Reading: from Climate, Class, and Claptrap, by Garret Keizer

I woke in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, probably due to some indigestible thing I’d eaten, a sacred cow or a digital polar bear. On my way back to bed from scribbling some of these words, I looked out the window and saw the stars through the bare branches of the century-old-and-older sugar maples that line my dirt road. I confess that iconic, God’s eye views of Earth do not move me, but starlight through the bare branches of maple trees in one radically particular place can move me a great deal. If the earth continues to grow warmer, I may live to see the day when sugar maples no longer exist at this latitude. I think of that line of Rilke’s, written after beholding another particular object of beauty, “You must change your life.”

But how? It is not enough to acknowledge that global warming exists; we also need to ask what global warming means. Surely one thing it means is that a culture that has as its highest aim the avoidance of anything remotely resembling physical work must change its life. If you want an inconvenient truth, there it is: that the very notion of convenience upon which our civilization rests is a lie that is killing us. And if you want to see how quickly green can turn yellow, make mention of that abundant, renewable fuel source whose chief emission is human sweat.

[He goes on to say...]

...You do not repair the climate on an entire planet without staggering sacrifices, and people will not elect to make staggering sacrifices unless the burden is shared with something like parity...The game of finding someone else in some convenient misery to fight our wars, pull our rickshaws, and serve as the offset for every filthy indulgence is just about up. It is either Earth for all of us or hell for most of us...

Homily: What Color Is Your Soul?

(what follows are the notes from which the homily was delivered)

Several concerns bouncing around in my head:

Our overly busy lives and the need to simplify

the stress and tiredness I see among our people

the clutter on my desk

global warming and catastrophic climate changes

the impending expiration of the lease on our car

the flea market three weeks from now

Thoreau’s experiment in simple living

Rumi’s ecstatic love

I have a feeling that they are all related

the article in this month’s Harpers Magazine

started to connect the dots

so I offer a reflection in three parts

Part I – Color Me Cluttered

ten days ago, taking advantage of a week free from preaching

started collecting things for the flea market

easy stuff first:

a shopping bag full of wire hangers

reminded me of the symbolism of coat hanger

Sydney and I used to challenge each other to create a homily on a given object

candle, dollar bill, key, brick, screwdriver

and then coat hanger, and I blanked

completely missed coat hangers as symbol of pain and desperation

clothes from forty pounds ago

a few books of the several dozen we buy every year, why could I only find eight to donate?

hoarding instinct – I’m not that good a buyer

dishes, glassware, kitchen gadgets, tools

remembering how my parents were able to outfit my first apartment

from things they had in storage

magazines – how they pile up, usually open to an unfinished article

I require of myself that I read at least one article before disposing of the issue

not for flea market

take them to Kaiser and leave them in waiting rooms

satisfaction –

I had crossed a couple of items off my to-do list

creating space

getting rid of jams

being able to find things easily

giving myself room to work

time to sit down and reflect on what all this stuff says about my life

invite you all to do the same

in fact, let’s take a few moments now to do that

Part II – Color Me Odd

that was all fairly easy and fun

then my desk

couldn’t even face it until I has built up some momentum

by handling other accumulations

layers of stuff overlain with layers of more recent stuff

all of some importance, none of it vital

a lot of it just waiting for me to figure out which file it goes into

or to create a file for it, since it’s a new category

I clear it away every six weeks or so

it stays clear for a few hours

only a few hours

clutter because I’m a P on Myers Briggs

comfortable with paradox

not driven to catagorize, sort, label, or judge

prefer process orientation

don’t have a psychological need for order or closure

but I may have a survival need for it

things get covered over and forgotten

lots of time spent trying to unearth papers I need

occasionally missed deadlines

mostly a matter of when and how I get satisfaction

the work involved in sorting and filing isn’t nearly as satisfying as reading Rumi

or gardening, or dare I say it, shopping

so things pile up

stuff gets piled on top of stuff

I can spend a whole hour on the internet trying to save ten dollars on medication for my dog’s arthritis

when that same hour would be worth far to me if I spent it making out reimbursement vouchers for professional expenses

and an hour spent sorting and filing would be worth at least that much in time saved trying to find things later

