A Positively Poetic Priest

 I am not a fan of fad diets. Not only have they caused my family all sorts of grief over the years, they rarely are eco-friendly or people-friendly. Needless to say I have not tried the low-carb diet. Fad diets overlook the holistic approach (which can be slower) of finding your own body's natural rhythms and cycles and working with your body to achieve health instead of inflicting weight loss upon the body. Working with your own body usually involves a lot less pain, though it can take longer to figure out.  However, I am starting to try the Low-Carbon diet. This diet doesn't only impact what I eat, but holistically looks at my full lifestyle. A Low-Carbon lifestyle takes into account our full carbon footprint on the Earth. Our housing, our transportation, our wastes, as well as what we eat. The first step in looking at lowering your carbon footprint is finding out what your current carbon footprint is!  There are a wide range of Carbon Footprint Calculators out there. ...

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Fifth Sunday of Easter BCP 225) "Rain, rain, go away, come again another day..." I am not sure why we tell rain to come again another day in this well-known children's song. We rarely want rain to come. Rain makes everything soggy and dampens moods. It puts outdoor events on hold and makes the sky look dreary. With all these side effects, why would we want rain to come again?  Thankfully, rain does come again. Because we need the rain. We need the water for our environment, we need the break in our own hectic pace, we need the reminder to water ourselves (whether with literal water or those things which make us sp...

Pets are a family affair. Some households have the full gambit of pets, cats, dogs, fish, hermit crabs, snakes, birds, the whole menagerie. Other households are not pet friendly, their owners being allergic or simply choosing to live pet-free. Naturally, there are households in the middle, with only one or two furry or animal members. Pets tend to be causally overlooked for many people when it comes to living an eco-friendly lifestyle. If you have pets, they can be eco-friendly too!  So far, my cat, Nicodemus, has mostly been saved from my eco-friendly lifestyle changes. He has so far eaten the same food and played with the same cat toys (see the last post on using what you have!). However, there are eco-friendly options available. Naturally made toys, collars, brushes, bowls, and cleaners are all available. When it comes to waste, there are less options, especially for cat litter, because it can contain bacteria and other problematic wastes. You can compost cat and dog waste, but ...

Use what you have.  Its a fairly simply bit of advice.  However, it seems to be a hard way to live. I have found especially since trying to change my habits to be more environmentally friendly, it has been really hard to continue using what I have already and not trying to go out and buy some new eco-friendly version of what I already have. However, since one of the tenets of being eco-friendly is reducing my consumption of goods, it makes the most sense to use what I have already until it can no longer be used before buying a new eco-friendly version. Of course, there are a few exceptions to the rule here. If something is so bad for the environment that using it is causing more harm, then the best way forward is to find some way of disposing of that item/product in a responsible and eco-friendly way and then buying the new version. This category is small, but contains things like harmful cleaning chemicals and cars. Thankfully, I have already taken care of the first in that c...

Anxiety pops up in our lives for many reasons. Uncertainty, problems, disaster, feeling out of or lacking control are all reasons people feel anxious in life. Since the climate crisis brings many of these feelings and issues into our lives, it makes sense that eco-anxiety is a reality right now. The climate crisis brings feelings of uncertainty, fear, guilt, annoyance, lack of control, all because humans have been fueling the climate changes going on without any thoughts to the consequences. Eco-anxiety is then the feelings of anxiety caused by our understanding and interactions with the climate crisis.  While the term is fairly new in human language, people have been anxious about the climate and drastic changes in the climate for millennia. Even in the Bible there is evidence of human-caused climate change, climate crises, and people's response of anxiety towards them. Any time humans blamed God for a shift in the normal climate cycle or there was a big drought, famine, or terrib...

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people; Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Fourth Sunday of Easter BCP 225) Follow the Leader is one of those really easy children's games we have all played. It takes no equipment, just the children themselves and their imagination. Everyone gets behind the designated leader and follows them around mimicking what they do. If you mess up, you have to sit out for a while until someone wins and the games starts all over again. It may sound like a silly game, but it teaches children some important motor and life skills. Even as adults, we all have days we need to follow a leader. Whether at work or at home or at the gym, there are situations we all face in which we need to follow someone's lead. Being a follower isn't always easy. If you don't trust the leader, questi...

