Motherhood and the Environment

Good Evening

It occurred to me today that stay-at-home motherhood might be beneficial to the  environment.

I hope no one goes "Duh" at this personal revelation. Maybe I haven't been paying attention.

So, where has this come from?

Well, I was collecting clothes off the clothesline, which I've been using as much as possible during our wet summer. Why do I do this? Well, it saves money by not using the electricity that the dryer would. I have the time to do this because I do not work outside the home.

We don't have a vegetable garden for a lot of reasons, but next year I would like to try a small one. Maybe we'll get it right this time! I do know that other people have gardens. I do not know anyone who keeps a big garden while also working full-time. Growing our own veggies would save money and also provide produce which would, hopefully, be of better quality than that which we've been invited to purchase this season. If we grow things we can preserve, we can eat some of the produce through the Winter, too, when food is even more expensive.

We will not be able to produce all our own food, but the time I can put into growing our own food will help.

How is this an environmentally sensitive practice? Well, I would not likely be using chemicals, so that footprint would be smaller. There would be no fuel involved in shipping the food. If I preserve, the food will quite possibly end up in glass bottles which have been used and re-used many times.

I can often go days between trips into town. If I worked, I might need another vehicle, and would definitely be burning more fuel getting to work and back.

As an at-home mum, I have the "luxury" of choosing cloth diapers, cloth dinner napkins, and rags instead of paper towels, without having to worry about the increased laundry load.

I also think I can get by with a smaller wardrobe, so fewer resources used there, too.

This would be stewardship, I think. Not only can I care for my family in person, but I can use fewer of the resources God has given us.

That many of these practices also save money, it helps extend the single income on which we rely. Money saved not earned is money not taxed.

I realize that working or not working is not a choice some have the option of making for themselves, and the Church does not, as far as I know, have a position on this. But I think the ideas I present might be new to some people.

God Bless.

Compassion

Greetings.

Here we are, nearly at the end of Lent and I'm just getting to writing something on it. Definitely a missed opportunity.

We have moved during this Lent. Not too far, but after so long in our last place it was quite a process.

Catholics like to talk about giving something up for Lent. I'll bet we beat you all. We gave up a ton of stuff! Literally...a dumpster full of collected junk, which weighed in at very near one metric tonne. Wow.

And as we settle into our new, smaller, place, we are still finding things that could have been tossed. Mind you, there really was no more room in that dumpster!

Over the years, I've noticed that Lent has gotten more challenging as I became more serious about and involved in my Faith. As Lent arrives, I have frequently wondered what earth-shattering occurrence or revelation would show up. One year it was a sudden call to end my association with a particular ministry in which I'd been deeply involved. Another year, a distant memory surfaced and demanded my attention.

This year? Simply the uprooting of nearly a decade of 'stuff'...some boxes hadn't even been unpacked from when we moved in! It is, in a way, a time to examine our lives now. Do we still need this ___ (fill in the blank with book, appliance, blanket, piece of furniture...). We decided that a tonne of stuff we'd collected was not worth moving on.

So we're travelling a bit lighter these days. Lent is good for that. Whether we are uprooting bad habits, old sins, new sins, or just examining our lives, we can all come out of Lent a bit lighter and with less to interfere with our spiritual journey.

____________________

As we were unpacking in our new residence, I found a book loaned to me by a friend who is currently working away from home.

The book is by Catherine Doherty and is called "The Season of Mercy". It is the author's reflections on Lent and Easter as given in many talks she had delivered to residents of Madonna House over the years.

What a blessing this book has been! Yesterday, her treating of the word 'compassion' really impacted on me.

My kids don't like it when I break down words and translate the parts in order to define them. In truth, the word compassion had never really given me a reason to do that...until last night.

The prefix 'com' means "with". Passion means...well...passion. In this case it is not passion in the sense of wild emotion, but passion in the sense of the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus.

When we have compassion on someone, we are sharing their suffering. I'd never thought of that before. What really brought this home was that I'd just had a chat with a priest a couple of days earlier in which I'd asked how to deal with some painful recollections I was having about an event (which didn't directly effect me at all) from several years ago. His advice was very good, but I think it was topped off very well by my re-thinking of the word compassion. I think perhaps I have been sharing someone's suffering.

Mar, thanks for leaving your books with me!

Blessed Triduum to you all!

Christ vs. Robin Hood

Allow me to digress in my very first line.

THANK YOU to the host of CBC's early weekday morning spot. She has just finished speaking to the film critic, Jesse Wente (which I may be misspelling). He was talking about the Nativity Movie that has just come out. He said it's predictable...my goodness. What a surprise. How could it be anything BUT predictable?

He referred to Jesus being "immaculately" conceived. As I was gritting my teeth through his chatter about the movie, the hostess actually explained that the Immaculate Conception referred to the birth of Mary! She is correct, but I've never heard a correction like that! The reviewer agreed and then went on to say that Mary's "sister" was pregnant with John the Baptist. Oh well. I guess we can't really expect accuracy from our national radio station.

The reason for this blog is an 'essay' by a woman on the Christmas season. She maintained that despite the growing complaints about people not saying "Merry Christmas" but things like "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays", we do not really celebrate Christ's birth.

She says that we cannot celebrate Christ's birth and have Santa Parades, or buy gifts. If we were truly celebrating Christmas, she opines, we would collect money for the poor, be ecologically aware, help at soup kitchens...

When did Christ become Robin Hood? Jesus is the one who said that the poor would always be with us. He is the one who, when the woman anointed him with expensive nard, chastised those who said she should have given the money to the poor instead of spending it on the ointment for him.

Jesus did help the poor. Remember the woman with the hemorrhage, or Mary and Martha when their brother died. He also recognized that he was worthy of adulation. Did not the Wise Men bring the young Christ gifts that could be seen as rather useless to a young child?

I won't mention the religious origins of Santa Claus, as that origin is rather far removed from what we see today. I will mention that Christmas IS the time when many give to the poor. They volunteer at soup kitchens and shelters. They ensure that their Christmas tree is chipped and composted at the end of its life...and decorate their own biodegradeable Christmas wrap.

Is commercialism rampant at Christmas? Yes, I think it is. I made a decision many years ago not to take my children to the mall at this time unless I had no choice. We put Santa in his place. Does this mean we do not celebrate Christ's birth? No, it doesn't. I will say that many who keep the season do not celebrate Christ's birth. It may be choice or ignorance. But many many people DO celebrate Christ's birth. We go to church...sometimes several times...in the course of a couple of days. We also go to church every other Sunday. We also donate, volunteer, and try to walk gently on the Earth.

It does not have to be one or the other. My family and friends do a lot of volunteering at Christmas. We sing in choirs, we proclaim the Good News at Masses. In a way, we are like the woman who anointed Jesus instead of giving money to the poor. We volunteer to celebrate Jesus. There are other times when we will volunteer for the poor.

I once heard it said that in the process of keeping Christ in Christmas, we often end up keeping him ONLY in Christmas. It is the one time of year when many who do not recognize his sovereignty any other time suddenly find it very important to go to Church.

A friend of mine tells a joke about the miracle of the flowers. A man runs up to the priest and very excitedly says he's seen a miracle. The priest is intrigued. The man explains that last time he was in church, the flowers were lilies. Now, they'd changed to poinsettias!

I invite anyone reading this to take note of Advent this year. It starts on Sunday, December 3. Prepare yourself for Christmas as well as you prepare your home!

God Bless