Thoughts on recycling

I'm not sure how to begin this post without heaving through a bunch of boring old stuff. But I'll do my best to summarize. Recycling is a wonderful thing--I'll start with that. And just so you know, this post will most likely be just as much about priorities/perfectionism/guilt as recycling.

So, recycling is wonderful. I'm happy when I see blue trash cans scattered everywhere from museums to my church building that give us people a way to make our earth a healthier cleaner place. I don't think it's a burden or a conspiracy. I think it is something that has been around forever (including my annual elementary school newspaper recycling competition) and just in the last 5-10 years has picked up much more national attention, for the better.

When we moved here to Bloomington, I was aware that this city was very "green" in comparison to others I had lived in. Not sure how this would affect me, I went on with my business and actually, blogs I was reading changed me more than anything about my city. I made the decision to do away with paper napkins and paper plates (cloth napkins work so much better anyway!). Then once a local trash company included our neighborhood for recycling, I signed up for that. I also bought a composter at Sam's over a year ago and started composting all of our appropriate kitchen scraps and yard waste. Major steps for the greener good! I was feeling good and everything was going strong.

Here is where the other topics of my post come in. My mind became a bit consumed with "green". Whether I was doing something well or feeling guilty about something I had yet to be doing, I was constantly looking at other ways to be green (like ALL those other people on the web I was reading about). Some of these things were reasonable (think line drying your clothes), others were a bit bizarre (homemade personal deodorants, "no-poo" campaigns which meant to stop using traditional shampoos and resort to vinegar and oil.) So what do I usually do when feeling overwhelmed with things I should be doing? I stop doing ANYTHING.

Isn't that a wonderful strategy? Um no. But it is what it is. Paper plates started making their way back into my cupboard. Many recyclable items started ending up in the trash. Composting ended all together for months. I will admit I felt a bit liberated to operate under convenience rather than guilt. That is when I knew I needed to develop my own personal philosophy of recycling/green efforts that did not produce guilt or judgmental feelings. Not to mention, I actually started to think of God in all of this instead of just what society was "telling" me to do. Was I making all of these changes out of a true respect and love for what God has given me or was I simply trying to jump on a bandwagon and impress myself and others while advocating the new social and political issues? To be honest with you, both. I was really doing both. I loved teaching my kids about God's great blessings to us and how we were responsible for taking care of this earth, not wasting, and seeing the great lifecycle God had created through composting. But the guilt and perfectionism were coming from outside sources in media and myself. They had nothing to do with my trying to please and glorify God.

So as I was thinking of all of this, I knew I needed to document it. While I've had a huge sabbatical from blogging, I have not had a deficit in ideas. It's simply getting the time to type them out. So what is my new philosophy? Well, nothing official. Mainly I'm trying to recycle, compost and limit our paper use consistently enough so that we (my family) all learn, are all aware, and all begin to care a bit more about this amazing world we live in. No guilt trips, no rants, no crazy stints of new trends. Satan has found a foothold in me over the last couple years where pride, judgementalism, and insecurity have found refuge. God is working on me to rid my life of those yucky things and this is one area where I've learned that my priority is not to do what even really smart people in the world tell me to do. My priority is to let Jesus transform me and take steps to hear His voice above all the others.

Must end this post! More thoughts later!

Times are a changin'!

So I am not going to ignore that it has been MONTHS since I've written. I have 3 new posts that I'm working on. But for now, one small bit of exciting news.


It's A Girl!!!

Okay, that's all for now. But consider it a small start to a renewed commitment to blog. :)