Earth Day

Happy Earth Day!

While I was teaching, earth day was a major date on my calendar. I was on the environment committee at my schools and dubbed the Green Queen, by one of my colleagues. However, I'm pretty sure that my environment committee updates at staff meetings drove some people crazy. April was a busy month as we planned our earth day assemblies. I have fond memories of earth day songs, activities,  games, prayers, videos and skits...all in an attempt to teach and engage students in environmental issues.

I wish the educational work was over, that the fight had been won, but of course it will never be over. It's now forty-seven years since the first earth day. With the election of the current U.S. President, the environmental agenda has suffered a huge blow. His government's abrupt U-turn on Obama's policies have sparked today's Marches for Science all around the world. Click here The National to see a good recap of the current political situation regarding the environment.

It's encouraging that so many scientists and sympathizers turned out today. The Washington march had a science superstar at the helm. Good old Bill Nye The Science Guy is back. Not only was front and centre at today's march; his new television show,  Bill Nye Saves the World, started yesterday on Netflix. Click here Bill Nye the Science Guy,  to hear his interview on CBC radio's Quirks and Quarks show today.

We need leaders like Bill Nye and David Suzuki and events like today's marches to keep climate change in the spotlight. After that, it's up to all of us, to make environmentally friendly choices in our everyday lives.

I'm happy to report that this week I re-discovered a real gem: The Restore. Restores can be found all across Canada. It's such a wonderful, common sense idea. Stores and individuals donate building materials they can no longer use or sell. Customers can then purchase the donated materials at a fraction of their original cost. All the profits go back to Habitat for Humanity, the charity that builds houses for needy families. It's a win win situation for everyone. From their website: "Retailers often have high quality items that can no longer be sold in store. These items often get sent to a landfill. Donating end-of-line products and customer returns to a ReStore can substantially reduce waste. In 2015, ReStores across Canada diverted over 36,000 tonnes of material from landfills. Individuals can also help to reduce waste by donating items of value that might otherwise be thrown out."

So, if you re-model your kitchen and there's still life left in your cupboards, you can donate them to your local Restore. Here's a kitchen I saw this week at one of Ottawa's two locations.

Unfortunately I didn't think of the Restore a couple of years ago, when we were replacing some light fixtures. I wish we had, because they have an amazing selection. Here's a sample of the tiles available.

            Need a door or window? They are all sorted, measured and well organized.

Click here, The Restore, to learn more. For other environment themed posts you can read my gloomy "The Sin of Bottled Water," from December of last year. On a happier note, there's also my Ottawa Citizen piece about Giveaway Weekend (June 10, 2016)  here in Ottawa. That reminds me, we must be getting close to this spring's version of Giveaway Weekend!

Remember - Reduce, Re-Use and Recycle!

Holy Week - The Sunday Edition

Well, here we are in mid-April already. For Christians, this is the end of Holy Week. For many of us, this week has not felt holy. Rather it could be characterized as a very scary week. Palm Sunday in Egypt saw two churches attacked and many killed. In just one week, Trump has fired missiles at Syria, detonated the largest non-nuclear bomb ever, on Afghanistan and issued combative tweets at North Korea. It feels like we are living on the edge of something catastrophic. How do all the folks who voted for him feel now? Is this what they wanted? It is what many of us feared and what Hilary Clinton meant, when she declared him "temperamentally unfit for office."

If I think about the world situation too long, it's too upsetting and so I try to find something positive, some goodness and perhaps even some holiness in my busy life. We spent last week taking care of our young grandchildren. The opportunity to spend time with them is one of our greatest blessings now.

Yes, it is exhausting work but it's a privilege to be along for the journey, as they develop and discover the world around them. You get to answer profound questions such as,  "Why does Humpty keep falling off walls?" and hear such pronouncements as, "Oh, that's a monster poo!"

A high point for me this week was working on the Easter eggs with my mother. Not many people my age get to walk into their childhood home and work with their mother, who still wants to make Easter eggs for the whole family. It's a family tradition. Her mother started to make them, back when my mother was working in a downtown office. That would be back in the 40's. She made thirty eggs this year. Everyone gets one, with their name on it. If anyone has tried to teach me about goodness and holiness, it's mom.

So often, it is CBC radio that makes me feel better, opens my mind and restores my faith in humanity. 

On March 5th there was a short item on the Sunday Edition that was simply so moving. It's about a book club that takes place in prisons. A former prisoner, Jarrod Shook, recited a poem that he wrote, about his experience with the book club. He uses the phrase, "me the least" to describe himself. It reminded me of a hymn we used to sing back in the 60's. The line is "Whatsoever you do, to the least of my people, that you do unto me." It refers to Jesus' teaching, about the importance of showing love to the "least" among us, the needy, the vulnerable. This young man saw himself as among the least and was so appreciative of the book club. He is now working on his second university degree.

That short item was a welcome reminder that there really are so many good people in the world. Shook's poem is a reminder that all of our actions and interactions matter. We're all in this together. For a short reprieve from our troubled world, for a moment of holiness and hope, click here: The Sunday Edition

Here's wishing for a Happy Easter, a Happy Passover, a Happy Spring!