A Positively Poetic Priest

Food, food, food. I almost hope with all the growing concern about our food system in the United States at this time, we might be able to start making some improvements. Many some in the system will see some changes that can be made to help fix the billions of dollars wasted in producing food people don't need (I'm looking at you soybeans), the billions of pounds of food wasted by stores and restaurants, the subsidies (corn, soybeans, wheat) that are killing our small local farmers. Its almost May, which is usually when our Farmer's Market in Franklin opens up. I am not sure what kind of restrictions or safety precautions the farmer's market might face, though it is outside and not a lot of people are there at one time which already are a big help. Some of you in warmer places probably have already faced these questions. I do hope our farmer's market will open soon. Farmer's markets connect local growers with local buyers, cutting down transportation costs ...

The food we eat on a daily basis comes from numerous sources. Especially in our global economy, we can import food from all over the world, and do on a regular basis. Instead of simply knowing what food is in season because we plant and grow lots of food ourselves, we have to look up that information in colorful time charts and infographics. What does it matter when a fruit or vegetable is in season when you can buy it any day you would like because of hot-house farming and buying imported food?  The real answer is that it matters because of the amount of processing and transportation cost that comes along with such food. Billions of gallons of gas and other fuels are used each year in transporting food long distances to a cafe near you. Billions of gallons of water are used in hot house/greenhouse farms in order to grow fruits and vegetables year round, regardless of the season.  Part of the amazing fun of growing, buying, and eating local, in-season foods is that y...

Spring is a wonderful time. As long as you can still breathe. I have a few seasonal allergies that give me trouble in the spring, but I still love the wondrous blooming of flowers and trees, the warmer weather and changing of the light. Spring is the time I start to get excited about my summer plans. I start planning my garden, I start thinking about campfires and camp and races and sitting on the porch. This year, my summer plans are not quite as formalized as usual, but I am figuring my way around that. I am still planning my garden and thinking about biking and sitting on the porch. While being eco-friendly in the garden is its own whole topic, I am going to start talking about gardening during my week on kitchen changes because it is one place I get my food. From my garden! In the last couple of years I have amassed a large array of pots and planters and I plant a small variety of beans, tomatoes, herbs, and other veggies and fruits to use in my kitchen. Gardening myself c...

When it comes to eating, I have already given up a lot of different foods because of my health. Wheat, dairy, all mass produced items which have soy in them, all normal bakery items, the list goes on. In my quest for a healthier and more eco-friendly diet, I have learned a lot about production values and total food costs. What we pay for our food does not begin to cover the impact our food is making on the environment, and our own health. Now I cannot say that I have become a vegetarian or vegan by any means. Meat items have always been on my top ten list of favorite foods. However, I have become more conscious about what, how, and where I am buying meat products. Meat production uses so much water and adds so many chemicals to our water system and our own bodies, on a scale most of us cannot fathom. I have cut down drastically on the amount of red meat I buy and eat, only buying red meat once a month. Amid the changes brought on by the Coronavirus Pandemic, we may be seeing a mea...

Let's head to the kitchen! My favorite part of the house! Let's just put it out there, I love food. I love to cook, bake, and eat food. The top three reasons I am a triathlete are: I like to eat, I love to bake, I love to eat. No joke. So when it comes to where I spend most of my time and money, we have to go to the kitchen. Which also makes it a big place for eco-friendly improvements. There are so many convenient yet environment destroying kitchen "improvements" out there. In normal kitchens, there are plastic items everywhere! Appliances, utensils, cookware, wrapping, etc, etc. In the last year, I have made a number of changes in my kitchen to start being more environmentally friendly. I am still in the process of converting my kitchen and learning new things. Thankfully, there are lots of options and new eco-friendly products out there to help us out. First, though, I'm going to start with food. I have definitely started making changes in the ...

As an Episcopal priest I understand, in mind, body, and heart, the central nature of the Eucharist and the sharing of Jesus' body and blood in bread and wine. For the last five years, every Sunday (barring vacation), and countless times during the week, I have taken, blessed, broken, and shared bread and wine with other followers of Jesus. I have seen the difference it has made in the lives of the lonely, sick, dying, beginning anew, and weary from daily life. I also know what a difference it has made in my own life to be able to share with others in the simple act of blessing and breaking bread. However, I also know what a difference my experience in the five years before my ordination made in my understanding of Eucharist and receiving Communion. For the last ten years I have been on a gluten, dairy, and soy free diet because of health problems. Celiac disease, lactose intolerance, poly cystic ovarian syndrome, all of which can be helped and/or managed by fasting from particul...