I could claim to be a child of my time

easily distracted (hyperlink syndrome)

acquisitive in behavior, if not in values

easily bored with rote tasks

of short attention span

craving entertainment feeding spiritual hunger by raiding the fridge or perusing catalogues

driven by anxiety and fear, the stock in trade of advertizing and politics

Some of that undoubtedly true

but I fit a strange demographic

advertisers don’t even bother with me (unless their selling electronics)

market test showed that I fall outside the norm

reading habits – other,

TV shows – other,

movies – other,

music – other,

food – other,

hobbies – other,

occupation – other,

vacations – other

also unusual level of education

unusual religion

OTHER in every category

color me ODD

let the congregation say AMEN

but like any good American I keep trying to solve the problem of my cluttering habit through technology

low tech, but tech none the less

surround myself with shelves, drawers, boxes, pigeon holes, baskets, cases, filing systems

so far none has managed to train me

and the piles keep growing

I always have my eye out for the gadget or the system that will tame my vagrant spirit

What do you get for the man who has everything? Something to keep it in...

So when I read Garret Keizer’s essay on global warming in this month’s Harpers

with its acerbic comments on our national affinity for comfort, convenience, and the technological fix,

I immediately thought, Whoa He’s talking about me!

And I sat down again to reflect on what I can do to slow the process of climate change

Part III – Color Me Troubled

I’ve already taken the three bulb pledge, replacing burned out incandescent lamps with fluorescents whenever feasible

have as yet seen on cost/benefit study on replacing good incandescent bulbs with fluorescents,

so I wait till a bulb dies

I’ve also discovered that some fluorescent bulbs don’t have a very long life

so I sometimes feel like I’ve been had

I recycle – paper, glass, cans, plastic, and old clothing and household goods

I drive fewer than 7000 miles a year and live only two miles from where I work

do most of my work in my home office

I live in a 1200 square foot home that’s easy to heat and cool

But I live in an all-electric house in a state that relies on fossil fuels for almost all of its energy

I still eat produce that comes from thousands of miles away

– love those green salads in January and apples in May –

Somehow I manage to fill a 50 gallon trash barrel each week

I use the dishwasher every other day,

the washer and dryer one day a week, usually at least two loads,

sometimes as many as four

and my car only averages 22 miles to a gallon of gasoline

but if I trade it in for one with better mileage, it will still be on the road,

so where’s the gain?

I know that if I’m to be a responsible citizen of the future,

and reduce my energy usage

(and other contributions to the green house effect)

I’ll have to change my life

But I can’t even make myself keep my desk clear

How do I make even bigger changes?

What do I know?

The beginning of lists

writing down the pieces

Glaciers are disappearing, I’ve seen it

ice caps are melting

trees are being cut faster than they are being planted

the bee population has been decimated

storms are wilder, more frequent, and more violent

mean temperatures in VA are rising and climate zones are changing

Robins arrived in January this year

more people spending more time in cars

I know from experience that if I am going to change habits, I can’t do it alone.

I need to have someone to go through this together with me, a coach, a buddy, a nag, someone to whom I will feel responsible,

and I need the cooperation of everyone who would be affected by any changes.

If someone close to me is trying to make changes,

I need to change my expectations in order to make room for that to happen

This awareness by itself might completely alter our national approach to diplomacy and international cooperation.

And the changes we make may well push us even further from the norm

because they may mean dropping out of the high energy society

By myself I can’t really make much of a difference. A single 18-wheeler uses more gasoline in a day than I do in a month; a jet fighter beats that ten fold or more,

but by working with others I can increase the effectiveness of my own contributions

Coalitions are even more effective

EPA standards are insufficient. Work for California standards or Japanese standards

The best motivator for changing our culture is government pressure on business and industry;

but customer demand can also change what business and industry are willing to do

Boycotting products that waste energy

- because of distance

- because of inefficient means of production

doesn’t help unless we state publically why we are avoiding them

suppliers’ first response otherwise is to look at taste or quality or freshness

Time may be money, it is also energy.

The faster you go, the farther you go, the more energy you use

the more CO2 you produce

If we don’t figure out how to change things

the changes will come anyway, but we won’t be able to control them.

The earth will maintain its balances and life will go on,

but it may go on without us

creating a new kind of painful desperation

I also know that I don’t have to make a difference,

I do have to make a contribution

somewhere in all this is the moon seen through the trees

moments of ecstatic clarity when we know

that we love this blue planet

and start to put its needs before our own

because we see that its needs are our own

when that happens, color us green

So I am announcing a theme

my theme for next year

simplicity

a surprisingly complex idea

think about it

and in the meantime, let’s sing about it