It is still very much winter in Chicago. Sure, the calendar says March 1, but the piles of snow on the ground look more like mid-January. Everything is brown and crusty. A little bit of warmth is creeping back into the days, it is no longer pitch black before dinner. But there is also snow in the forecast this week. So there you have it. Still winter.

As I type I am bundled in a quilt with a sweatshirt and thick socks. I am cold. I’ve been icy for the better part of three months. Those of you who live in cooler climates know what I mean. It’s like your very bones get cold in December and just sort of stay that way until April.

In my last post I alluded to a conversation that I keep having and overhearing. I’d love to share a few more thoughts on it here. In most places it goes something like this “I’m really cold, this has been a crazy cold winter, so much for global warming eh?” This is usually followed with a smirk that sort of asks “what do you have to say for yourself now greenie?”

And of course, the brouhaha concerning fabricated data from British scientists at the University of East Anglia did not help the conversation. Whether botched data and graphs or feuding climate colleagues, many have dubbed this discovery of misinformation one of the greatest scientific scandals of the decade.

So whenever I run my mouth off these days about what we should care about in this world, those who generally disagree instantly bring up either the chilly temperatures of their midwestern winter or the climate scandal from the UK. And they press in and ask, “so what do you do if climate change is not real?”

To which I laugh and ask “is this really the issue?”  As if to say that if climate change is not real then somehow we are all just off the hook, we can do whatever we want? It’s like people who ask how I would live my life if there was not God. Would I suddenly decide to cheat on my husband and take up recreational drugs? Because somehow the moral compass has vanished?

Whether or not climate change is real is not the true issue when it comes to this conversation. The real question is why I insist on living my life in the sort of obnoxious manner that I often do, acting like tomorrow is a  non-issue. I can easily err on the side of a consumer-minded glutton and I can consume like nobody’s business, even on the hottest of days. I need to have this conversation so I can be better.

Let’s say hypothetically that climate change is false. Does that somehow change the fact that most of the garbage dumps are in impoverished neighborhoods? That in Chicago, the only two coal fired power plants in the city itself are both in minority neighborhoods? That my electronic waste still ends up in the hands of Ghana’s children or India’s poor?

The real issue is how my life impacts the poor and those who cannot help the fact that my trash is seeping into their groundwater. You do not have to believe in climate change to believe that this is not the way to live. Our moral compass should not rest in the hands of a scientific outcome. For those of us who are people of faith, the conversation is about more than just a few degrees. Show me a place in the Scriptures where it says to be purposefully wasteful, where we are told to take what we can get and then dump it and run when we are finished.

No, the real issue is not how cold my feet are in January or what climate scientists did or did not do in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter. The real issue is asking myself if I, as a citizen of this planet, am living responsibly. Am I doing everything I can to make life better for others, for my own family, for the future? This is the real question isn’t it? The one that impacts humanity rather than sparks a fierce debate.

Let’s dig into the real issue, the one that is hard to face since (at least in my case) it convicts me and calls my whole life into question. Do I live wisely and well? This is what many of us running around in sustainable circles are asking. Not if the science is accurate (which is important), but is the trajectory of my very life accurate?

Last week I was at the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon. I was sans children and when that happens a trip to the grocery store can feel like spring break. No one nagging me or ripping cans off the shelves. A glorious hour indeed. As I waltzed down the aisles and took my time to actually think about what we wanted to eat, I had the chance to eavesdrop on a few side conversations.

I know, I know, perhaps this is not the most fruitful of pastimes but my brain is normally filled with the banter of three small people under age 7. These three people have little sense of self, have no idea that interrupting is rude, and really think that everyone around them needs to know about the Curious George fruit snacks they just discovered. They consistently suck every inch of empty space from my head.

So, when I am alone, having an affair with my grocery cart, my instinct is to instantly fill my head with noise. Other people’s conversations do the trick.

As I perused the salmon selections there were two old-ish men standing off to the side of the big icy fish cooler. One was lamenting how ridiculously cold it has been in Chicago this past month. The other nodded and said “yeah, and all those environmentalists keep babbling about global warming, they should move to Chicago.” I bristled and grabbed my fish.

Another aisle over a mom who was not on Grocery Spring Break like me was staring blankly at a child who pulled every bag of chips and candy from the “snack” aisle that looked good. The cart was filled with piles of Doritos and sodas, not a fresh piece of produce in the cart.

And of course in the check out aisle, I glanced at a magazine cover of Paris Hilton and reclaimed my disgust (and also jealousy of her waist line) as I watched plastic bag after plastic bag float out the automatic doors.

I sighed. Do any of the conversations about our planet saving ploys really matter?

