Friday, 02 May 2008

• So I was reading Crystal Renaud's (who is part of the Communication staff at Westside Family Church in Kansas City) blog this evening, which is full of pretty sweet stuff. However, her entry about Earth Day got me a little vamped up (as I do when anyone makes fun of the green movement, calls me a tree-hugger, or brags about being green without even knowing what the hell they're talking about). Here's a blurb:
  
  "with this being “green week” all over the place… on major tv networks, yahoo!, google… everywhere… i can’t help but get a little more than just annoyed by it. (i retract the annoyed comment, but have yet to find a better word for it.)

  now, don’t get me wrong… i, myself, prefer organic foods, carpool with my mom and participated in earth hour, but with all the millions spent on green homes, hybrid cars and who knows whatever else… is any of this really doing anything to impact the world?

  in my opinion… NO.

  why? the cynic in me would say it is because i think global warming is a total crock. but the truer answer and point of this entry, is that i care more about the diseased, the orphaned, the homeless and the gospel – than i do about being green."
  

  You can read the whole entry here.

  So here is my reply to the whole thread. I feel like I say this sort of thing a lot to a lot of random people when the whole "green" topic is brought up. So it only made sense for me to put this here as a kind of official statement about how I feel about the goofy situation.
  

  "I have to echo 2012. The efforts taken to make the world a cleaner and better place to live affect and are affected by efforts made to offer the diseased and mistreated a higher standard of living. We cannot say that these things are unrelated. We all live in God's creation; we are all part of God's creation. Both are acts taken to further the "working out of our salvation".
  
  And let me be the first to say that the current "green" movement in U.S. definitely misses the mark. The fact of the matter is that endeavoring to be more green or more sustainable is not about buying a new Prius, reducing your emissions or supporting Al Gore. It is not about recycling or Earth Day or global warming. When we embrace sustainability, we embrace the choice to live a simple, selfless, healthy life and to be aware of the way that our choices and actions effect the people and the world around us. Being "green" is way more about awareness, about looking outside of yourself and not being a consumerist turd-face just because your culture taught you that way.
  
  This attitude shift is important because it changes not only how we interact with and value the earth, but how we interact with and value other people. When we realize that dumping nasty chemicals into the water and burying tons of trash in the earth helps spawn the diseases that we are trying so hard to fight off, we can choose not to use the earth that other people touch and breathe in as a garbage can. When we realize that what we put into our bodies affects our emotions and our well being, we can begin to treat our bodies with respect by nurturing them, and, in turn, teaching others how to respect their bodies and other people's bodies. When we realize our irresponsibility with our resources, we can develop accountability, diligence, and self-control, which will bleed into the way we handle our money and a treat our families and allow us to show others to be responsible with what they've been given.
  
  So I can understand being frustrated/annoyed/fed up with the media pushing green down your throat. As a matter of fact, please be fed up with consumerism and media and big corporations whose use green to sell themselves to well-intentioned people. Because only then will all of this really matter and sink in and begin to reach into the way we treat people and what we value. When we start taking sides and saying this matters more than that and it's us vs. them...then we have missed the point.
  
  Because God cares about all of it because it's all the same thing. It's all of a broken creation waiting to be restored to it's glory by it's amazing Creator."
  
  

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