Green Burials

Here's another pretty interesting story (at least in my opinion!). I came across this one in Sunday's Indy Star and frankly, found it pretty thought provoking.

Unbeknownst to those of us who live in my house, you don't have to be buried in a casket. There are alternatives that are not only much cheaper but also much more Earth friendly. How often does that seem to be the case?!? What also stuck out to me is that there is a more eco-friendly embalming method that can be used for those who chose to have open-casket viewings. True story: a few years ago, I had a student write a research paper about embalming (her title? "Embalming: The Spa of the Afterlife"...it's one of those that I'll always remember), and the reading about the whole process has rather turned me off from that option for myself. But then again, if there's a greener, more environmentally conducive way to achieve that end, why not consider that as an option?

Ever since we moved to Kokomo, I admit that the thought has often crossed my mind: Where would I be buried if I were to die? For me, it doesn't bother me to be buried elsewhere if that's the right place for it. I'm not one who is particularly drawn to any one patch of ground over another so much as I am intrigued by having the right kind of burial that is in keeping with the way that I have lived my life. Ask the husband; I already told him that this appeals quite a bit to me. Anyone want to join me in thinking about this as a possibility??

9 ways to green your heating

I've been doodling around the Recyclebank website more lately, and I came across this handy list of 9 tips to help green up your home's heating. What do you think? Anything new on the list that you hadn't thought of before or anything that just might work out for you or your family?

1. Assess your heating system. There's a small list of items to consider if you suspect that it just might be time to replace that furnace. Some items on this checklist include
*if your furnace is over 15 years old,
*if your heat pump is over 12 years old, or
*if you have a gas furnace that doesn't feature electonic or pilot-less ignition, which signifies that it was installed before 1992 and will be no more than 65% efficient (today's models are at least 80% efficient...how about those savings?).

2. Buy an EPA-certified wood stove. The site points out that "wood is misunderstood" and is carbon neutral.

3. Choose the right type of central heating.

4. Improve the performance of your heating system. This can be as simple as cleaning the filters or baseboards, registers, or radiators. Our family has found that the washable, reusable filters are a snap to clean and cost a fraction of regular, disposable filters.

5. Choose the right home heating fuel.

6. Heat with biodiesel.

7. Use passive solar. This strategy requires good southern sunlight, which many houses naturally have.

8. Program your thermostat for energy efficiency.

9. Install a heat pump.

Ideas to think about???

Forward thinking

"7 Resolutions, with a green twist": http://earth911.com/news/2009/12/28/7-resolutions-with-a-green-twist/

For the final Advent posting, I was thinking about what could I say that I haven't yet said that would still be relevant to us as we enjoy this season of anticipation and preparation. Seemingly, this pause in the flurry of the year is nearing an end, yet...it's doesn't have to be. If we accept the idea of advent into our minds as well as our hearts, then our general outlook on life can become one of expectation and preparation, and truly, this joyous season can burgeon into a calendar full of adventian happenings. With that in mind, I came to the website listed above, and I particularly appreciate the sheer simplicity of it. "Resolutions" can be such a loaded word, one that is full of expectations of failure and forced unpleasantness. Does it have to be? Or, can we approach the coming of the new year resolved to usher in an updated perspective on the way that we live our lives and interact with others. Indeed, resolutions can be the advent of this evolving mindset.

#1: More family time. There's a reason this is #1, no? NO ONE equates "more family time" with any electronic or disparate activity as our lives are ever more becoming centered around. Indeed, "more family time" often becomes synonymous with "get off of your rump and do something cool with someone cool outside, which is just cool." Or something like that.

#2: Resurrect the workout. The site brings up an interesting point: what an incredible amount of energy consumption that is used just to power a gym. That's an interesting take on this tried and true resolution standard. But we live in a cold winter climate, so what is one to do? I don't know that I have a steadfast answer for this one, but I do know that exercise does not have to look like exercise. Feel free to volunteer to play with my 2-year old sometime for a few hours and see how much of a workout you get; she loves to race. Maybe, just maybe, this resolution really relates more to #1 rather than buy-a-new-membership-at-the-nearest-gym-for-$40-a-month.

#3: Kick the nic. Check out this section in particular. We hear ad naseum about the harmful or polluting chemicals that are released by just one cigarette, but what about the environmental impact of that same cigarette before it is ever lit? According to the site which cites www.treehugger.com, 1 tree is wasted just to create every 300 cigarettes, and tobacco is a pesticide-intensive crop. And the trash--those butts add up.

