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Friday, September 9, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
For Our World - Reflections of a Peacemaker and The Circle of Life
I know I've commented many times before on the way things come around full circle - the 'circle of life' - and how everything is connected. Please bear with me as I do this again! I was recently reminded of a young man who was "a poet, a peacemaker and a philosopher who played", Mattie Stepanek. He was a true saint. If you don't know about him, you can learn more at http://www.mattieonline.com . On 9/11/01, he wrote the poem, "For Our World". It speaks many innocent truths about how peace can be achieved. I believe it connects so strongly to how we can attain sustainability. We need to just stop....to think...to do better....to do our very best. I'm slowly decluttering my house and my life. I see all of the 'things' that have come into my life over the past 39 years. How did they get here? For most things, I can't even answer that question. They got here somehow in the unconscious. From this day forward, though, I am going to be conscious...of everything that comes into my life. There are so many things that come into our lives each day. We can just let them pass by and not reflect on their meaning, or we can choose to be conscious and make sure that what is coming into our lives reflects the values that we hold dear to our hearts. For us...and For our world....
FOR OUR WORLD
We need to stop.Just stop.
Stop for a moment…
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone else.
We need to be silent.
Just silent.
Silent for a moment…
Before we forever lose
The blessing of songs
That grow in our hearts.
We need to notice.
Just notice.
Notice for a moment…
Before the future slips away
Into ashes and dust of humility.
Stop, be silent, and notice…
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.
Be for a moment…
Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting,
Like children and lambs,
Never judging or vengeful
Like the judging and vengeful.
And now, let us pray,
Differently, yet together,
Before there is no earth, no life,
No chance for peace.
Mattie J.T. Stepanek ©
September 11, 2001
Hope Through Heartsongs
Hyperion, 2002
Just Peace: A Message of Hope
Andrews McMeel, 2006
Monday, May 16, 2011
Making a Commitment to Make Things Better...One Step at a Time
Change is never easy. Sometimes we don't change because we don't think there's a reason to change. Or we don't know there's a reason to change.
And sometimes we do know...but it's easier not to change. Or so we think.
A lot of things in our society are 'convenient'. I run a Terracycle program at our Elementary School. Terracycle has had a brigade called the 'Home Storage' brigade for a while now. It is sponsored by Ziploc, who recently decided to end their sponsorship. So the brigade is going away...slowly, a few schools at a time, in the reverse order of when you signed up. Since we were one of the first to sign up, we were one of the first to go. Not having this brigade around is upsetting a lot of people. REALLY upsetting people. Enough that they are willing to write letters to Glad and Hefty and ask them to take on sponsorship of the brigade.
So this has me thinking and wondering. Are Ziploc bags really that much more 'convenient' than anything else? When I started becoming aware of how much plastic our family disposed of, I made a commitment to stop buying ziploc-type bags. When the last one came out of the box, that was it. I bought 2 sandwich containers for my sons to take to school and we saved some empty butter containers to use as snack containers. We've lived Ziploc-free for over a year now and it doesn't feel any less 'convenient' to me. If I were going to do it over again today, knowing what I know now, I would probably buy stainless-steel sandwich containers instead of the plastic ones I bought back then, but when I see all of the Ziploc bags being thrown away every day at school, it makes me glad that I took that one small step.
And now this act by Ziploc gives me another chance to spread the word. You can survive without your Ziploc bags. Some people tell me they still wash and reuse their Ziploc bags and I think that's great, but I still ask them when that last bag comes out of the box to consider a better alternative. In turn, they tell me that I shouldn't buy butter in plastic containers and indeed, they are right! So we encourage each other and help each other along the way.