I'm going to throw one more bathroom change into the mix before moving on to kitchen changes tomorrow. There are a lot of items one uses in the bathroom, soaps, lotions, creams, cotton swabs, cotton balls... some of which I will talk about in other ways or under other titles. However, one thing we all use in the bathroom or over a sink is a toothbrush and toothpaste! In college I started having a very strange problem with my mouth care. I had been using Crest toothpaste pretty much all of my life, but oddly I started having problems with my gums. I had lots of bleeding sores and strips of my gums started coming off. It was gross and I wanted it to stop immediately. My dentist was very surprised and at the time asked me if I had any allergies (and I had no idea at the time...) and suggested I try a natural toothpaste to see if some of the chemicals in the toothpaste were the problem. After searching high and low for what would qualify as a natural toothpaste, I stumbled upon Tom...

Today is a bridge day of sorts. I mean, the bathroom is not the only area of the house I clean. My kitchen actually probably takes the most cleaning time, because I make the most mess there. But my laundry room, and all the other couple of dozen rooms in the Rectory need cleaning too. Now, more than ever, when cleaning is so important to staying healthy, is it important to make good choices for the environment as to which cleaners we use. Many commercial cleaners are full of harsh chemicals which not only can hurt the items we are trying to clean, but also prove problematic for the water system. Chemicals in cleaners can also be harmful to ourselves and our pets, causing irritation, illness, and even organ damage. None of these things are what I want to do when cleaning my house! In the last couple of years I have been on the lookout for good cleaning products which are also eco-friendly. I have found that there are large number of different rating systems and seals of approval, s...

As anyone who has ever met me or seen a picture of me knows, I have a lot of hair. Even french braided, my braid goes on for a while. I don't usually wear it down normally, and I can't even find a picture of me with it down in the last six months... mostly because it gets everywhere when it is down. Anyway, back to hair. Taking care of the hair on one's hair has created lots of passionate arguments about what is the best way or what are the best products or even in what way one should properly comb one's hair. Hair is not always easy to deal with. It doesn't always do what we want it to do, we can't seem to make it stay exactly where we want it to. We lose it far quicker than we want, and it doesn't even stay the same color! There are a lot of shampoo and conditioner options, along with gels, treatments, and other products which say they can make your hair look its best. Unfortunately, pretty much all of them contain chemical that do not really need to be...

Yesterday, I pointed out that the top three consumers of water in a home are the toilets, the clothes washer, and the shower. Other big users are dishwashers/dish washing and sink usage. While we use our sinks for many different things, from hand washing to tooth brushing to rinsing your fruits or veggies, there are ways to moderate your sink usage to cut down on your water waste. Obviously at this point in the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, I am not going to suggest anyone not follow the CDC guidelines about hand washing. However, do be mindful of how much water your sink is pushing through while you are getting ready to wash or drying your hands afterward! Every little drop counts. Tooth brushing is small beans compared to many other household sink/water usage reasons, only using 3-5 gallons of water if you leave the water running when you brush your teeth. However, even that can be cut down to 1 or less when you turn the water off, leaving 2-4 gallons of water for something else! T...

Don't you just love a nice long hot water shower, especially when you've been not feeling so well. It perks you up immediately, makes you feel more relaxed and able to handle your life. Hot showers really are an amazing convenience of first world technology. I love a nice hot shower in the morning, its part of my regular routine designed to set me up for a good day. However, the top three residential water consumers are toilets, clothes washers, and showers. The average American showers for 8.2 minutes and uses 17.2 gallons of water. Not only do showers consume a huge amount of water, showers use a large amount of energy in heating up the water for showers. Average hot water usage in American households is 45 gallons, which means showering takes up most of the daily total of hot water usage.  Even though water is a renewable resource, as it can be cleaned and reused, most water treatment facilities also consume a good deal of energy (between 20-45 kWh). So the best way to cu...

