Coordinator's Corner

Last Updated: 05/21/2008 09:56 AM          

           Coordinator’s Corner         

            When ELCMA embarqued on a Sustainable Living Campaign, it forced me to re-evaluate my lifestyle choices.  Since the late-seventies Ken and I have recycled everything.  When we began we did not do it because we were all that committed to protecting the environment, but because we needed the money.  While Ken worked in the coal mines, I was a stay-at-home mom.  I used cloth diapers.  I baked bread.  I used leftovers.  I made a majority of the clothing for us to wear.  I crafted most of the gifts we gave to our extended family.  I carpooled to the kids’ activities and combined shopping and pleasure trips.  I composted.   I froze a large amount of the vegetables and fruit we used from a garden my grandmother planted.  My grandmother raised chickens which provided us with eggs and Sunday dinners.  Her goats gave us milk.  Ken hunted and brought home deer which we ate all winter.  We heated with wood and oil was our auxiliary fuel source.  We lived a very simple life.

            As I began to work outside the home, we slowly left that simple way of life behind.  I grew in my global awareness and my local commitment diminished.  We forgot much of what we had learned worked so well.  We began to become consumers not recyclers.  Now this world view is changing and sending us back to our original local focus.  Yes, now we have replaced our regular light bulbs with more efficient ones.  We have begun to purchase a number of our foods like meat and veggies from local growers.  We are investigating ways to lower our heating bills including more insulation and alternative and more efficient heat sources.  We are still recycling, but we have a long way to go to get back to where we were and to even further reduce our current personal carbon imprint on the planet.  Each day we work a bit more at reducing our impact on the earth.

So what?  Who cares?  Well, the bottom line for me is that each conservation move Ken and I make, when added together with the changes you make, and the ones our families make, will change the future of the earth – and that is no exaggeration.  So I urge you to take some action.  You choose, but take some action.  And when you do, drop me an e-mail to let ELCMA know what you are doing. We will post them to encourage each other.  Here are just a few thought starters:

1.      View An Inconvenient Truth –  the Al Gore movie

2.     Recycle cans, glass, newspaper, cardboard, EVEN if it is not mandated by local government

3.     Make one less trip to “town” each week by combining trips and/or carpooling with a relative or neighbor

4.     Bank online and save paper and a tree

5.     Initiate a conversation at your Sunday school class about sustainable living

6.     Conduct an energy audit of your home and church building

7.     Ask God what HE would want you to do to protect his environment.  Listen and then implement

8.     And your ideas . . .