from bags to richness

  i’ve been in deliberation, consideration and contemplation about the fast paced, easy living kind of life i’ve seemed to lead in these last four years, and to be frank, i’m not quite sure how much i have honored God.      

now don’t get me wrong, i’ve not switched gods, and i don’t worship a wooden statue. i’ve not given up my faith and i’ve been in church listening, growing and being in community.  i’ve read my bible and said my prayers, i’ve loved others and i’ve worked with children. but i’ve noticed a lot of ‘i’s. a lot about my salvation has been about me-and really, there is a cause for praise! i’m redeemed [saved] and made clean [forgiven]. my eternal destination is for sure [heaven] and my position before God is assured [child of].      

but what about this new focus that is causing so much buzz lately?what about my environment? after all, God let adam name the animals [so to speak-if you so desire] and once cast from eden with his wife, were made to work the ground for the food they would eat. so now here i am, living in a prestigious and fast growing city with demands for international cuisine at our fingertips, in a world where land is precious and overpriced, and consequently, so is its produce. we want rice and asian greens, indian spices and new zealand lamb, we want alaskan salmon and south coast tuna with european wine and costa-rican coffee. we want to drive 10 blocks to our local safeway to find the cheapest deals at no thought of production, the manufactory and the distance to arrive to our shelves.       

did you know the average north american meal will travel, in total, 2,500 miles?    

 we have lost connection with the food we eat, the way we consume and the results it has on the world around us.  so how the heck am i, one person, minimum yearly income, going to change the way i consume, when my local ‘community market’ is three times the price, organic milk costs me more than a bus ticket, twice, and to buy fresh produce still requires me to go and pick it off the shelves, with no thought of who has brought it to me?      

as a follower of Christ, i am called to be holy [set apart] so surely this means more than letting myself become a consumerist Christian who only cares about whether or not i get to heaven and disregard all the other commandments that Jesus gives us, and disregard the most beautiful creation without a care or a thought at the consequences of my actions?     

i’ve felt this way for 4 days total. i’ve been thinking about these issues since the summer and it’s lonely to be walking against the grain when the other way seems so much easier. i cried on tuesday when i realized that all the things i toss into the garbage don’t just magic away, but get thrown back into our earth [that was designed to be fertile and productive] with no care. every time i peruse an item in the store i am plagued with recycling consequences, questions of origin and thoughts about how good this really is. msg, artificially grown, genetically modified, radioactive, sprayed, handled shipped and displayed for days on end.     

so i started with banning plastic bags from my life. BANNED. i have enough safeway, buylow, shoppers drug mart, and non-descript plastic bags in my closet to last me till kingdom come, and each time one goes into the backyard bin, i am sending another group of chemicals into my much loved earth from which i expect an abundance of growth.   i now recycle. every thing. so much so that i have boxes and boxes of recycling that i desperately hope the garbage men will not leave on my back doorstep. i also earnt $6 on monday when i took a trip to my local recycle depot with my 50 bags of cans and bottles.    

i gave up safeway [overpriced and badly staffed], rice and crappy rubbish eggs and said ‘hello’ to new farm market [west 4th and vine], small shops and butchers with the hope that despite my wallet getting bashed, i am doing some sort of good for others.   

it is a small dent in a large crater of mistake and selfish desire, lack of care and focus on wealth. and although i, with a few others, walk a lonely road, maybe, in a ‘day of the triffids’ manner, will return to some agricultural roots, where focus is on richness rather than wealth.