Vox populi | green not groan

taken the green plunge

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hey came and took away my garbage this morning.  I watched contemplatively sipping my coffee as the city’s sanitation department representative dumped my one reusable plastic garbage pail into the back of his truck.  He unceremoniously threw it back on my lawn, with little or no regard to the fact I only had one pail generated by six people for a whole week set against the eight bags my neighbour is chucking out.  The recycling rep won’t be as impressed.  I have three full bins for her.

You see, I’ve taken the green plunge.  Yes, the Neanderthal has succumbed to the mores of society and has gone green.  It took some work, but we’re at the point when we see our kids forgetting, and throwing the watermelon rind into the garbage, we dig through all of the garbage to pick it out.  We’re committed.  We compost every possible piece of garbage, and we recycle all else.  I’d love to find a way to recycle plastic bags because I could reduce garbage to half of that.  We reuse bags for lunches, and for grocery shopping we use reusable shopping bags (when we remember to take them into the store), and if we forget we juggle an armful of groceries so as not to use another plastic bag.

Here’s the rub.  It isn’t difficult, and beyond that, as part of creation we ought to live in a spiritual relationship with all of creation whereby we display concern for the well being of creation through our actions.  We do not have the luxury of selectivity.  We can’t choose to live ethically in relationship with part of creation and not the whole of creation.  Paul, in Romans 8, writes that creation groans in anticipation of the future glory of God.  My fear is that we may be causing it unnecessary groaning.

Vox populi appears every Friday on theRubicon. Find past Vox populi posts and a bio of Capt. Rick Zelinsky here.

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