you a wonderful, happy and very long life together. Thank you, Reverend Jeff Stanford