y childhood home was in the mapled forests and waving prairies of rural northeast Iowa. My middle-to-high school years found my family at home among the jack pined forests and cool lakes of rural Upper Michigan. The non-human members of the ecological world were my closest neighbors. My parents encouraged their children—by word and deed—to spend time outdoors. This I did on a daily basis, forging paths through the woods on camouflaged expeditions with my big brother, lovingly handling insects of all kinds, collecting unique rocks, floating down the river that formed our property’s southern border, and learning from my parents how to grow food and which wild plants are safe to eat. Not surprisingly, I acquired a deep appreciation for the natural environment.
However, as I neared adulthood, my deep appreciation of the natural world gradually blossomed into more than aesthetic enjoyment. I began to appreciate and emulate the simple living modeled by my parents, who designed and built all the buildings on our property, grew much of the food we consumed, and bought almost everything second-hand. It became clearer to me that eco-friendly living was an imperative of our faith in God, the entruster (to us) of this sacred and life-giving earth.
It became clearer to me that eco-friendly living was an imperative of our faith in God...
In college, I took an inventory of my dorm room and compared what I owned with what an average individual in India owns. One sobering realization was that s/he has one shirt and I more than thirty-five. This growing awareness of wasteful living spurs me—to this day—to make small changes in how I daily live. For example, my spouse and I go weeks without shopping, we flush our toilet and water our plants with “grey” water, we grow fresh produce, we compost our organic food scraps, and we make some things we used to buy (soap, candles, clothes). Eco-friendliness looks different in various homes. What does your call to eco-friendliness look like?
|
 Amanda Griesser
"A Not-So-Historical Look at Turkey"
Read Entry
 Lloyd Gooden
"Reflections on Suriname"
Read Entry
 Tim Luckritz Marquis
"Wandering and the Cross"
Read Entry
 Kyle Borowski
"Thriving in the Wilderness
of Adolescence"
Read Entry
 Glen Stoudt
"Changing Seasons"
Read Entry
 Susan Bennetch
"Reflections on Israel"
Read Entry
 Shanti & Vani Pradhan
"From Nepal
to the US:
Being International Students at Moravian Seminary"
Read Entry
 Glenn Asquith
"Life Story as Eulogy,
Ritual and Celebration"
Read Entry
|
