Creation Care Starts at Home Home is where we tend to be ourselves. We show our true colors there. Our words and actions often mirror our honest values. Because no one may observe what we do at home, home is where we may express our greatest sense of integrity. For that reason, our homes present the greatest challenge to our commitment to care for creation. There are many people who have a public commitment to the environment who never apply it to their own house and property. They do not put their private commitments—money, time, and effort—where their public commitments are. If we can show our commitment in our own home, we have come a long way toward establishing environmental habits that will last a lifetime. Often we are prevented from doing things at home because we think the things we do in our homes are so insignificant as to make no difference in the larger scheme of things. We might say to ourselves: What difference does it really make to turn the heat down a notch or the air conditioning up a notch? What difference does it make whether we mow the lawn with a power mower or a push mower? How could it matter that we eat fish rather than beef? Why bother to recycle products we have to take to a recycling center when it will not change the big picture? What is the measure of difference that we pay so much more money for a car that has high mileage per gallon or an appliance that is more energy efficient? And so on. When we see so many other things happening where actions of pollution are huge, we become discouraged. But we can make a difference. Many small actions on the part of many, many people can amount to a tidal wave of difference. And these small actions can provide the conditions for other actions to take place. We are enjoined not to become discouraged. I myself have often been discouraged by the small results of my own efforts. And I used to be puzzled by scientists and environmentalists in the secular world who said they looked to the churches for a grass roots movement that would really make the difference. However, I came to understand the importance of small efforts when Stan Hallett, a Chicago environmentalist, told the analogy of Mount St. Helen's. Here is what he said: When the volcano blew, it destroyed all animal and plant life for miles around. The whole area was decimated. When the flora and fauna progressively began to return. First, the moss came back, and the moss created the conditions for the lichen to grow. The lichen returned, and that created the conditions for the shrubbery to grow. The shrubbery returned, and that created the conditions for the aspen to begin to grow again. And the animal life returned. In a similar way, all the small efforts we make at the grass roots are like the moss, creating the conditions for greater measures to be taken, which in turn create the conditions for even more extensive changes to take place at the level of corporations and governments. Thus, even with small efforts, we are an important part of a process of regeneration, indeed a process of resurrection, which is taking place among us. And we must be sure to do our part, so that we may once again, this time with feeling and with action, dedicate ourselves to the care and redemption of all that God has made. But even if it did not make a large difference, is that any reason not to do it? Compare our common attitude to love and justice. What if we said, why bother to do small acts of kindness, because in the larger scheme of things it does little to stem the tide of evil and injustice in the world. No, we say that every act of kindness is valuable in itself. We can make a difference in people’s lives. And, besides, in the end, you never know; a small act of kindness may have a larger ripple effect or combine with the kindnesses of others to reach a threshold of transformation. And whether it is small or large, it matters because people matter. Can we not transfer such an attitude to our care for God’s creation? Small or large, the things we do matter, because nature matters, because life forms are affected by the choices we make, because humans too are ultimately and profoundly affected by the changes that take place in the environment. Can we not embrace a concern for the environment that matches our commitment to love and justice for people? Can we not love God, love our neighbor, and care for the earth and do it just because it is the right thing to do—whether or not it "works"? In this regard, caring for the earth is an expression of our love for God. It is a spiritual discipline, a discipline to do no harm, to foster life rather than death. There is something compassionate about caring enough about people and nature that we attend to things in a careful, care-filled way. We learn what harm our actions can bring, and we seek to minimize that harm and promote the health of the planet. Such a spiritual discipline involves a deep connection with earth and trees and animals and flowers and plants and the sun, soil, and air—such a deep connection that we want to conserve its goodness and beauty and usefulness. Our love for nature comes from our relationship of the love of nature, just as our love for people is rooted in our love of people. When we act to enable fish to thrive in a lake rather than be damaged by pollution, we love these creatures of the sea for their own sake—empowering fish to praise God by being fish and doing what fish were created to do. Such acts express the conviction that all living things can thrive mutually with humans. The biblical mandate for humans to produce and fill the earth was also given to animals to produce and fill the earth. When we think about the small actions we can take as a spiritual discipline in our homes and at our work, it is salutary to realize that we can make decisions that directly affect every aspect of the environmental crisis. Our homes are directly connected to every dimension of environmental concern: Electricity lines come into our homes from coal burning plants; Water pipes come in bringing increasingly limited fresh water from filtration plants; Gas pipes bring in natural gas from distant places; Oil trucks bring oil; Sewage lines take water and waste out to sewage processing plants; Chimneys release carbon dioxide from the furnace into the atmosphere; Garbage trucks take garbage to land fills, perhaps including also toxic waste; Cars in the driveway burn oil and gasoline and emit pollutants into the air; Lawn mowers and other machinery burn oil and gasoline and emit pollutants into the air; Chlorofluorocarbons in the air-conditioning of the car can erode the ozone layer; Pesticides and herbicides used on the lawn get into the air and water and soil; Leather chairs and shoes can be traced to cattle ranches in California or Brazil; Food in the refrigerator has traveled by truck from great distances; Cleaning products—from laundry detergent to window washing fluid with toxic substances pollute the air and water; And the list could go on.
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