Our Trash Runneth Over

Our trash runneth over.

So does our ‘recycling’. 

It doesn’t help that we put the wrong bin out a couple weeks ago, so confused were we with their holiday schedule. Then when we rectified that Friday and had the recycling out, it was left pretty full because we had mistakenly filled it with plastic sheeting and polystyrene packaging which, it turns out, is not recyclable.

Today the ‘bin lorry’ should resume the usual schedule so we are hopeful that the trash bin, which doth really runneth over, shall be emptied some time during this beautiful day.

Stuff accumulates in a modern life which clutters and clogs and hampers forward movement. Sometimes it can be passed on, reused and given a second life; other times there is nothing for it but to send it to the tip.

Sometimes stuff becomes central to our thinking, elbowing out positive thoughts and leaving no room for progress in our lives. We get bogged down and lose focus, distracted and anxious.

Jesus counsels us to keep it simple. Not to worry about what we have or don’t have, or even what we need or don’t need. He advises to take one day at a time and focus on what really matters.

We have started this year, as we have many years, with a resolve to declutter. May 2017 be a year of less stuff, leaving more room in our minds and hearts to focus on what really matters.

Orchids and Honey Bees

You can learn a lot from Radio 4 here in the UK. Driving home yesterday I caught part of a program on orchids. Did you know that the word orchid derives from a Greek word meaning testicles? Hmm. Maybe that’s not a bit of info to trot out at the next cocktail party but the program’s revelations didn’t end there.

It seems there is one of these extraordinarily beautiful flowers which emits the exact smell of a female honey bee, and does it at exactly the time that the bees are beginning to awaken in the warmth of spring and get out there to pollinate. Drawn to these orchids, they fertilise more than they imagine.

When I heard that my thoughts went straight to God. What an amazing God we have! What a creator – he can hold so many disparate thoughts at once, design whole solar systems and also the intricacies of orchids and honey bees. What an amazing world he has given us to live in. The most spectacular planet in the universe. Bursting with goodness, bubbling with life, gloriously beautiful. 

How it saddens me when I hear reports of plans to send explorers to Mars on a one-way ticket, with an eye to making it fit for populations. The idea seems that since we’re wrecking the earth at such a speed, we will just discard it on the cosmic dump and move on to some vastly inferior planet. That is such a fallen human response: we tend to use things for our own ends and discard the waste anyplace where we can’t see it. When the earth becomes full of trash rather than the glory of the Lord, we are making plans to dump it too, and move on.

Not me.

I realize I am only one infinitesimally small individual on this earth, but I pray that today I tread lightly. Today I spend myself rather than spend the earth’s resources. Today I do something to help remediate some of the harm we do by our profligate living and careless consumption.

God gave us this world to steward, to care for and enjoy. It’s time we got a grip on this responsibility and did it.