Warning! Feminine Products! This post openly discusses feminine hygiene products. It wasn't until a few years ago that there are alternatives to tampons and pads. At first, I wasn't comfortable thinking about alternatives, but as I accidentally learned more by listening to other people, I became curious. On their own, tampons and normal pads are by nature single use disposables which create a huge amount of landfill waste (and cost a lot of money!). There are plastics and synthetic materials in tampons and pads which are designed to last a long long time, unlike their final product's intended purpose. A lot of energy and environmental waste comes out of feminine product creation. Creating these products is a relatively new venture on the human timeline, for centuries, women took care of their menstruation in very natural ways, mostly with cloth. Today there are still companies that make reusable cloth pads, along with companies which make menstruation specific underwea...

Certainly at this point during the Pandemic, one cannot fail to bring up toilet paper! Toilet paper is a staple of American life and as the run on toilet paper shows, something lots of people have intense feelings about. I have never been that serious about toilet paper, though I tend to like three-ply better than one or two. I also am a firm believer in recycled toilet paper and tissues. We don't need to be using virgin paper to take care of our waste. Again, as with many things, I don't like extra lotions or chemicals in the products I use, even something as quickly used as a tissue or toilet paper. If you really do your research, you know that toilet paper is not the most environmentally friendly option out there for taking care of cleaning up after toilet waste. A bidet, a toilet-like invention which also squirts water to clean up, uses 37 times less water than it takes to make one roll of toilet paper. If Americans were really interested in being environmentally friendl...

Today is the last day of my week of environmentally friendly laundry changes and a transition into environmentally bathroom changes. The particular item I am talking about today bridges the gap between these two areas of life. Makeup comes in my life under the area of bathroom reform, but my new solution is part of my laundry content as well. Anyone who has known me for a long time knows I came to the makeup game late in life. I didn't start wearing makeup on a regular basis until I was twenty five, and even now in my early thirties, the only regular makeup I wear is mascara. However, when I did start wearing makeup, I recognized that I needed a good way to remove it from my face. Having brown black gunk smeared all over my face and pillow case in the morning was not a pretty sight. I didn't want to ruin all of my washcloths so, at first, like most, I bought the pre-moistened towelettes sold as makeup remover. The towelettes work well, but they are disposable, creating lots ...

Most of the content of our laundry is clothing. Clothing is an important part of our life as a society. Despite our best efforts not to judge people by what they wear, over and over, we judge people by what they wear. In some true ways, we know who people are by what they are wearing. As cues of our interactions, uniforms of all types, restaurant, delivery, mail, priests, and so on, determine how we will talk to and with certain people. Certainly, I find my uniform as a priest always starts interesting conversations when I am out in public. What we wear beyond our work is entirely up to our own sense of comfort, style, and modesty. But how we wear our clothing matters too. The brands we choose make a difference on how our clothing choices impact the world we live in, from the workers who make the clothing to the workers who make the materials and the way the materials are made or grown. The world is an interconnected place and our choices impact a lot of other people. There are pl...

Cloth Napkins After four days of talking about how to do laundry, I am going to move onto the content of my laundry. The content of my laundry has changed over the years. Not only because I wear a lot more professional type clothing than I did in college, but also because I have changed what and how I buy what goes into my laundry. For home uses, cloth napkins are much more environmentally friendly, especially when you've already put into use the last four days of environmentally laundry techniques. Cloth napkins are reusable, they can be washed in cold water with environmentally friendly soap and line dried. Depending on the size of your family, you can buy enough to last a week and do one load of them a week. Granted, paper napkins are more environmentally friendly to create, however, paper napkins are thrown out and build up landfills with single use paper with lots of chemicals in them. Even better, cloth napkins at home can be personalized. Of course, you can buy regula...

 Naturally in my quest for environment-friendly laundry, I had to look into laundry detergent. I will get to soap and other hygiene products, but let's just say, I have spent a good amount of time with this kind of research. With the number of immune and allergy type issues I have, having natural products on my skin and in my clothing is important. Many normal laundry detergents are full of chemicals, which simulate different smells, softness, and so on, but doesn't actually clean or help your clothing. Some of the chemicals actually kill your clothing faster. I'm all for keeping my clothing viable and usable for longer, another way to help the environment! There are lots of natural based laundry detergents out there. If you do some research online, there are plenty of environmentally friendly companies that offer laundry detergent, but you have to order them online and get them shipped. While I am not against ordering online, it can be problematic when things get back-o...

