A statue honoring “Emily the Cow” was dedicated this past weekend at the Peace Abbey, in Sherborn. Emily gained fame by escaping from a slaughterhouse and eventually finding a home at the Abbey.

People who were within earshot of the Peace Abbey in Sherborn this past Sunday might have thought it strange to hear the sound of Barbara Streisand singing “Emily, Emily, Emily…” but the crowd of several hundred attending the service  just beyond the Gandhi Pacifist Memorial thought it entirely appropriate.

Emily the cow was a sacred animal; touching the lives of many by teaching them about peace, non-violence, and compassion for all living things. In a community where the front building is dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy and the Peace Abbey itself is dedicated to Mother Theresa, a life-size, bronze memorial  over the resting place of Emily is just as significant.

Emily came to the Peace Abbey’s Vegan Peace Sanctuary on December 24, 1995 after being on the lam for forty days following her escape from a slaughterhouse in Hopkinton. “There was something about Emily that defied description,” said Lewis Randa, director of the Abbey, and certainly the people who came to support Emily shared that sentiment.

The Abbey community, believing in ethical vegetarianism, shared this dedication with members of the Shri Lakshmi Hindu Temple of Ashland. Cows are sacred animals in the Hindu faith, and the statue was given a special blessing by two priests  from the temple. Also present were representatives of the Jain Center of Greater Boston and the Boston Vegetarian Society. A member of the Jain Center sprinkled water taken from the Holy River Ganges in the City of Benares, India. The same priest from Shri Lakshmi who blessed Emily’s statue, had previously placed on her a sacred cow blanket, flowers, and put a golden thread through the hole in her ear where her slaughterhouse nametag had once been when she was diagnosed with bovine cancer. At the time of Emily’s passing, friends of the Peace Abbey who were traveling in India released clippings of her hair, traces of her blood, and the golden thread into the Ganges River.

Harold Brown, from the Farm Sanctuary in upstate New York, also spoke about his involvement with vegetarianism and with Emily. Brown, ironically, a former beef farmer, stated that animals are individuals and to truly find peace, one must cross the species barrier by extending kindness to animals. Through this act of compassion there is hope for extending it to all people.

Brown concluded, “animals are always in the present moment and experience life from the heart.”

Dot Walsh of the Peace Abbey spoke about the four virtues she learned from Emily, compassion, courage, kindness, and love. Emily, who loved bagels, Wonder bread, and especially children, inspired many people to extend their efforts in non-violence living through vegetarianism and veganism.

The statue itself, with deep and engaging eyes, truly evokes a human spirit through Emily’s image. Surrounded by plaques with quotations about animal rights, both in English and Hindi, the statue carries a message, which extends beyond Emily’s life; the right to life for all living things is holy, an emotion echoed by speaker Camilo Mejia.

Mejia, an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and the first conscientious objector for the Iraq War, was court marshaled and then imprisoned for his beliefs. Mejia spoke about Emily as “a fugitive of senseless violence”. He was supported, by all the people in attendance, in his belief that killing is unnecessary and only fuels corporate greed. Mejia explained that his vegetarianism began while in the service as a way for a more healthy existence, but quickly it became an issue of morality. Mejia spoke about the essentiality for the respect of life and how Emily so beautifully illustrated this point while asking for nothing in return.

The observance concluded with everyone reciting the Twelve Prayers for Peace, which are from the twelve major religions of the world and displayed on plaques at the Pacifist Memorial. In a tribute to Emily, a plaque beneath her feet asks people to consider refraining from eating meat for the rest of the day or the rest of their lives. Surrounded by people who continue to love and cherish the memory of Emily, her legacy is simple in its approach towards love and kindness. In the company of words that serve to strengthen the meaning of Emily’s life, one plaque in particular speaks to the humanity of vegetarian lifestyle. These are the words of Alice Walker, writer, activist, and feminist, who said, “The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.”