I also think that if you are passionate enough to write letters to companies asking them to sponsor your desire to keep using and discarding (and then Terracycling) your plastic bags, you should be passionate enough to ask them to think of better alternatives, too. I grew up as a fast-food kid and have a guilty-pleasure of taking my sons to Chick-Fil-A on occasion (please don't shoot me for this!), but every time I go there, the styrofoam cups drive me insane! So I write to them. I've probably written 20 letters so far, but the response I always get is that they feel that styrofoam is 'overall' the best environmental choice they could make. I disagree, so I no longer buy drinks if I take my boys there. And I find that we go there less and less often now. For a while, I would buy the drinks, feel so guilty, and save the rinsed out cups. My mom would take them and use them as packaging when she shipped things for her small business. Somehow this allowed me to feel less guilty. But the last time I handed her a stack of cups, I knew the insanity had to stop! Like a smoker who knows it's their last puff, I quit, cold-turkey! I made a commitment and declared it out loud to my family: "We will no longer buy drinks in styrofoam cups!" It is our latest commitment and for 2 months now, it has stuck. It makes me proud when my sons say, "We don't like styrofoam because it never goes away. And animals eat it and get sick. And some die." They get it. They made the commitment with me.
We're not perfect. We go to Rita's water ice for a treat. Yep...it comes in disposable paper cups. No, it's not the healthiest treat in the world. But every time we go (which is not very often because it is an expensive treat for a family of 5!) now, we take our own spoons. And we are not shy about it. People see our spoons and say, 'What a great idea! That's something I can do.' And that's the whole point.
The other day someone wrote on my Facebook wall that she was happy to report that her son no longer uses straws because he was inspired by the story I told him about Milo. (http://www.bestrawfree.org) And he is passing the word on to others!
Do something good. Make a commitment. Inspire others.
We're not perfect, but together, we'll get there. One commitment at a time.
And sometimes we do know...but it's easier not to change. Or so we think.
A lot of things in our society are 'convenient'. I run a Terracycle program at our Elementary School. Terracycle has had a brigade called the 'Home Storage' brigade for a while now. It is sponsored by Ziploc, who recently decided to end their sponsorship. So the brigade is going away...slowly, a few schools at a time, in the reverse order of when you signed up. Since we were one of the first to sign up, we were one of the first to go. Not having this brigade around is upsetting a lot of people. REALLY upsetting people. Enough that they are willing to write letters to Glad and Hefty and ask them to take on sponsorship of the brigade.
So this has me thinking and wondering. Are Ziploc bags really that much more 'convenient' than anything else? When I started becoming aware of how much plastic our family disposed of, I made a commitment to stop buying ziploc-type bags. When the last one came out of the box, that was it. I bought 2 sandwich containers for my sons to take to school and we saved some empty butter containers to use as snack containers. We've lived Ziploc-free for over a year now and it doesn't feel any less 'convenient' to me. If I were going to do it over again today, knowing what I know now, I would probably buy stainless-steel sandwich containers instead of the plastic ones I bought back then, but when I see all of the Ziploc bags being thrown away every day at school, it makes me glad that I took that one small step.
And now this act by Ziploc gives me another chance to spread the word. You can survive without your Ziploc bags. Some people tell me they still wash and reuse their Ziploc bags and I think that's great, but I still ask them when that last bag comes out of the box to consider a better alternative. In turn, they tell me that I shouldn't buy butter in plastic containers and indeed, they are right! So we encourage each other and help each other along the way.
I also think that if you are passionate enough to write letters to companies asking them to sponsor your desire to keep using and discarding (and then Terracycling) your plastic bags, you should be passionate enough to ask them to think of better alternatives, too. I grew up as a fast-food kid and have a guilty-pleasure of taking my sons to Chick-Fil-A on occasion (please don't shoot me for this!), but every time I go there, the styrofoam cups drive me insane! So I write to them. I've probably written 20 letters so far, but the response I always get is that they feel that styrofoam is 'overall' the best environmental choice they could make. I disagree, so I no longer buy drinks if I take my boys there. And I find that we go there less and less often now. For a while, I would buy the drinks, feel so guilty, and save the rinsed out cups. My mom would take them and use them as packaging when she shipped things for her small business. Somehow this allowed me to feel less guilty. But the last time I handed her a stack of cups, I knew the insanity had to stop! Like a smoker who knows it's their last puff, I quit, cold-turkey! I made a commitment and declared it out loud to my family: "We will no longer buy drinks in styrofoam cups!" It is our latest commitment and for 2 months now, it has stuck. It makes me proud when my sons say, "We don't like styrofoam because it never goes away. And animals eat it and get sick. And some die." They get it. They made the commitment with me.
