Category: Uncategorized

At that time, you couldn’t swim in the nearby Hudson or Delaware Rivers. The prior year the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland had caught fire. Many of the Great Lakes were dumping grounds for industrial and other waste. Cities all over the country were struggling with smog. Entire mountaintops were being removed in the Appalachians. The poisoned environments of Love Canal and other toxic waste sites had made the headlines, as had pesticides like DDT, which had thinned raptor eggshells to the point of endangering eagles, falcons and brown pelicans.

What a list, and it barely scratches the surface of what led up to that day in 1970! Small wonder that activists mobilized to raise our consciousness as a nation to act to protect the environment. In the decades that followed, tremendous successes were achieved, but there were also huge setbacks.

To love one’s mother, the woman who raised each of us, is one thing. Mine is approaching 80, and I certainly cherish her more and more as we both age. But loving Mother Earth is a different kind of challenge altogether, particularly to someone like me who loves her conveniences.

Recently, a young man who is like my son pointed out to me the environmental impact of drinking straws. It turns out that we use 500 million of them every day (that’s enough straws to circle the earth 2.5 times). And it takes up to 200 years for a plastic straw to decompose. Yikes.

My husband has had a thing about plastic bottles for a long time. We buy 50 billion bottles of water in the U.S. Each year. Yes. B. Billion. That’s not counting all the other individually portioned plastic bottles we buy. Seventeen million gallons of oil are used to produce the bottles used for water and 80 percent end up in a landfill.

My daughter is concerned about the environmental impact of meat production, and even though she is literally the biggest steak lover I know, she recently became a vegetarian. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 51 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from animal agriculture, not to mention the massive amounts of land, energy and water that are used.

Hey, I admit it, I’m still eating hamburgers. And though I’ve carried around a straw in my car for a while to honor Steve’s concern, I have been seen grabbing soda at fast-food windows. I’m not perfect. But I am, truly, purposing to do better.

That includes cutting down a bit on our family’s meat consumption. Remembering to bring my water bottle. Handing back the straw or even paying for a soda but using my old cup. Making sure I’m thorough about recycling, including helping my spouse collect plastic bags for the recycling dispenser at Cub. Picking up trash when I do my lake walks. Forgoing a weed free lawn in favor of a cleaner aquifer.

I’m called to do these things by my faith. Pope Francis, who I greatly admire, wrote his first papal encyclical, Laudato Sí, about the environment. In it, he urgently appealed “for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affects us all.”

We need to treat the symptoms, like care for our parks, lakes and rivers, but also look carefully at the root of what produces harm. Being stewards of creation, aware of the common good, calls us to these actions. Together.

Let’s keep celebrating Earth Day. But not just on April 22. Let’s let our love for our Mother Earth be expressed every day, so that we — our families and friends, not to mention the entire human family and all that relies upon this beautiful planet for sustenance — “may live long and that it may go well [for us] in the land the Lord [our] God” has given us.

This same idea underpins the Lenten fasts of Christians. By giving up whole meals, or by abstaining from butter, sugar or meat, a household might save money that could be passed on to those in need. If you enter churches built in prior centuries, it’s not uncommon to find a “poor box” in the narthex, the entrance foyer.

My introduction to fast and abstinence came as a child. As Catholics, we were encouraged to “give something up for Lent” by our priests and teachers. For kids, that choice was often candy, ice cream or soda pop. My mom would always make meatless dinners on Fridays, usually macaroni and cheese or ziti parmigiana.

But what did I learn, really, if I’m honest? We were almost never given soda to drink (maybe a birthday party!) and certainly didn’t have access to candy or ice cream. And those casseroles (I grew up on the East Coast; here we would call them hotdish!) were absolute favorites of ours! No sacrifice there, whatsoever!

For my parent’s generation, the focus on the fast — the means — had in many ways displaced the “ends” — sharing more generously. Unlike my immigrant grandparents, who fasted for every day of Lent, the “new rules” introduced in the 1960s were more flexible and in some ways more compassionate (for example, elders and young children were no longer expected to fast). While the bishops emphasized fasting and its critical connection to almsgiving and prayer, people focused more on the changes in the “rules” rather than the continuity of meaning.

So I’ve been wondering: How should we relate to fasting and abstinence now? Somehow, serving my family a sumptuous fish dinner seems to miss the mark.

I’ve been thinking, certainly, of how our household might be more financially generous. Maybe the extra giving can come from places I indulge myself — like grabbing a sandwich out when I might have packed a lunch. Or popping into Caribou rather than filling my travel mug.

I know that PROP Food Shelf, our local powerhouse for feeding those in need, will welcome my contribution, however modest it might be.

This Lent, the fasting I’ve been thinking about most rigorously, though, is not food-centered. I’ve been thinking about fasting from behaviors that keep me from being the loving and peaceful presence my God and my community ask me to be.

So words are involved. Fasting from the Facebook rant. Fasting from the quick retort or caustic dig. Fasting from gossip and criticism. Fasting from nagging and complaining.

It’s much harder for me to abstain from carping at my children than it is to give up having dessert. It’s much harder to release fear of the future and the particular anxieties that accrue to it than to watch the evening news and yell at the television. (Yes, sad but true.)

So this Lent, my fast focuses a bit more on what comes out of my mouth than into it. But I believe that both practices — giving up forms of spending so I can give more generously to those in need, and giving up behaviors so those around me experience less stress and more peace — fulfill the purpose to which Lent calls me. Which is moving away from self-centeredness and focusing myself on others and my God.