#4: Balance your budget. 8 ways to go green and save hundreds (good reminders): http://earth911.com/news/2008/11/03/8-ways-to-go-green-and-save-hundreds/

#5: Up your volunteering efforts. Helping others in the community in which you live can have some serious upsides beyond just the actual service that you provide. You have a voice and a message and lifestyle that you can share. Vocally or by example, people watch you and will notice. You never know when the chance arises to start a conversation.

#6: Take a load off! Eco-tourism is actually real and a growing trend towards more environmentally conscious means of travel, destinations and activities. Its starts with something as simple as being aware of how you pack (think weight of luggage and reusable containers) but can also influence the mode of transportation and hotel choice. Regardless, take a load off--mentally and physically. Free your mind and your body to possibilities and simplicity.

#7: Train your brain. I love this one. It encourages you to simply READ. Educate yourself as you are interested. An educated mind simply cannot be an ignorant mind. It's good to know validate the why of the green movement, and information is readily available to any who are willing to inquire.

Pledge to Simply the Holidays

https://sites.google.com/site/transitionyorkpa/simplicity-now/pledgetosimplifytheholidays

Check out this pretty cool website courtesy of Dave Swinehart. Don't think that it's too late to participate in this pledge to simply the holidays, either!

I'm particularly excited about a couple of these ideas, which I find to be unique and interesting ideas. Definitely go the website, but just to tease your holiday appetite (which has probably been whetted a thousand ways already), here are a few of my favorites.

*Give the gift of time: the older I get, the more that I appreciate this as a service for a friend or family member that I love or as a present that someone gives me.

*Consider less gimmicky, less commercial gifts for children: the suggestions on the website (art supplies, books, creative toys) are always what is highest on my list for my daughter when others ask me what she would "like" for Christmas. ALWAYS.

*Create a paperless holiday letter: doesn't it take as much time as (if not less) than addressing all of those holiday cards. OR, at least seek out ways to make your own cards or choose those that are made with 100% recycled materials.

*Give a handmade gift: have you heard of etsy.com? Perfect!

*Reduce junk mail: apparently, you can remove your name from common mailing lists...there's a website to consult for tips on how to do this on the Pledge website.

Don't we all have a responsibility to our Earth and our local if not global community to be aware of why we do what we do? And we can still have a good old traditional holiday celebration in a smarter, more focused manner, can't we??? I, for one, pledge to do so.

The Holiday Bulge

How's this for a holiday bulge? Landfills absorb an additional 1 million tons of waste every year during the holidays, Thanksgiving through New Years (up 25% from any other time of year). And unlike us, a landfill can't jump on a treadmill to work off some of those pounds. Once it's there, it's harder to get rid of than those love handles from too many Christmas cookies. So let's make an early holiday season resolution to think ahead about how we're going to prevent some of these unnecessary pounds. It takes a lot of used wrapping paper to make 1 million TONS.

*Wrapping paper is usually not toxic. And while you could iron and re-use it (my grandmother does!), you could also simply bag it up and recycle it just as you would newspapers. BUT, metallic wrapping paper and curling ribbon shouldn't be included in your recycling stash.

*Consider using butcher paper, brown paper bags, newspapers, fabric, or any other unique material. Seriously, even if it's not the most beautiful gift covering, wouldn't you feel supremely special that someone spent that time and attention on a gift for you?

*For that matter, why not have the kids in your life color some pictures to use as wrapping paper?

*Don't forget that tissue paper can be just as problematic and wasteful as the actual wrapping paper.

*That paper tube that the wrapping paper comes on is also recyclable.

*Don't forget to re-use those bows and ribbons; why throw them away?

*Some groups/organizations sell recycled-content wrapping paper for fundraisers. That's not a bad idea.

*Gift cards--everyone loves them (yes, please!) and besides the card itself and maybe an envelope that it comes in (both of which are generally recyclable), where's the packaging? Unless you wrap the wrapped gift card...

*Baskets and other containers can often make personal and eye catching gift bags as well.

Yeah, these ideas take some time and thought, but that's what meaningful holidays are all about!

Green Your Christmas Week One

Toys.