We're not perfect. We go to Rita's water ice for a treat. Yep...it comes in disposable paper cups. No, it's not the healthiest treat in the world. But every time we go (which is not very often because it is an expensive treat for a family of 5!) now, we take our own spoons. And we are not shy about it. People see our spoons and say, 'What a great idea! That's something I can do.' And that's the whole point.
The other day someone wrote on my Facebook wall that she was happy to report that her son no longer uses straws because he was inspired by the story I told him about Milo. (http://www.bestrawfree.org) And he is passing the word on to others!
Do something good. Make a commitment. Inspire others.
We're not perfect, but together, we'll get there. One commitment at a time.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Random Environmental Thoughts
Sustainability....one of the latest buzzwords. I just got back from the 'Tri-County Sustainable Communities Forum' that was hosted by Sustainable Cherry Hill and Sustainable Jersey. I had to push myself outside of my comfort zone on several levels to attend this event: First, I had to drive on some really big highways (Ok, I'll admit, anything more than 3 lanes in each direction gets my heart beating a little faster - and these were 4 lanes! With 'roundabouts'! And I'm more of a backroads kinda' gal, but I did it!! One hurdle down!). Then I had to walk into a huge room full of people who I did not know and mingle. Talk. Meet people. OK, this wasn't as hard as I thought thanks to the many kind and accepting people that the event drew. So I came away with a few more friends who are walking the walk with me, adding up our footsteps to make a bigger impression in the world. I reached out. It wasn't easy, but I did it......and it wasn't as hard as I thought - I actually enjoyed it! One of my favorite things about sustainability is community - we're all in this together.
Which led me here and then I caught up with one of my favorite blogs, from another fellow friend who is walking the walk and talking the talk, and I'm so honored to read that he includes me among his inspiration - Thanks, Dave!!!:
http://responsibleplastic.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/why-you-should-read-this-blog/#comment-113
And it truly brings me full-circle, because I see that these connections are part of the bigger picture. It reminds me of the Cheers song: "Sometimes you wanna' go...where everybody knows your name. And they're always glad you came." That's how I feel among all of you and that's how I know that I'm in the right place, doing the right thing.
Because I'm not always among friends. This week, I went to a screening of a documentary entitled 'Crude' at our local library. It tells the story of the indigenous people of Ecuador's battle against Texaco/Chevron for environmental and health devastation that has taken place in Ecuador. It was eye-opening for me since I didn't know much about that struggle, but it was a familiar struggle that I've seen in several documentaries that I've watched recently. David vs. Goliath in the war on the environment. So at the end of the movie, I grab a chocolate chip cookie and turn around with a man, much taller than myself, standing less than 6 inches in front of my face. He proceeds to tell me how much I scare him. Me and all of the environmentalists like me. (I know some of you have never seen me, but at 5'4" and with the voice of a 1st grader, I'm hardly a threat!). This man was about 20 years older than me and was singing the praises of drilling in Marcellus Shale (a local fracking site) and telling me that reusable bags spread e-coli. I opened my mouth to speak, but he immediately filled the air with more reasons why environmentalists are 'dangerous'. The library received angry e-mails saying that they had a 'pro-green conspiracy' for even showing the film. "What exactly is a 'pro-green conspiracy' anyway?", I wanted to ask. "You non-environmentalists scare me!" I wanted to say....but never got the chance. There would have been an opportunity for real discussion here if the man stuck around to hear what I had to say. But I guess I was too scary, so he told his side and left.
