a heritage of environmental responsibility
“There is enough for all.
The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.”
Bourke Coekran, author
“I really wonder what gives us the right to
wreck this poor planet of ours.”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., novelist
i’ve been waiting to conclude my series on faith, stewardship and environmental responsibility, and i thought that earth day would be a perfect time to wrap up. so here is the fourth reason why eco-responsibility is ingrained into my life.
4. i just grew up this way - and i live in san francisco. obviously, it takes a village to raise a child, and a good part of my outlook on environmentalism as stewardship came from my upbringing, and continues to come from my surroundings. growing up with a mom who washed ziploc bags (and no, it wasn’t to save money) and now living in one of the most hippie cities in the country has, i’m willing to admit, skewed my perception of reality a little bit. (you mean not EVERYONE has a pile of rotting fruit compost on their counter?!)
my mom sent us to school with sandwiches in tupperware, and our lunches packed in re-usable bags. we’ve had a recycling bin for as long as i can remember but she became a fanatic while living in tokyo. we rarely ate off paper plates or used disposable silverware. we shopped at farmer’s markets.
my mom is about the furthest thing from a hippie i could IMAGINE - she’s the consummate yuppie living in a home that looks like it walked out of the pages of better homes and gardens. she did these things because she believed in being responsible with what we had - financially and ecologically. i just assumed most people also would live this way (because it made sense), and i had no idea it could be constrewed as such a hot-button topic.
before i lived in SF (in a city that wasn’t nearly as eco-friendly), although i would save up our newspapers and drive them to my work where we had giant recycling bins, i didn’t do much more than that besides using reusable bags. (in fact, i’m ashamed to say i never ONCE walked to work, although it was about five blocks from my house.) living in SF changed a lot of that automatically: recycling and compost were available, public transit was a viable option, parking made it nearly impossible to have a car at all, the city banned plastic bags making reusable ones a must, etc. living in a place where people look at you a bit askance if you don’t use a reusable coffee mug or if you bring your lunch to work in a ziploc bag and not a tupperware has definitely changed my outlook.
so - you can see - i get the stewardship thing from my mom and the environmentalist thing in part from my city, but i consider the two to go hand-in-hand. fortunately i think more and more people - those of faith and otherwise, and not just in SF - are beginning to get this. hopefully we’re beginning to realize how important this is - as citizens of the world AND as those who are part of a faith that values stewardship, compassion and responsibility.
it’s always been a complete mystery to me why it seemed that so many religious movements were advocating AGAINST environmentalism, when it seems we should be the ones leading the way. the “ship” of archaic religion, historical practice and strict orthodoxy is a large one, but i believe we can turn it around to a point that is more relevant and responsible. if not, more and more of us are going to be jumping overboard.
April 22 2009 06:25 am | religion and soapbox and the city