Monthly Archives: April 2020

Earth Day 2020

On this Earth Day, I’m looking out at clearer skies and breathing fresher air. I can clearly see the mountains surrounding Reno. Everything looks brighter. We have done more for Mother Earth in a few weeks than we have done in the 30 years since I celebrated my first Earth Day. This gives me great hope.

Look what we have done! We have proven we can change our lives in a few weeks. We can collectively come together and make choices that sustain life. I have the strong sense that Mother Nature created this virus as an opportunity for us to STOP, to take a time out and notice what life can be like when we slow down. We are home–getting to know our families, our environment, ourselves. We are reducing pollution, carbon emissions, noise pollution and other destructive impacts on the natural world.

We have a chance now to sit back and observe what we have been doing. What still serves us and the world? What doesn’t? In what ways have we gotten off balance both internally and externally? How have our ways of living caused imbalances and what can we do to create a sustainable balance with all of life?

Mother Nature has much to teach us if we pay attention. For example, check out this amazing video on Biomimicry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf4oW8OtaPY. I love this quote from Janine (the narrator): Life creates conditions conducive to life. How can we create conditions that are conducive life?

I believe each of us has tremendous power to change, and collectively, we can exponentially change our world. We are doing so right now. Let’s not lose this momentum, this chance we have been given.

Mother Nature is in trouble. Our ways of living are choking her and harming our fellow creatures. I read a line in an article I can’t find now, but I resonated with it: “While we are all inside holding our breath, Mother Nature is breathing a deep sigh of relief.”

Here are some articles on what is happening out there:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-13/yosemite-national-park-closed-wildlife-waterfalls-muir

https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-cite-pollution-decrease-calls-flatten-curve-climate-change-post-coronavirus-1497430

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/11/positively-alpine-disbelief-air-pollution-falls-lockdown-coronavirus

You can search the Internet and find many more stories and examples as scientists and everyday folks like us notice the changes occurring all over the planet.

Please don’t go back to business as usual after this. Let’s take the chance we have been given to fundamentally change how we live. The very biosphere we and our fellow creatures depend on is in danger. We can do this. We already are.

Looking for some ways to help? Check out these sites:

https://www.50waystohelp.com/

https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2020/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Puv0Pss33M

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/ocean/earthday.html

Here is another beautiful video of the Apollo 8 astronauts talking about seeing our beautiful Earth from space in 1968.

https://emergencemagazine.org/story/earthrise-film/

Blessed Earth Day to us, our fellow creatures and our amazing Mother Earth

https://www.50waystohelp.com/
https://www.50waystohelp.com/

Time for Reflection

Here is another post I originally wrote for the April Reno Friends blog at http://www.renofriends.org/.

Suddenly, we all have more time for reflection. Quakers are familiar with taking time in silence for reflection, it’s what we do! Now we are joined by legions around the globe. Schedules are falling away as we retreat into our homes and living spaces. This strikes me as an opportunity to settle deeply in with ourselves and ask what is truly important in my life? What do I wish my life to stand for now?

As societies, we are questioning what is an essential service? I am grateful to all the people who are continuing to provide essential services so we can live. We are having to look at how we have structured our lives, our businesses and organizations, our communities, our societies. We are learning how inter-connected we all are with each other and all things.

My sense is our lives have been interrupted so we might create a new life that is simpler, more balanced and more in harmony with nature and others. My guess is that deep down, we have all known our old ways could not go on.

I have always found the Quaker Testimony of Simplicity to be helpful when I consider what is truly essential in my life.

Simplicity Testimony

(This is the seventh in a series of 12 monthly queries developed by Pacific Yearly Meeting. NOTE: All 12 monthly queries are on this website:  http://www.renofriends.org/ under the All About Quakers tab in the main menu.)

Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center . . . a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It takes no time, but occupies all our time. Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, 1941

A life centered in God will be directed toward keeping communication with God open and unencumbered. Simplicity is best achieved through a right ordering of priorities, maintaining humility of spirit, avoiding self-indulgence, resisting the accumulation of unnecessary possessions, and avoiding over-busy lives.

Elise Boulding writes in My Part in the Quaker Adventure, “Simplicity, beauty, and happiness go together if they are a by-product of a concern for something more important than ourselves.”

Do I center my life in an awareness of God’s presence so that all things take their rightful place?

Do I live simply and promote right sharing of the world’s bounty?

Do I keep my life uncluttered with things and activities, avoiding commitments beyond my strength and light?

How do I maintain simplicity, moderation, and honesty in my speech, my manner of living, and my daily work?

Do I recognize when I have enough? 

Is the life of the Meeting so organized that it helps us to simplify our lives? 

Friends, I’m holding us all in the Light as we move through this challenging passage into new ways of being with each other and in the world. We all have Light within us and gifts to give, and we all need the gifts others have to share. May you shine your Light and encourage others, as your equals, to shine theirs. May you receive with gratitude and graciousness. May you take time to nourish yourself and your family, to play, to exercise, and to rest.  Envision what can be possible, and then put feet and hands to it! Your life is your example, your greatest testimony.