Leaving.....why do we leave? Why do we turn a blind eye? Thankfully, I have met many, many people who do not want to turn away. They want to know more. They want to find out what they can do. They come to me, because I know some things and they want me to know everything. Sadly, I don't. I started a Terracycle program at our school. It's doing very well. People want to Terracycle everything. I asked for e-waste and put out a detailed letter stating that we could only take cell phones, mp3 players, cameras and laptops. The first day, I got a Cuisinart coffee bean grinder.....that still works! It's been very interesting collecting trash for Terracycle. People trust me. They trust that I will do the right thing with their discarded items. They know that even if it can't be Terracycled or recycled, I will try to find a responsible thing to do with it. Sometimes I can, as is the case with the coffee bean grinder, and sometimes I can't, as is the case with MOST plastic items that people give me with the hope that I can make it disappear. How I wish I could wave that magic wand, click my heels and make it all go away. How my husband wishes this, too (so he could get all of these hopeful items out of our garage)! I can't. But I think we ALL can...working together, piece by piece, until we are truly living in a society that is sustainable. The path isn't always easy (and many times it feels like 'the long and winding road'). It usually isn't a profitable path. I know many, like myself, who volunteer a lot of time to this cause, never seeking compensation.
To all of these friends, I offer one of my favorite poems of all time, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost:
Which led me here and then I caught up with one of my favorite blogs, from another fellow friend who is walking the walk and talking the talk, and I'm so honored to read that he includes me among his inspiration - Thanks, Dave!!!:
http://responsibleplastic.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/why-you-should-read-this-blog/#comment-113
And it truly brings me full-circle, because I see that these connections are part of the bigger picture. It reminds me of the Cheers song: "Sometimes you wanna' go...where everybody knows your name. And they're always glad you came." That's how I feel among all of you and that's how I know that I'm in the right place, doing the right thing.
Because I'm not always among friends. This week, I went to a screening of a documentary entitled 'Crude' at our local library. It tells the story of the indigenous people of Ecuador's battle against Texaco/Chevron for environmental and health devastation that has taken place in Ecuador. It was eye-opening for me since I didn't know much about that struggle, but it was a familiar struggle that I've seen in several documentaries that I've watched recently. David vs. Goliath in the war on the environment. So at the end of the movie, I grab a chocolate chip cookie and turn around with a man, much taller than myself, standing less than 6 inches in front of my face. He proceeds to tell me how much I scare him. Me and all of the environmentalists like me. (I know some of you have never seen me, but at 5'4" and with the voice of a 1st grader, I'm hardly a threat!). This man was about 20 years older than me and was singing the praises of drilling in Marcellus Shale (a local fracking site) and telling me that reusable bags spread e-coli. I opened my mouth to speak, but he immediately filled the air with more reasons why environmentalists are 'dangerous'. The library received angry e-mails saying that they had a 'pro-green conspiracy' for even showing the film. "What exactly is a 'pro-green conspiracy' anyway?", I wanted to ask. "You non-environmentalists scare me!" I wanted to say....but never got the chance. There would have been an opportunity for real discussion here if the man stuck around to hear what I had to say. But I guess I was too scary, so he told his side and left.
Leaving.....why do we leave? Why do we turn a blind eye? Thankfully, I have met many, many people who do not want to turn away. They want to know more. They want to find out what they can do. They come to me, because I know some things and they want me to know everything. Sadly, I don't. I started a Terracycle program at our school. It's doing very well. People want to Terracycle everything. I asked for e-waste and put out a detailed letter stating that we could only take cell phones, mp3 players, cameras and laptops. The first day, I got a Cuisinart coffee bean grinder.....that still works! It's been very interesting collecting trash for Terracycle. People trust me. They trust that I will do the right thing with their discarded items. They know that even if it can't be Terracycled or recycled, I will try to find a responsible thing to do with it. Sometimes I can, as is the case with the coffee bean grinder, and sometimes I can't, as is the case with MOST plastic items that people give me with the hope that I can make it disappear. How I wish I could wave that magic wand, click my heels and make it all go away. How my husband wishes this, too (so he could get all of these hopeful items out of our garage)! I can't. But I think we ALL can...working together, piece by piece, until we are truly living in a society that is sustainable. The path isn't always easy (and many times it feels like 'the long and winding road'). It usually isn't a profitable path. I know many, like myself, who volunteer a lot of time to this cause, never seeking compensation.