It seems to me that no matter who you are, no matter who lives in your household, you seem to be scouting out great toy deals around the holidays for some little tyke. Luckily for those of us who encounter little ones on a regular basis (and buy colorful, entertaining devices for those little munchkins), there are more and more GREEN toy options popping up everywhere--even local box stores, which really have to have motivation to change their inventory to costlier options.

Green toys are truly mainstream now and readily available. Its refreshing to buy a toy that fosters creative play and critical thinking, are non-toxic and aren't easily broken! To many people, this more than off-sets the cost investment of quality products that aren't made of imported plastic. The following are a couple of options to consider:

*Melissa & Doug (www.melissaanddoug.com)--frankly, these toys are very comparable cost option!
*Soopsori (www.soopsori.com)--free shipping!
*Green Toys (www.greentoys.com)--sells not only their products but link to a slew of other green toy sites
*Plan Toys (www.plantoys.com)--inventive, unique designs
*Target & Amazon (www.target.com & www.amazon.com)--believe it or not, both of these sites offer fairly significant green toy collections

But, lest we forget, adults deserve green toys, too!

*Gaiam (www.gaiam.com)--quality products for sustainable living
*Portable sustainable solar charger (www.amazon.com)--pretty...cool
*First World Trash (www.firstworldtrash.com)--chic, urban products made completely from recycled materials
*Eco-artware (www.eco-artware.com)--various luggage pieces made from recycled firehose (!!!)

In fact, green products are so easy to find, and they're often much more unique than anything you can purchase from your local box store. A quick Google search is a perfect place to start.

Not 95 But 9 Theses: Best I Could Do In A Pinch

This past summer my wife and I had an opportunity to tour the Laurentian Library in Florence.  The building was designed by Michelangelo to house the books and manuscripts of the Medici family, including the oldest manuscript of the Latin Vulgate Bible, sixth-century Syriac Rabula Gospels, and many other priceless and ancient documents.  (Ask Lenore; she has pictures!) 

As exquisite as the building is, what struck me the most was the pew like reading desks where once the ancient books were kept, prior to modern preservation in controlled environments.  Imagine a few select scholars sitting at those desks pouring over the books, so rare and priceless in the days prior to the printing press that they were chained in place.  It was a different time.  Even today one must be a recognized scholar to have any access at all to the books beyond a few on display in glass cases.

I thought of this library again because this morning CLC had a guest preacher, E. Dean Windhorn, who for the sermon dressed up as Luther in Reformation garb, and reminisced as if an old man looking back over the major events of his life.  Amazing how a little theatrics spices up a sermon.  What caught my attention was the fact that it wasn’t until Luther became a Doctor of Sacred Theology that he had regular access to a manuscript of the Bible.  It was because of this access that Luther began his Reformation journey, why he was stimulated to author the 95 Theses, why he ended up crosswise with the Church, and ultimately why he translated the Bible into his native German so that others might have the access he had, as printing technology developed.

Luther's 95 Theses were of course controversial.   They were designed that way.  They were intended to be confrontational, to provoke people.  The readers were invited to debate the issues with Luther, and he expected opposing views.  He expected to touch off a conversation.  And he did.  However, if you read those theses now, they sound a little disconnected from today’s world.  We have lived through the Enlightenment, the discovery of the New World, the Industrial Revolution, have an entirely different understanding of the universe, and have raised worldwide human communication to a level of real time pervasiveness not even imagined in the days of print technology.  The questions we ask of our world and of our place in it are necessarily quite different than the questions Luther asked of his world.

The 19^th century pictured Jesus as the ultimate Enlightenment man, a European Caucasian with long flowing blond hair, who lived morally perfect in a flawed world.  Most of the 20^th century, reacting to that 19^th century image, followed Albert Schweitzer in picturing Jesus as a darker more ethnic Mediterranean type, proclaiming the apocalyptic end of the world ruled by Rome.   Most of the church still likes that apocalyptic image of Jesus, but conveniently forgets that Schweitzer saw Jesus as a tragically failed apocalyptic prophet.   Current scholarship, in opposition to Schweitzer, offers a picture of Jesus as a wisdom teacher, a man with penetrating insights into human nature, who used parables to provoke us to ask ourselves life’s most basic questions.  Every age imagines Jesus as the perfect embodiment of those virtues and values it holds most dear, the ultimate answer to what the current world most needs.

