progress: completed
"No one made a greater mistake than the person who did nothing because he or she could not do everything."
Edmund Burke (paraphrased in BP 169)
Just in case you got overwhelmed by the hugeness of the principles listed in my last post - as I did, and I was afraid my high school students would - I tried to sum them up in the following five simple rules. Hopefully these will offer practical ways to start doing a little now while we work our way toward doing "everything."
A Few Practical Steps to Earthkeeping
- Reduce – Learn to tell the difference between needs and wants, and make responsible choices.
- Reuse – Donate to and shop at thrift stores, reuse packaging, repurpose what you can.
- Recycle – Picture your trash in God’s good earth and do your best to keep it from going there!
- Try to see the big picture – Consider how your choices/actions/inactions and lifestyle/consumption/waste affect others: people, creatures, land, ecosystems.
- Learn to love creation – Spend time in it, see yourself as part of it, experience God through the enjoyment of it, and show him by your actions how thankful you are for the gift of it.
- Read Psalm 104 and meditate on the majesty of the Creator, and the goodness and the interrelatedness of his creation.
- Read Psalm 148 and observe the whole of creation in worship of its Creator.
- Check out A Rocha to discover some of the ways that Christians around the world are trying to live out their calling as earthkeepers.
- Read (Regent Professor :-) Maxine Hancock's Living on Less and Liking it More for some practical ways to simplify your life and free up your resources.
- Visit websites like Freecycle.net and TwoShirts.org and consider these creative ways to give away the stuff you don't need and get the stuff you do - for free!
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Here are some practical things I've done (I could still do more):
ReplyDelete1) I moved to a neighborhood where I could walk to most of my errands. I admit I still don't walk to the grocery store very often because of the heavy bags I'll be carrying back, but I *should* -- it's only 3 blocks away! I should just go grocery shopping more often so it's not such a big ordeal each time. But I do walk to everything else (coffee, haircut, bank, post office, restaurants, dentist, hardware store, pharmacy, etc.)
2) I bought some reusable cloth bags and I try to remember to take those with me whenever I go grocery shopping (or any kind of shopping; who says you only have to use those at the grocery store?). I also bought some mesh bags to use for produce.
3) I use a refillable metal water bottle instead of buying bottled water. (Metal is better for you than plastic.)
4) I am gradually transitioning to using less meat and only buying meats from the organic butcher near my house who sources all his meat from local BC farms, where he knows the animals have been treated humanely and fed organic diets.
5) I am willing to pay more for organic produce. Whenever I have the opportunity, I also choose to buy locally grown vs. imports. I'm gradually hoping to also shift to eating more seasonally so I'm not funding the transportation of out-of-season produce from far away.
6) I bought a nice metal compost bucket for my kitchen and have finally begun composting all my food waste, which I'd been wanting to do for YEARS but kept making excuses.
7) I bought a share in a CSA (community supported agriculture) grain farm, from which I get my organic whole wheat flour.
8) I donate to A Rocha, and have invited one of their representatives to speak at my church on creation care.
I still have LOTS of bad habits. I buy way too much packaged food, frozen dinners and the like. I compromise on my desire to only buy "organic" produce and meats. I forget my cloth bags often. I do buy plastic bottled water in airports instead of refilling my own water bottle from the bathroom tap in the terminal after going through the security check. Convenience sometimes trumps my good ambitions.
But this is a lifelong journey. Don't expect yourself to be meeting your criteria for earth-friendliness within the first 6 months. I heard some advice that came originally from monks, I think, that when you're making a major life change, allow yourself to take seven years to gradually do it. It's more likely to stick that way.
Hi Rosie, Thanks for your comments. I also compost, use a metal water bottle, cloth bags, etc, but I'm envious of your access to more options (especially the really creative ones, like CSA and veggie co-ops), due to the fact that you live in the big city and I'm out in the sticks. Having said that, it's sometimes discouraging even when there ARE options, because they can be so pricey. Cost and convenience are my two biggest obstacles to doing more. However, I appreciate your seven-year view - let's give ourselves some time to form new habits, eh?
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