I could have turned around to my Salmon buddies and said “yes it is colder here now, it’s called Climate Change, not Global Warming you morons! As in, the climate will change and some of us will be shivering more than we used to. duh!”

I wanted to say to the kid with the snacks “hey buddy, ease off the carbs, hello diabetes! go fetch an organic apple.”

I could have yelled to the baggers “tell them to haul it all home without bags if they cannot bring a reusable tote!”

And then I would have had to stare at myself in the mirror and yell “HYPOCRITE!”

You see, I buy the Curious George fruit snacks. And while I haul my totes everywhere these days, there was a time that I did not. And those climate guys, well, yes, it is cold in Chicago and I really don’t want to be on the chilling end of climate change (thank you Jake Gyllenhaal). But how were they to know? At least they were talking about it!

Somewhere in the grocery store. In the stressed out mom’s day. In the conversations of the old fish guys and in my own cart is a place where the reality of our world intersects with the reality of our daily lives. We are busy and tired, we are ill-informed, we are opinionated and stubborn. And I could lead a club on any of these glorious virtues.

But I hope that along the way, we are also open to the conversation. I hope that the fish guys begin to understand that we call it climate change for a reason, that all those people with the plastic bags just forgot canvas versions at home. I hope that we can stop placing the “save the planet” campaigns into any particular political, religious, or social camp. That someday they will not be known as the bastions of liberal, hippie white folks who love animals. That someday the uber-conservative and the uber-liberal, the rich and poor, and every color along the way will care because the air we breathe, the water, the trees, they belong to every affiliation on this planet. And preserving them impacts all of humanity. All of it.

And so with that little rant I come to this point. I wrote a book about all of this. Mostly about my grocery store moments gone wrong. My loser tendencies to yell at people for the things I do wrong every day. And that book just arrived at Zondervan’s warehouses in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And that book will ship out this coming Monday, February 22nd. And I would love for you to read it. I think it furthers the conversation. And some of you will like it and some of you will hate it, but either way, I hope it gets us all talking.

Furthering the conversation, taking a little action, thinking about what we do and why. Can I be so bold to ask you to read along with me? http://tiny.cc/1zxjl

Hope so. I’m a humble and proud girl this day. An odd combination of emotions, but I have them both. Thanks to all of you who made this day a reality.

T

It’s Fat Tuesday. The height of the Mardi Gras celebration. The pinnacle of Carnaval. The time of year when religious and non-religious types alike trek to places like New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro to whoop it up before the season of Lent begins. Granted, most party-goers could likely give a rip about Lent, but to celebrate the storm before the calm is still a tradition many engage in.

Mardi Gras is literally translated “Fat Tuesday” in French. It is the day before Ash Wednesday, the traditional start date of Lent.

So, during this week that marks both the partying of Tuesday followed by Ash Wednesday (which is why Mardi Gras ends abruptly at midnight on Tuesday), people all over the world don beads and masks. And millions of others wake up the next morning making solemn vows to God. Perhaps they decide to fast, skip the wine, the beer, the smokes, the chocolate or Diet Coke.

Lent itself was a tradition practiced by the early church. In the 600’s, under the papacy of Gregory the Great, Lent became a 40 day period of time (not including Sundays) that helped the church prepare for Easter. It was marked by fasting and by denying oneself of pleasures normally engaged in during the other 325 days of the year. In the early tradition, Christians ate only one meal per day, in the evening. For others it was fasting until noon or 3:00 pm.

Most traditions included some form of fasting from meat. During Lent in the early church skipped meat, fish, and animal products. In other words, they went vegan for 40 days.

But today, it is sort of a self help gig for many. I confess to using Lent as a way to prepare for swimsuit season. What could it hurt to skip all the sweets in the name of Jesus? Perhaps if I did it for Jesus I would fit into that swimsuit come Memorial Day. And then I remember that Jesus really does not care how I look at my community pool.

So this year, I’ve got a new idea for Lent. It is based on the history of the church. I’m skipping meat altogether, for all of Lent. For many reasons. Most of which are, of course, rooted in my love of God’s Creation. For those of you who are proud to call yourselves carnivores, this is not as hard for me as it might be for you. Normally I chow down on chicken breast twice a week. The rest of the time I skip the meat. But it is still a significant shift in how I think and view my meals.

And, since raising beef and other meat places a heavy burden on our ecosystems, and because it is considerably kinder to the planet if I eat grain and vegetable products, I’m going to skip it altogether for this season.

