AN ESSAY
Four Gardens of Reflection
Nature
| Introduction | The Arts | Community | Children |
My great awakening came in college, as a student, in the midst of Earth Day in 1970, the original Earth Day, and not just anywhere. I was in Cleveland, the home of the Cuyahoga River that caught fire and burned—the city, then, of belching steel mill smokestacks and of a lake about to choke on its own nutrient overload. I organized Cleveland State University's first student environmental organization. I got involved.
My involvement has evolved, but it has never ceased. It has taken the form of environmental journalism, but it has also blended well into a career in urban planning. It has taken on various aspects of advocacy and activism, it has blended with concerns about peace and civil rights and social equity, and, most importantly, it has become an integral part of my religious life as well.
Since 1989, I have chaired a special committee of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This committee is the Environmental Concerns Working Group. In 1997, I was instrumental in linking similar ELCA synod committees and activists in a national network called the Lutheran Earthkeeping Network of the Synods (LENS). The mission of ECWG is far more than just advocacy for environmental stewardship. Through a revolving loan fund, we provide congregations with the funds they need to walk the talk, to set a dramatic example in their own communities, by undertaking significant energy-efficiency retrofit projects. Through grants, donations, and other sources, we have grown our loan fund from a $5,000 mustard seed in 1993 to more than $55,000 in working capital today, saving congregations valuable money for their real missions and reducing their contributions to air pollution and global warming through reduced power consumption. We are helping them, literally, to let their lights shine more efficiently
| Introduction | The Arts | Community | Children |