To all of these friends, I offer one of my favorite poems of all time, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost:
| TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, | |
| And sorry I could not travel both | |
| And be one traveler, long I stood | |
| And looked down one as far as I could | |
| To where it bent in the undergrowth; | 5 |
| Then took the other, as just as fair, | |
| And having perhaps the better claim, | |
| Because it was grassy and wanted wear; | |
| Though as for that the passing there | |
| Had worn them really about the same, | 10 |
| And both that morning equally lay | |
| In leaves no step had trodden black. | |
| Oh, I kept the first for another day! | |
| Yet knowing how way leads on to way, | |
| I doubted if I should ever come back. | 15 |
| I shall be telling this with a sigh | |
| Somewhere ages and ages hence: | |
| Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— | |
| I took the one less traveled by, | |
| And that has made all the difference. | 20 |
Monday, January 31, 2011
I Do Not Heart Monsanto or Corporate Greed!
Almost 2 hours of my day today was spent watching 'The World According to Monsanto' -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH4OwBYDQe8
and feeling pretty sick about it. I try to be a positive person, but it's hard to watch the stuff that's going on in India and Mexico and now right here in the good 'ole US of A and not feel really angry about corporate greed and the impact it has on all of us, but especially the poor of the world. Some of the damage I contribute to as a US citizen really hurts my heart. So now I have to decide what to do with this information. Where do we go from here? If you just sit back and look at these big picture stories, like the polar bear mom whose baby died because she had to swim so far looking for ice and just couldn't make it any longer; all the plastic particles that are now everywhere in every part of everything we do, eat, breathe, etc.; and now Roundup Ready alfalfa takes over the world.....it all feels a little overwhelming, doesn't it? I think my conclusion today is that it is overwhelming. These are times that I just have to turn to my faith to carry me through. There are no easy answers. The best I can do is my personal best, one step at a time, day by day, spreading (non-GM) seeds and hoping they take root and grow, learning from others and trying to find the love in this world. That's the optimist in me. Here comes the pessimist....
This video was an eye-opener for me because I realized how many things I am just naive about and don't even begin to know about. There are lots of Americans just like me. We live in a little bubble not even realizing all of the things that are going on around us until they hit us right in the nose. That's the life I wish we could all have, though....the simple life. When did everything get so complicated? It wasn't good enough to drink the milk of a cow, we had to inject her with all kinds of hormones until she got mastitis and then administer antibiotics to heal the mastitis, so now we have pus, antibiotics and igF1 (a hormone, I think?) in our milk....and the best part is that if we didn't purposely try to find out about it, we might never have even known!?! And that milk is probably not killing us, but think about it and think about all of the bad things that it IS doing. Is it worth it? The milk is just one tiny example, a drop in the bucket. I think about my grandparents and how hard they worked to put food on the table and how they grew gardens to nourish their families. Is there anybody in the world that dreams of feeding their kids pus? antibiotics? hormones? toxins? I have to say that I'm really disappointed in our government for constantly giving in to corporate greed and putting profits ahead of people. When will we learn? Why does it seem like the simplest things are often the hardest to understand?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH4OwBYDQe8
and feeling pretty sick about it. I try to be a positive person, but it's hard to watch the stuff that's going on in India and Mexico and now right here in the good 'ole US of A and not feel really angry about corporate greed and the impact it has on all of us, but especially the poor of the world. Some of the damage I contribute to as a US citizen really hurts my heart. So now I have to decide what to do with this information. Where do we go from here? If you just sit back and look at these big picture stories, like the polar bear mom whose baby died because she had to swim so far looking for ice and just couldn't make it any longer; all the plastic particles that are now everywhere in every part of everything we do, eat, breathe, etc.; and now Roundup Ready alfalfa takes over the world.....it all feels a little overwhelming, doesn't it? I think my conclusion today is that it is overwhelming. These are times that I just have to turn to my faith to carry me through. There are no easy answers. The best I can do is my personal best, one step at a time, day by day, spreading (non-GM) seeds and hoping they take root and grow, learning from others and trying to find the love in this world. That's the optimist in me. Here comes the pessimist....
