The differences in use of green house gases were minimal, but ultimately it is better for the environment to drink wine, because it doesn't use as much refrigeration (unless you are my parents, who drink red wine out of the fridge...yuck). But the thing I found interesting about this entire column is that the author is obsessively dedicated to causing the least amount of personal damage to the planet. Its an honorable endeavor, to be sure, but almost absurd to think that one person can do so much to ruin things. But individually, we do a lot of damage to the earth... in the US they calculated that a person accumulates 1600 pounds of trash a year. That sucks.
One person can screw a lot of things up. But can one person, like this columnist, really do that much to fix things? I've been thinking about this a lot since my Skeyse told me she has decided what tattoo she wants to get. Personally, I'm not a big tattoo fan--I probably just can't shake my dad's influence on this point-- I don't think that I would ever get one. But Skeyse says she thinks she wants to get one of the Lorax, with the word "unless." I had forgotten this book, except for its famed "truffula trees"-- I always LOVED that word as a kid... truffula. But I went back and read it, and her tattoo idea comes from a quote at the end of the book:
"And all that the Lorax left with me in this mess, was one single word, UNLESS.
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not."
That Theo Geisel was a smart dude.. And the Green Lantern columnist probably really loved The Lorax. --If I could be allowed one tangent thought here: one of my co-workers told me that I looked like a tree-hugger once. Images of "Superstar" instantly came to mind. But I asked him what he meant by that, and he said that I just looked like one. I informed him that I was not, in whole or in a part, nor have I ever been, one to hug trees. But I have planted them. And I recycle.--
But this column as a whole, and Skeyse' idea for her sweet new tatt got me thinking. How much are we supposed to care? And could this lesson about caring for our environment apply to other areas in my life?
And then I remembered... one of the best lessons I ever heard Brad teach. It was also probably one of the first he ever taught me. God wants us to be like a tree. Quick biology lesson for you (my dad would be so proud right now) trees take in carbon dioxide, which is poisonous to humans, and turn it into life-giving oxygen. They are essentially on this earth to give us life. So beautiful. I used to have a favorite tree. It was a sycamore that I planted in our yard in Vevay. Each third-grader was sent home with a sapling, and I was so proud that mine was thriving. My best friend Trisha Allen's dad accidentally ran over hers with the lawn mower. I really did love my tree. It's gone now... the family that moved into our old house took it down a few years ago. Over the years I really haven't gone back to our old town much... but last summer I made it down there...and the yard looked kind of sad without my tree.
If I did my part... and cared enough... if I were not a tree-hugger but the tree itself... what would that look like? If I had to use one word to describe the journey that I'm on right now... it would be searching. I think I'm searching for something to do with my life... for a way to give my life away... in a sense. And I think I am just looking for my way to be a tree... maybe one like my sycamore, which brought so much joy into my small, 8 year-old life.
What would that even look like...?
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