Earth Day is tomorrow and the theme for Earth Day this year is Restore Our Earth.  As Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal Church writes in his book, Love is the Way, the opposite of love is selfishness. And when it comes to the Earth we have been so very selfish.  Madeleine L'Engle also wrote about how the idea of being a consumer is destroying our relationship with the earth and all creation. A consumer consumes. A consumer doesn't live in harmony with that which it consumes. Somewhere in the past couple of centuries we have developed this idea that the earth is for our own benefit, that everything in it is meant to serve us. But that is not the way that God created this planet. God created this planet out of great love, to live in love, to show each other care and to care for every living thing together.  Restoring our Earth is a project we all need to work on together. It is not something that a few tree-huggers can do on their own. It is a global project for all hum...

 I haven't done an official trash audit since last April, but I have been noticing lately that the largest volume of trash in my household is currently tissues. Singly-used, paper made, tissues. Last year, I did switch tissue brands so that we were using recycled paper tissues. However, I've still noticed that we use a lot of tissues and that is a lot of water and tree waste to take care of blowing our noses.  So I started thinking about it. What did people use before disposable tissues? Handkerchiefs! Naturally. There was a way to deal with running noses. I have over my life ended up with a few handkerchiefs and haven't really used them. So I did some research. Why did people give up handkerchiefs in favor of disposable tissues? Mostly because people thought they were not sanitary.  After doing some of this research, I also realized its not really that tissues are more hygienic than handkerchiefs, but how we use tissues or handkerchiefs which are the real issue. When we ...

Tomorrow morning at 9 any volunteers who would like to help are welcome to help clean up St. John's Adopt A Highway stretch on 417 in Franklin. Every year, thousands of pounds of trash and recyclables are picked up from the sides of roads across the country by volunteers participating in Adopt-A-Highway and Sponsor A Highway programs.  The Adopt A Highway programs remove litter from the sides of roads, fostering healthy environments and rescuing recyclables. The programs allow people to make a difference for creation while protecting both motorists and the environment.  Volunteers are able to remove litter and beautify the road systems and also report any damage or problems that can be seen while walking along the side of the road.  While its an easy program for companies to get involved with for both advertising and environmental bragging rights, this first step can really open a door for volunteers who walk the routes picking up litter. It is one thing to think about tr...

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Third Sunday of Easter BCP 224) The comedian Jerry Seinfeld has a comedic bit about making wide-eyed looks at dining checks. As if we couldn't guess the amount of money our meal is going to cost, so we give the check a look as if that was an unprecedented amount. He makes a series of big eyed faces which are quite amusing. For some of us who haven't been out to eat in the last year, receiving a check at the end of the meal might be an eye-opening experience anyway. Prices have changed. We pray this coming Sunday that we may also have an eye-opening experience, not over a check, but in order to see Jesus at work in the world. So often we miss the work of God in our lives because we simply don't see it, our eyes are n...

I have grown up in a world of synthetic materials. Plastics, synthetic fibers, polyester, nylon, acrylics, latex, Kevlar, Gore-Tex, and on and on. I was told at every turn that these were the materials of the future. And yet, as we live further into the climate crisis, it seems all the production of these synthetic materials is helping the crisis grow worse. Now, I am no one's fashion model. I was partially happy about my chosen profession because of the fact that I had a black and white uniform I could always fall back on. When it came to clothes, I always chose what was easiest. So, when I was told over the years that fabrics made from purely natural fibers were too hard to handle, I believed them. Cotton needed ironing, wool was too itchy, linen wrinkled easily. No worries.  I have come to realize all this was simply not true.  It may partially be that I live in Northwestern Pennsylvania, but in the last year, I have been fully living into the wool, especially merino wool, ...