Just as every age rediscovers Jesus for its own time, Paul’s relation to Jesus is rethought anew.  We have moved from the Reformation’s theological and religious Paul to a quite different Paul.  A Paul that is understood in a real 1^st century historical setting, rather than an abstract theological setting.  A Paul who remained faithful to his Jewish roots rather than a Paul who started a new religion.  A Paul in the context of Roman Empire rather than a Paul exclusively in a Jewish religious setting.  A Paul sensitive to gender issues rather than a Paul trapped in a male patriarchal world.  A Paul as much political as religious.  In short, Paul as community organizer rather than Paul as abstract theologian. 

When our understanding of Paul changes, our understanding of church changes also.  So I offer these 9 contemporary insights into Paul to get you thinking about their implications for reforming church in our day.

1.       Paul was not a systematic theologian, but more what we would call today a community organizer.  We need to quit arguing about what was the essence of his systematic thought, and focus instead on how he was trying to motivate people to action in his culture.  He motivated communities using metaphors and grand symbols.  His reinterpretation of the Jewish idea of a General Resurrection restoring this earth was the grandest metaphor of the bunch.  Metaphors are neither scientifically true nor false, neither morally good nor bad.  They are a way of talking about human reality. 

2.       Denominations need to pitch their catechisms, and quit pretending that church is all about correct religious thinking, as opposed to the wrong thinking of ‘others’.  Community organizers worth their salt don’t care about how people think.  They care about what people are doing together in the community. 

3.       Paul was Jewish, and he didn’t ‘convert’.  He remained a Jew with a modified appreciation of Jesus, a fellow Jew.  Jews are not legalistic hypocrites to any greater degree than people in today’s churches are legalistic hypocrites.  And truth be told, probably less so. 

4.       The doctrine of grace needs some revisiting.  When asked rhetorically in Romans 3:31 whether he was nullifying the law, Paul’s response was a vigorous ‘Certainly not!  We are affirming the law.’  Paul was trying hard to emphasize a point, and Protestantism ought to pay attention to what he was getting at. 

5.       Jesus critiqued primarily his own Jewish culture, which was laboring under the strains of Empire.  Paul’s life work was to welcome ‘the nations’ (Gentiles) as partners with Jews, reasoning that Jews and the nations were jointly subjugated by Rome.  Since in God’s scheme of things they were all in the same boat, it made (divine) sense to be supporting one another.  Paul used the Father Abraham and Second Adam metaphors to convince people, Jews and other nations subjugated by Rome, that they had common interests.  Unfortunately, after the Jewish revolts failed, ‘the nations’ threw Judaism under the bus to protect their own skin in the Empire.  That has continued now for 2000 years.  It needs to end. 

6.       Scholars need to let go of the notion that their work actually means something, if it doesn’t somehow get down and dirty with real people in community.  Churches can’t long exist without knowledge of their roots.  Scholars need the church, and the church needs scholarship.  But the two haven’t been talking to each other lately.  As our church sign currently says, Ignorance of the Good Book has reached biblical proportions! 

7.       Just because it was right for Paul or Jesus in the first century doesn’t mean it is right for us in the 21^st century.  America is an empire, but it isn’t the Roman Empire.  They didn’t struggle with life then so that we could stick our heads in the sand now.  Paul and Jesus lived their lives among the vanquished, not among the victors. 

8.       In the last 500 years we have become overly fascinated by printed communication, which is more individual and more abstract.  The more natural mode of human social communication, in all previous human history, is visual and metaphorical.  Steve Jobs was on to something, moving from text back to image.  The Church needs to pay more attention to its metaphors, and less to its theology.  MLK didn’t move people with academic books on the equality of all people.   “I have a dream . . .” is what moved people, and that is a metaphor.  

9.       The Reformation has run its course, and the church needs to build on a new foundation.  The world is a different place, and different questions are being asked.  Human community today needs to rediscover substance before cosmetic fixes.  Paul is where the Reformation started, and Paul is where we need to return, to start again. 

What if church wasn’t about ‘converting’ people?  What if Paul really wasn’t gender biased?  What if we quit debating whether metaphors are true, and started debating what they mean?  What if God really wants us to participate in resurrecting this world?  Let’s see.  Augustus = slaves, patronage, cronyism, conquest of nation and gender.  Paul  = a different kind of community based on a servant model rather than a domination model.  Maybe he was on to something when he said Augustus was not lord, but someone else was.  That is a metaphor that might be fun to try to live by.  People might join with us, if they thought we were really serious about it.