walls and fences

Poet Mary Oliver wrote, “I am not a traveler…I do know the way to the grocery store, and I can get that far.  The simples of our lives:  bread, fruit, vegetables.”

That is me in a nutshell.  I am a micro thinker, living in a macro world.  I am consumed and fascinated by the “simples of our lives.”  I have to LEARN to think large-scale, beyond the walls of my home, the boundaries of my community, the arbitrary borders of my state.  And yet, all the talk of walls these days depresses me.  I grew up in Midwest neighborhoods of wide-open backyards.  As kids we had free range throughout the neighborhood.  One of the first backyard fences I remember was built around someone’s swimming pool.  More walls and fences followed, to the point that in most neighborhoods we don’t even know our neighbors anymore.

Jesus had something to say about neighbors:  “To love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  In other words, to love our neighbor is more important than being religiously or morally upright.  Ideally, we can be both upright and loving.  But the Lord will not let us off the hook, sitting quietly in our homes with a Bible in our laps and ignoring the starving world outside our walls.  When asked about neighbors, Jesus told a story explicitly saying that the hero was someone religiously and ethnically repugnant to his very proper listeners.  The hero was the one who acted lovingly. 

I am actively involved in building a wall right now…not to keep people out, but to try and keep Lake Michigan from inundating my summer home.  I may need more barriers against the lake, but I do not want more barriers between me and the world.  I relate to these words by Robert Frost:

                        “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
                         What I was walling in or walling out,
                         And to whom I was like to give offense.
                         Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
                         That wants it down."

I am keenly aware of my tendency to hide from the world’s problems.  I want instruction in how to take my micro existence into the macro world.  And if change is going to inconvenience me or cost me, then I may need change to be imposed on me.  I realize that I probably need for my government to regulate me.  Until it becomes second nature for me to take my own cloth bag to the grocery, please go ahead and charge me for the plastic grocery bags.  In fact, go further…restrict the amount of plastic that my groceries can be packaged in.  Force me to think about it and make macro-conscious choices.  Force companies to change the way they do business to restrict my choices too.

It takes work to help us get out of our own way.  So I ask for help to live a macro life with my micro heart.  I ask my friends to give me ideas.  I ask my government to make regulations.  I ask my God to expand my mind and heart to make me WANT to change….to cause my heart to break with the world’s suffering…the suffering that breaks His heart.

Tim and Kathy Keller write, “You must not make money by taking advantage of vulnerable populations…a heartless individualism…Give me a conscience and concern for the vulnerable…move us to do justice as a nation.”  Amen?

Love, Liz

“The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves—we are at risk together, or we are on the way to a sustainable world together.  We are each other’s destiny.”  Mary Oliver

I'm including some micro changes from my friends that we can all adopt to make the planet healthier.  But first from me:

I use Blue Apron, a meal delivery service.  I love the fact that I am not buying extra amounts of ingredients that I will never use.  But it comes with a lot of plastic packaging.  I recently contacted them to see if this could change.  They said they have a team of people in house working on this problem, and they directed me to <earth911.com> for LOTS of ideas on how to improve things for our world.  I'm starting to look for one or two that will get me jump started.

From Donna---my cousin... is more conscious of saving our planet than anyone else I know. When we ...finished a family dinner together, I grabbed a paper towel to wipe her table, and she scolded me. She handed me a rag that could do the job as well and save our planet.