This video was an eye-opener for me because I realized how many things I am just naive about and don't even begin to know about. There are lots of Americans just like me. We live in a little bubble not even realizing all of the things that are going on around us until they hit us right in the nose. That's the life I wish we could all have, though....the simple life. When did everything get so complicated? It wasn't good enough to drink the milk of a cow, we had to inject her with all kinds of hormones until she got mastitis and then administer antibiotics to heal the mastitis, so now we have pus, antibiotics and igF1 (a hormone, I think?) in our milk....and the best part is that if we didn't purposely try to find out about it, we might never have even known!?! And that milk is probably not killing us, but think about it and think about all of the bad things that it IS doing. Is it worth it? The milk is just one tiny example, a drop in the bucket. I think about my grandparents and how hard they worked to put food on the table and how they grew gardens to nourish their families. Is there anybody in the world that dreams of feeding their kids pus? antibiotics? hormones? toxins? I have to say that I'm really disappointed in our government for constantly giving in to corporate greed and putting profits ahead of people. When will we learn? Why does it seem like the simplest things are often the hardest to understand?
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
My Plastic-Free Life's Show Us Your (Plastic) Trash Challenge
Happy New Year!!!
I've been saving my plastic trash for a while now, but never really tallying it up or documenting it, so in an attempt to make myself analyze it a little more this year, I'm going to take Beth Terry's (My Plastic-Free Life) challenge. If you want to join me, the link is here:
http://myplasticfreelife.com/showyourplastic/challenge-show-us-your-plastic-trash/
Let me know if you're taking the challenge and what impact it makes on your life.
For some reason, my calling in life revolves around trash! It's been a focal point in my life for a long time and I'm finally coming back around to it. I used to save candy wrappers in my bedroom as a child because I thought they were too pretty to be thrown away. I saved a lot of things like that, always wondering why we used things one time and then 'got rid' of them....where did they all end up? So here I am in my 30's (almost 40's!) and thinking about trash consumes a lot of the time I spend on this earth. When I found out how much food is thrown away each year in the U.S., it really astounded me, so I started to take a look at our food waste and what we could do about it. We started composting and I can happily say we've cut our food waste down to almost nothing. I just ordered some worms to try vermicomposting, so I'll do a whole entry on composting one of these days.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that thinking about (and actually analyzing) what we're doing is usually a good way to make a change (or decide that you like the way everything is going and stay the same). Yes, life is short and it does take time to do things like this, but I think the time spent is worth it if it produces helpful results. So, who's with me? :)
I've been saving my plastic trash for a while now, but never really tallying it up or documenting it, so in an attempt to make myself analyze it a little more this year, I'm going to take Beth Terry's (My Plastic-Free Life) challenge. If you want to join me, the link is here:
http://myplasticfreelife.com/showyourplastic/challenge-show-us-your-plastic-trash/
Let me know if you're taking the challenge and what impact it makes on your life.
For some reason, my calling in life revolves around trash! It's been a focal point in my life for a long time and I'm finally coming back around to it. I used to save candy wrappers in my bedroom as a child because I thought they were too pretty to be thrown away. I saved a lot of things like that, always wondering why we used things one time and then 'got rid' of them....where did they all end up? So here I am in my 30's (almost 40's!) and thinking about trash consumes a lot of the time I spend on this earth. When I found out how much food is thrown away each year in the U.S., it really astounded me, so I started to take a look at our food waste and what we could do about it. We started composting and I can happily say we've cut our food waste down to almost nothing. I just ordered some worms to try vermicomposting, so I'll do a whole entry on composting one of these days.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that thinking about (and actually analyzing) what we're doing is usually a good way to make a change (or decide that you like the way everything is going and stay the same). Yes, life is short and it does take time to do things like this, but I think the time spent is worth it if it produces helpful results. So, who's with me? :)
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Cleaning up the plastic soup
5 Gyres does such important work and recently they gave Facebook fans a chance to ask them some questions...and one of mine got picked!!! :) 5 Gyres co-founder Marcus Eriksen answers it here:
http://5gyres.org/posts/2010/12/07/5_gyres_qa_thinking_about_solutions
If you have a few minutes, check it out - he shares some really interesting and valuable information!
http://5gyres.org/posts/2010/12/07/5_gyres_qa_thinking_about_solutions
If you have a few minutes, check it out - he shares some really interesting and valuable information!
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