Being sisters and brothers of nature

Have you noticed that the weather is getting to be less and less predictable? Sometimes I get the feeling that our sciences, maths, probabilities and meteorological indicators are stories we tell to convince ourselves that everything is "normal." I keep wondering... if our polar icecaps are melting, where is all that water going to go? We've sure got a lot of snow this season... and people in Brisbane and Brazil aren't doing so hot with their homes destroyed by water or mud. Freak occurrences, or part of what's now called Global Climate Change?

We'll never really know because so many variables are at play, but I have my suspicions. And my suspicions lead me to believe that it's time human beings woke up and paid more attention to things that are happening, rather than trying to explain them away. The calendar on my wall this month quotes Ekhard Tolle: "To awaken within the dream is our purpose now." In North America, we've been dreaming that the earth will always be able to supply our every need and satisfy our every whim. We've dreamed until a lot of Earth's species and resources have disappeared because of us, and now it's starting to look as if Nature is about to revolt. Who can blame her? We certainly haven't been very good stewards in our twin quests for luxury and convenience. Personally, I could handle a lot less of both if it would mean fewer disruptions in the health of our planet.

For too long, we've been taking the easy way out. We've lost touch with so many of the processes that allow us to live. It wasn't that long ago that we grew our own food, built our own homes, and worked with our hands to provide for ourselves and our communities, and we were much healthier for it. We didn't have to worry about diets or exercise because both were balanced and integral parts of our daily lives. We knew how to make do, and we lived in solidarity with each other, rather than in competition to see who had the most or best of everything.

We can't go back in time, but we can return to our roots. It's high time we start to consider ourselves to be sisters and brothers of nature and forget all that biblical bosh about "filling the earth and subduing it." We need to wake from the dream that we are in charge and that every homeowner must have their own fill-in-the-blank. We need to get on with living lightly, with using as few of Earth's resources as possible, and remembering that we aren't the pinnacle of God's creation, but just a small part of it. I expect that God loves everything created, right down to the tiniest amoeba, and our challenge is to live in harmony with it all.  Henri Nouwen hits the nail on the head when he says:

When we think of oceans and mountains, forests and deserts, trees, plants and animals, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the galaxies, as God's creation, waiting eagerly to be "brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of God" (Roman 8:21), we can only stand in awe of God's majesty and God's all- embracing plan of salvation. It is not just we, human beings, who wait for salvation in the midst of our suffering; all of creation groans and moans with us longing to reach its full freedom.

In this way we are indeed brothers and sisters not only of all other men and women in the world but also of all that surrounds us. Yes, we have to love the fields full of wheat, the snowcapped mountains, the roaring seas, the wild and tame animals, the huge redwoods, and the little daisies. Everything in creation belongs, with us, to the large family of God.      Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, December 9th

God's dream is so much bigger than ours. It's time to wake and live God's dream. My seed catalogue arrived last week. I'm going to cooperate with God's dream today by ordering seeds to grow this year's vegetables to help feed my family.

What's your plan to live God's dream today?

An excellent gift idea

Let's face it -- in North America, a lot of us have everything we need and more than we want... so Christmas giving is unnecessary, except for the fact that we desire to recognize the important people in our lives with some sort of gift. So what do we do?

Here's one of my favourite ideas, passed along last Christmas by my friend, Cathy. She sent each of my daughters a $25 Kiva.org gift card via the internet. Kiva is an amazing organization that relies on donors to make contributions toward micro loans that enable people in the developing world to start businesses that support them and their families. My girls went to the Kiva website and were able to view all sorts business opportunities and the people who were asking for assistance to get them started. They were delighted to choose to donate their "gifts" to help a hairstylist and two grocers in Senegal, Togo and Uganda.

The wonderful thing about Kiva is that we've gotten regular updates on the business people the girls sponsored, and all but $4.48 of the money invested last Christmas has been paid back. The girls are able to sponsor new people with the original monies they received, and will have the fun of choosing and learning about them all over again. A Kiva gift truly keeps on giving, and that's way better than an ugly tie or a box of chocolates!

http://www.kiva.org/

The one who dies with the most toys... has missed the point

Honestly, there should be a moratorium on stuffed animals in this world. The reason I say this is because my children, like most North American kids, have each been given more stuffies than any single child could love, enough to supply a village of kids in the developing world. Lately, when I walk into Julia's room, I've been tripping over animals. She's gathered a group of bears, ponies, kittens, puppies, seals, owls, and various and sundry others onto her bed, and they inevitably overflow onto the floor for me to step on and curse in the dark.

At the Society of St. Vincent de Paul where I volunteer on Thursdays, it isn't much better. We have a tiny space where we display necessities for our clients, and one big shelf and two fairly large bins are always full of cuddly critters, with another special bin of soft little characters whose eyes and noses won't come off to choke baby. One of our homeless ladies always takes a large teddy bear if she can; maybe it keeps her warm? In our small storage area upstairs, there are bags and bags of stuffed animals tucked in with all sorts of other toys that have been donated by families whose children have outgrown them.

When you really think about how many toys the average child has these days, it seems pretty ridiculous in comparison to how many toys my mom had, or even how much I grew up with. Today's parents have been sold a huge bill of goods by toy manufacturers who have convinced us that, in order to develop properly, children need objects to stimulate their intellects, imaginations, and physical abilities. And I'm as guilty of buying too many toys as the next parent.

My least favourite toy purchase? The little "kitchen" we bought when Christina was three and Suzanna just a baby. I look at it now and recognize that, though I had two little girls (and one more to come) who would get a lot of use out of it, really, I bought it for myself. As a child, I always wished for a toy kitchen like that because some of my friends had them, but my family couldn't afford such things. But my girls wouldn't be so deprived! Of course, their pink plastic toy (that now gathers dust in the corner of the basement) didn't offer as much play value as the cardboard kitchen creation my sisters and I built out of a packing box. And ours was biodegradable!

The reason I'm thinking about toys today is because of a few email exchanges with a friend. She and her family returned just last weekend from eight months in Ghana, and are finding, after living with just the basics in Accra, that their home here is more cluttered than they would like. They would prefer to live more with less stuff. And it's no wonder -- while there, her kids played the way kids without storebought toys play -- happily, with their friends and their imaginations. A less cluttered life leaves more room for creativity, it seems. Sometimes I wonder if the reason so many kids these days complain of boredom is because toy manufacturers leave so little to the imagination. Maybe it's because some kids have so many toys, they have to spend a lot of time keeping them in order? Or too much stuff leaves no room to play?

My favourite toy purchase? The one that's had the most staying power -- those little Danish snap-together blocks that can be "a new toy every day." But even with them, you can't pick up a jumble of assorted Legos anymore unless you go to a garage sale as soon as it opens -- now the company sells sets so you can build a specific item. Fortunately for us, our girls have never bothered with building to the manufacturer's specifications, choosing instead to use their jumbled-together kits to create incredibly intricate homes for little Lego people, or structures that use every single block and look like temples from another world.

What's most telling about the most and least favourite toys I've mentioned is that, at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, we can't keep things like Legos in stock. Creative toys are usually the first to go, long before highly manufactured items like pink plastic play kitchens. As far as I can tell, the bumper sticker that proclaims as winner the one who "collects the most toys" misses the point altogether. The winner is the one who has the most fun using his or her imagination. And biodegradable is always better, too!