April 19: Earth stewardship: Love the one you're with

In honor of Earth Day, our April discussion will focus on the earth. Jay Griffith is leading the discussion and has invited Professor George Handley (more below) to talk with us, as well.  Here are some thoughts, questions and readings from Jay.

********************

I grew up mostly in Oregon, a state where being environmentally responsible is part of the culture. And I grew up on the lower income side so it made sense to reuse, recycle, and live economically. Of course, these same values were shared with Utah's early settlers, but much of that legacy has sadly been forgotten or is now considered quaint and unnecessary. 

My ultimate hope in leading this discussion is for us—especially me—to better appreciate and accept responsibility for living in, and with, this remarkable gem called earth. To care for this rare home, enjoy its gifts, and leave it in good condition for those to come. To better love the one I'm with.

As with any discussion we will all benefit more if we indulge in the offered materials beforehand. I have submitted a lot. I encourage you to at least peruse all of it quickly and then read or listen to that which interests you most. I don't expect it all to be read, but you to find some pieces that resonate with you or challenge you to reconsider prior beliefs and lifestyles. I have offered a wide range of possibilities, from the theological to the capitalistic, from how we eat to how large we live.

I am especially delighted that Professor George Handley has graciously excepted my invitation to join us and give us a brief presentation. I first heard George give a lecture last year sponsored by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. I was impressed with not only his intelligent and poetic expression of ecological ideas, but also his desire to reach out without rancor to people with disparate ideologies and bring them together for the common good. By coincidence, he was recently quoted in an article called Sacred Groves, in the the Tribune. You can find a number of his essays under my list of resources a little further down. Very enjoyable and thought provoking reading. 

Speaking of thought provoking—please consider the following:

- What are one or two actions that you do to be a good earth steward that require some effort or sacrifice?

- What is one thing you have wanted to begin doing (or not doing) that would help, but that you have yet to do? Why haven't you?

Areas in our lives where we directly impact the earth:
-How we eat
-What we buy
-How and where we travel
-What we do with what we don't want
-How we recreate
-How we nest
-How we design and care for our yards

-What we invest in
-How we spend our discretionary income
-How we spend our discretionary time
-What we believe

Speaking of beliefs:

- If you have libertarian leanings, how do you propose to protect the environment for the private and common good?

- If you have socialist leanings, how do you propose to protect property rights and free enterprise for the private and common good?

- What is government's (definition: our authority vested in elected officials) role in this?

- What is our role?

- What in faith traditions can be utilized to support good earth stewardship? What draws us away?

- Can we truly love God without loving and respecting and enjoying his gifts?
- To be spiritually sound must one be environmentally sane?
- Can we be even happier with less?
- Could a united and universal love for the environment create greater peace and abundance for all of humanity?

Consider these ideas that are often expressed as either/or:

- Save the environment vs. save the economy 
- Public rights vs. property rights
- Pollution vs. higher production costs
- Global vs. local
- Stewardship vs. dominion
- Secular-scientific vs. religious-faith based
- End of the world via God vs. end of the world via man
- Abundance vs. poverty
- Capitalism vs. socialism
- Over population vs. freedom to procreate

Can we find some mutually shared values and beliefs in all these seemingly opposing ideas? While there is the dead of night and the high noon of day, most of our life is spent in the overlap of the two—light increasing and darkness diminishing, or vice versa.  

Resources from Professor George Handley:

Stewardship and the Creation: LDS Perspectives on the Environment

The Environmental Ethics of Mormon Belief

Faith and the Ethics of Climate Change

An excerpt from his most recent book, Home Waters

Resources to listen to or watch:

I thoroughly enjoyed all of these. They are quite diverse approaches. Entertaining, moving, and thought provoking. 

John Francis walks the Earth

The Not So Big Life

What's Food Got to Do With It?

Greening the Ghetto  (stick with it to the end)

Fragile Earth

The Man Who Quit Money

More resources to read:

Local: Air Pollution increases risk of stroke and dementia

Local: Why we need the EPA

New business green and local

A brief essay from Wendall Berry

Various Religious Perspectives in support of the environment (see left hand sidebar)

And finally, some pithy quotes:

“[I]f you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go. We are talking about the body of the beloved, not real estate.”
― Terry Tempest Williams

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." - Mohandas K. Gandhi

"He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."  -Edward Abbey

“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.” ― Wendell Berry

“Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.”
― Wendell Berry 

“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. ”
― Michael Pollan,

" ... the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world. Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.”
― Michael Pollan,

"The idea of a humanless world is the intoxication of American rugged individualism, whitewashing the West of its native populations just for the chance to play Indian to civilization’s cowboy." - George Handley

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” 

― John Muir

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” ― John Muir

“We are fossils in the making.” 
― Wallace Stegner