Becoming a vegetarian isn’t a decision made lightly. There’s no shortage of people eager to poke and prod at your conviction. When I decided to cut meat from my diet completely, I was living in London—a global food mecca diverse and vast enough to cater to my veggie ways. Restaurants and grocery stores existed solely to bless the veggie and vegan community. God bless you, heroes of the vegetable world! In a city where food variety was abundant and net negative environmental impact was equally plentiful, being a vegetarian was an easy choice to live by, and defend, even to myself.

In 2021, I joined a humanitarian charity that distributes finance and aid in Eastern Europe, which meant frequent travel to Romania—a place very dear to my heart. For all its joy, beauty, and warmth, Some parts of Romania are something of a minor disaster destination for vegetarians.

“Eggs, would you like an egg? How about an omelette?” I became more familiar with the taste of egg than ever before. The idea of vegetarianism had barely reached the elite hipster community of southern Romania, let alone the everyday person. At every meal, in every house I visited, I prepared for the gentle and polite smirk as I acknowledged my vegetarianism, swiftly followed by the offer of a egg instead of the epic meaty meal my colleagues were about to be blessed with.

Unlike London, with its rich diversity and disastrous environmental impact, vegetarianism didn’t make much sense in rural Romania. People still ate animals reared by a friend or a farm down the road, and horse and cart was still a viable travel option. The context wasn’t yearning for meat liberation; thus, an obvious choice was rendered un-obvious, bordering on silly.

The game of life had changed stages

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heav’n espy.

This is a section of a poem called "The Elixir" written by George Herbert in 1633. It was the crux of a dissertation I wrote on how context shapes our theology—something many people are uncomfortable with.

This tiny verse, written almost 400 years ago, can teach us important lessons about how we shape our view of the world and how we engage with ideas, art, and people.

Firstly, we all have a window through which we view the world—clean ones, dirty ones, smashed ones, ornate ones. These windows distort, promote, and relegate various subject matters on the other side. Factors like socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, and health all play a part in shaping the glass.

Secondly, there is a shared world on the other side of the window. Nature, snails, coffee, lampposts, igloos—all sit in a shared space that we are all responsible for.

Thirdly, we have a choice: to linger by our windows or pass through them.

We must carefully inspect our prejudices, pains, optimisms, and pessimisms. But becoming too entrenched and staring too long at the glass leads to a subjective nightmare—a place where ego is king and empathy dies.

Our challenge, uniquely gifted and hindered by our perceptions and contexts, is to be generous in our thinking. We must be prepared to, in part, view the world through someone else’s window, learn from it, challenge it, and create space for it. Remember, somewhere around the world, the way you think, your hopes, and your values are not obvious—perhaps even silly.

As Christians, we are uniquely burdened with the weight of a deep calling for compassion and an equal calling to pursue truth—truth that transcends all our windows. This truth is out there, but it will take all of us, with our unique insights, to discover it bit by bit.

If you want to spend more time thinking about these things, why not check out the courses we offer at Ridley Hall?