Earth Keeper Update - 2007 Earth Keeper Pharmaceutical Clean Sweep Across Northern Michigan on Earth Day Eve Saturday, April 21, 2007
Clean Sweep Founder Rev. Jon Magnuson: Seeds of Hope
CLOUDS OF DESPAIR, SEEDS OF HOPE
There is plenty of disturbing news about the environment.
It makes some among us angry.
A far more common response is to slip into states of passivity, cynicism,
and despair.
Here is the good news.
Healthy religious communities, when they're at their best, counter such tendencies by brokering solidarity, compassion, but most importantly hope.
Weekly prayers and liturgies are quietly filled with
such efforts.
As a Buddhist told me, we are, consciously or unconsciously in various religious practices, all: pointing to the moon.
One peculiar teaching from the oldest spiritual traditions of the world is that hope, like most truth, is, more often than not, hidden.
This insight is echoed in the Jewish understanding of Israel, a weak, nomadic tribe of Middle Easterners being selected as: A Chosen People.
It appears in the story of the Buddha finding enlightenment under a tree, in the record of Jesus being born in manger because there was no room in the inn.
Not long ago, in a small, simple shed next to a green house in a northern Michigan I stumbled upon such a sign of hope for the future.
Part of an inter-agency conservation consortium, the building is a modest, nondescript structure.
I discovered it's also a "holy ground" where native species of plant seeds are stored, part of an emerging movement in the field of botany called: restoration ecology.
In a nutshell (pun intended), this is a place where small groups of volunteers gather daily to care for and nurture a revival of native plant species.
The lawn aesthetic popular in the 1950s is doomed, my botanist student friend told me.
It is become clear, he said, that heavy fertilizing and watering needed to keep things green is giving way to a more natural, reverent way to live with the earth.
There are federal requirements now that certain government offices must make use of plants, native to that peculiar area, for all landscaping purposes.
That morning we walked through a green house surrounded by small spring shoots of columbine, black-eyed Susan, vervain, and sweet grass.
He showed me, later in a nearby shed, dozens of seed varieties collected by volunteers over previous summers.
My guide informed me these collections, packaged in brown paper bags tagged with modest hand-written notes, were worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Species of some of these seeds could lie dormant, he said, for hundreds of years, then, under right conditions, suddenly spring into life.
I felt that morning we both literally walked into a living prayer.
Another hidden truth, more difficult to face, is that our neighborhoods, steams and waterways are being poisoned by discarded medicines.
On April 21, an Upper Peninsula-wide clean sweep of outdated and unused pharmaceuticals is being coordinated in fifteen counties of Northern Michigan.
The Superior Watershed Partnership, the USEPA, the Cedar Tree Institute and 140 faith communities representing nine different religious communities are providing leadership.
The reason for choosing church parking lots as collection sites is a simple one.
It is in such communities, like the modest green house, where hope is most often born.
Where life, at its most tender moments, is nurtured, healed, restored.
On the morning of Earth Day, April 21, 2007, we would be honored, regardless of religious affiliation, to have you join us.
The 2007 Earth Keeper Pharmaceutical Clean Sweep Across Northern Michigan on Saturday, April 21, 2007.
When: 9 a.m. to noon. Saturday April 21 (Earth Day eve)
Items to be accepted: Unused and outdated prescriptions and medications
Location: Across the Upper Peninsula at a church parking lot near you.
Collection sites will be announced in April.
This effort is being sponsored by leaders of the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, United Methodist, Buddhist, Baha'i, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal communities of northern Michigan in cooperation with the Superior Watershed Partnership and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.
For more information call the Superior Watershed Partnership at 906-228-6095.
Earth Keeper related website addresses are:
The Cedar Tree Institute:
http://www.cedartreeinstitute.com/
The Superior Watershed Partnership
http://www.superiorwatersheds.org
The Lake Superior Interfaith Communication Network:
http://www.lakesuperiorinterfaith.com/
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The results of global warming - cleaner air water and environment, economical fuels and cleaner fuels, energy self-sufficiency, etc/Bring it on!
Kewlbob1 3 years ago
That was very interesting. Good news about the restoration of the sweetgrass. I heard an old man at one of our spiritual gatherings. He said when he was a boy, he would walk for miles through sweetgrass and now he has a hard time finding it. So I find comfort in seeing this.
Markobonv 4 years ago