Small. Innocent. Cute. Multi-use, though not multiple use. You wouldn't think cotton swabs could be a force for environmental disaster. However, they fall into the small, single-use, non-recyclable, problem-waste category. They are small enough to get missed and end up in natural habitats and spread plastic across the globe. No good! Cotton swabs have made themselves so very useful throughout the house. Cleaning out one's ears, cleaning in small corners, applying topical medicines in hard to reach places, getting things out of hard to reach places, etc. Thus, though most of us don't think about cotton swabs very often, most of us have some hanging out around the house in case we need them.  There are some companies which have tried to make more environmentally friendly cotton swabs. They have replaced the plastic bit with paper or corn based plastic which will dissolve. They have tried making the cotton part of the swabs with all natural organic cotton, despite the fact tha...

In the United States, in 1976, Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to help promote conservation of natural resources, recycling, and dealing with the rising trash problem. The slogan of the three R's, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" grew out of the efforts at that time to get the general public to use the new recycling programs starting up. It worked pretty well, its a catchy phrase and recycling centers and programs have grown all across the country.  Today, however, reducing, reusing, and recycling are not enough. The 3 R's have been greatly expanded by grassroots efforts and environmental programs. In looking up the 3 R's you can now find expanded lists of R words to use to help you be more environmentally friendly. Most lists had 5-9 words, putting them altogether created 12! Reduce Reuse Recycle Repair Repurpose Refurbish Refuse Recover Regift Rethink  Retrain  Research That is a lot of options! While the first nine are actions we can do for t...

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Second Sunday of Easter BCP 224) Alleluia! Jesus Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! It is so easy to say these words. It always evokes a happy emotional response for me. Even after years of celebrating Easter, this news always makes me feel lighter. Yay! Alleluia! It is also wonderful to see people who don't normally attend church or think about God take a moment to celebrate the miracle of love that God has done in Jesus' resurrection on Easter morning.  The kicker, of course, always comes with the second week of Easter. After we are all tired from eating ham or lamb leftovers and are fully loaded up on...

I am very glad to see more companies in the news for jumping on the environmentally friendly train. In terms of the overall health of the planet and our future, it is a really important step and one of the most important things consumers can support. However, I have also recently learned the term greenwashing, sometime also known as green sheen.  Greenwashing is a wholly unhelpful way of doing business. I don't know about you, but the term itself conjures images of laundry commercials where a load of whites is contaminated by a lump of grass and everything turns green. Its not clean and now things are ruined. Greenwashing is similar on a marketing level. Greenwashing is when companies find ways to make their products look or sound, or even market them, as environmentally friendly, despite not being environmentally friendly. Greenwashing is a way of lying to entice people to buy products.  Unfortunately this kind of scam happens a lot in the marketing industry. When you see som...

Since my last writing about creation care and environmentally friendly practices, we had a wedding. As always in such cases, the number of people in my household doubled and the amount of stuff quadrupled. There are whole rooms lost to boxes and excess furniture at the moment.  However, with the two of us trying to be eco-friendly, we may be making better strides forward. (The last year of pandemic living helped too.)  We have continued as much as we can (again: pandemic, wedding...). Some of the things have gotten better. Finally being married means my new husband (!) drives less. I can pack his lunch in mostly reusable packing each day.  We are working on other areas of life.  We have dreams of sustainably living in the future in ways that go beyond where we are now: Coffee, razors, cars, capsule wardrobes, kitchen changes, bicycles (though this has less to do with eco-friendly practices and more to do with my husband's obsession with bicycles) being eco-friendly w...

Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Maundy Thursday BCP 221) "Holy mysteries." Indeed, what we commemorate and celebrate in the the next three days are a series of Holy Mysteries. Jesus turns the world upside down by sharing God's love through death and resurrection. The irony that actually following Jesus' teachings in a world described as 'culturally Christian' is still counter-cultural despite centuries of Christianity being the prevailing religious institution in our country is not lost during this time. The holy mysteries of Holy Week have been used and abused by those in authority for so long, we have forgotten the true surprise and ...