As a cash short college student, at first I tried to get by without dryer sheets. Unfortunately, living in old dorm buildings in Western Pennsylvania, eventually the static got to me. I could almost turn on lights wherever I went with all the static electricity build up! So I gave in and started buying dryer sheets. I tried my best at the time to find other ways to use them after a run or two through the dryer, but then I started learning more about what chemicals are used in dryer sheets and how some of them can be bad for the environment. As much as I loved chemistry classes, the old adage "Better living through chemistry" doesn't always seem to apply. I then started trying to figure out what else to use. The laundry industry does have some alternatives. Most big companies offer a plastic alternative ball for the dryer, many of which are multicolored and spikey. They cut down on static and help the heat move through the load. Thankfully, there are still more eco-fr...

Cold Water When I was a RA in college, one of my number one duties was to teach all the freshman girls on my floor how to do their laundry. Sadly, most of them hadn't learned how to do laundry at home before coming to college, but no one else was going to do their laundry for them. They had to learn the symbols, the techniques, the practicalities of life. I knew how to do laundry, so it wasn't a hard lesson to impart, but being the sort of person I am, at the time I decided to do some more research on laundry techniques so that I could answer all the really hard questions. One of the things I learned at that time was that different loads should probably be done at different water temperatures, but that the most eco-friendly was to wash in cold water. While most people think that temperature affects the soap, that isn't really true, usually temperature affects the material. So while different temperatures of water are suggested for different color loads, all clothing ...

50 Acts of Green 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. I had been planning on doing a dinner church series during the season of Easter with my church, St. John's, around the topic of creation care. With the way things are going with the Coronavirus Pandemic, this dinner church series is not going to happen. However, I still want to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day with the 50 Days of Easter. I have decided that each day I will take a picture of something in my life that I am doing or have changed in order to be more environmentally friendly and caring towards the Earth. Each day, for the next 50 days, I will celebrate the spring, the Earth, our creation, and the resurrection of new life in Jesus Christ and share this celebration with you. Just to be honest, most of the things I am going to talk about I have started in the last nine months. Some of them I am fairly new to, some of them I have been doing for a while. (I made a list of all the things I am doi...

"So they [Mary Magdalene and the other Mary] left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples." (Matthew 28:1-10) The first Easter Sunday was not the glorious celebration we are used to having. The first Easter Sunday was a few women and men who were absolutely confused, frightened, and a little bit hopeful. The first Easter Sunday dawned sad and grief stricken by the early disciples. Their teacher and loving friend was dead and they were afraid and didn't know what to do. But the women did what women always do, they took care of the business at hand. They went to Jesus' tomb to prepare his body for proper burial. Only, he wasn't there, which was outright confusing and frightening all on its own, not to mention the earthquake and the angel speaking to them. I think it is helpful to remember the real Easter morning story this year. We are not in a place to be able to celebrate wholeheartedly. We cannot laugh off the care...

The reading from the Gospel of John is the traditional one of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples at their last meal together and him giving the disciples the greatest commandment, to love one another.     When I was in school one of the reading techniques I learned, which is always helpful when I am reading a passage to preach on, is to look at the strong verbs in a passage. The ones which command action and move the story forward.  In this gospel passage the strong verbs are wash, serve, glorify, love.       I find these verbs very appropriate for where we are in the world right now.  We are all washing a little bit more often and a little bit more diligently right now than we might have otherwise. We probably don't all find joy in the continual prospect of washing, and our hands might all be turning a little more dry and red,  but it is helping all of us stay safer.      Brother Lawrence, a monk i...

    Today would be a perfect day to continue the St. John's and Grace Lent series: Lent is Not Rocket Science with another familiar and yet confusing scientific principle, Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory is an interdisciplinary theory, which means it applies to almost every known realm of study. The Chaos Theory is usually summarized like this: "When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future." Underneath the summary is mathematics which show that even chaos has patterns and interconnectedness which cannot be seen. It is Chaos Theory which makes so much of good science fiction writing possible. We can write about a future which COULD happen, but that doesn't mean it necessarily will.      However, on the surface, even Chaos Theory looks like it's name: chaotic. And if there is one thing we feel from today's Passion Gospel it usually can be classified in the same realm: chaos, confusion, turmoil...