My reason for sharing all this randomness? To ask you to join me. Okay, okay, I know, not every day if you don’t want to. But consider skipping it one day? Two days? One meal per day? Whatever floats your Lenten boat. But since God made this place, it seems wise to take note of that fact and make a commitment for a few weeks to help honor that Creation. And if you are a person of faith, when you have a hankering for something beefy and grilled, think for a moment about the sunset, the trees in your yard, or any other scene that helps you connect to God. It can be more than a freaky, earthy thing. It can be a connection to God this month+. It may also help you understand that you can eat and be in this world in a different way. Not too shabby.

So grill up a sirloin, don the beads and then skip the burger until Easter.

Hope. That enigmatic little word that captured our audacious American spirit (and our vernacular) via Obama. Hope. Theupbeat little sense we carry around that something good and right could indeed happen. Hope. We define ourselves as half empty or half full types, both monikers depend on how much hope we do (or do not) have.

And even among the most hope-less, there is a cultural spirit of hope that still prevails in many circles, albeit often misguided, it still exists. Americans live in a constant state of frenetic activity, spurred on by hope, even in the darkest of times there is a glimmer of light that flickers in the mind of most Americans.

Hope. It’s sort of what we do.

We hope that the economic crisis will reverse itself, that climate change will be tamed, that poverty will diminish, that “golden parachutes” will land in court rooms, that our educational system will improve, we hope that we will overcome whatever proverbial odds are before us.

Maybe even win the lottery.

But lately I have been wondering, is hope a wasted effort, an overplayed emotion? When it comes to the future I dream for my children I balk at those who suggest all is hopeless. I’m a mom. Hope is what I do. For me, there is no other global issue that blitzes and tackles my hope like our current climate crisis. The little cracks of light I bask my hope in seem to consistently land in the shadows.

From lackluster talks in Copenhagen to local ordinances against composting, from clear cutting Amazonian rainforests to my own failures to curb consumption, it seems lately there are more reasons to lose hope than to keep it. And I do wonder if all my daily attempts to help the planet even matter. Do my canvas bags make a dent? So what if my heat is on low. Does that little effort at energy saving matter? I carpool or walk to school. I drink fair trade coffee. Does any of that support my children’s future? really. honestly. does it?

Even if I downsize my home and sell my car, will it matter? Heck, I just wrote a book on why all of this does matter, but then I also learned today that our oceans are being destroyed at a rate that is estimated to be twice the pace of our forests. So what if I skip out on seafood tonight. Where’s the hope in it all?

I found another mom asking the same questions this afternoon, she’s here in a column on Grist: http://www.grist.org/article/2010-02-03-on-talking-to-our-kids-about-the-future/#comments

It seems that hope is indeed running thin in a few places. She tells the story of a poet at an event she hosted who ended his time with the community by saying, basically, that when it comes to the environment, things are hopeless.

bummer.

But like this mom (Nadia Herman Colburn), I wonder what to tell my kids. And I do not mean lying to them by saying there is hope when we have none. Seriously, what do I believe about all of this and what do I tell my kids? I’m also a person of faith, so I believe that God is involved in this whole conversation. But I am theologically savvy enough to know that God is not in the business of just swooping in and making our lives all happy and shiny.

We can hope in God and trust in justice, but to think that God will just put a big band aid on our mess because we need our kids to go to hiking someday is more than a little naive and misguided.

So what do I tell my kids then? The truth. That I am not entirely sure how it will all play out. Or perhaps that their canvas bags do matter. That their prayers are heard. And that this world could get uglier by the time they are running it, and that I am sorry for that because it is partly my fault.

But also, that they are wildly creative little beings with sharp minds and a sliver of light in their souls (that yes, God placed there). And that if there is any hope at all, it lies in the mind and the body of my sticky, messy kids. And whatever I can do to bolster in them the integrity, intelligence, and confidence to make a difference, I will do.

I will tell them there is hope because they are my hope. It all matters. Every effort counts. Not because fewer plastic bags can change the trajectory of the world, but because hope itself is a powerful and mysterious thing that can bounce us back on track. It cannot be underestimated. Stunted perhaps, but never stopped. Especially when it lies in the hearts of our children.

How many times have you felt like this? I remember one Sunday when my hubby headed out to the grocery store for us. We had been bickering that day about a which one of us was right about something, so the tension was already high at the moment. He was stepping out to pick up some groceries and I said to him (in a nagging voice) “now don’t forget the reusable bags!”

To which he wheeled around and said (jokingly) “Not only am I not brining those bags, I am going to tell them to double bag everything!” Of course he came home with groceries in the perfectly reusable totes we own. But all kidding aside, I’ve been on both sides of the law here! And you?

Audi Super Bowl Commerical – You Tube