#episcopalutah

Today I spent my morning helping a very old parishioner move things into a storage unit. Another parishioner decided to rent a truck to help out. And two others decided to come and help because they didn't have to go to work that day.

I love this congregation so much and how they are family to each other in the best ways. They show up, they come together.

Diocesan Convention just ended and while I always enjoy being there and taking part in the inner workings of our diocese, I often feel that we are missing the mark on some things. But having Rev. Pablo there to bounce ideas has helped me pinpoint what is bothering me:

- we are talking about conserving and honoring creation but our discourse never goes beyond shorter showers, composting, and not using disposable water bottles. These are all things that we should be doing because it's the right thing to do, not because it will actually make a change at planetary scale, because it won't. Our individual efforts are nothing when we take into consideration what corporations and industries do. And we never really talk about those things that we should stop doing, but the middle class (and upper class) will never stop doing, like taking cruises or giving up petrol vehicles (I say middle class, because the poor usually can't afford cruises and the poor definitely can't afford electric vehicles). So, in order to take seriously the preservation of creation, we need to up our game and work on legislature, not individual pledges to give up things we didn't need in the first place, or to do things that require a bit more effort.

- I find problematic the fact that we are considering the proper use of creation and preservation to be a sacrificial act, when in fact we have taken out own comfort to ridiculous levels and all we have to do now is just scale back a little.