I really appreciated Mark Goetz’s June 11 post, “Ziplock Bags and Deliberated Choices” about decisions that we don’t make ourselves but let the dominant cultural “flow” determine for us.

Swimming upstream is hard work. Ridicule is usually involved, as Mark has discovered as a washer and reuser of plastic bags. But take heart, Mark! Your commitment can help turn around a culture.

Mr. and Mrs. Barham were the parents of my best friend Janet. Today they would be Abe and Val, but in 1970, one didn’t address one’s friends’ parents by their first names. One also took for granted that smokers could light up whenever and wherever they pleased: grocery stores, movie theaters, offices, everywhere but church!

In California in 1970, it was more acceptable to march against the Vietnam War than to ask someone to extinguish a cigarette. When a dinner guest drew out a pack and asked my anti-war, non-smoking parents, “mind if I smoke?” they were too polite to refuse.

The Barhams weren’t. Early members of GASP—the Group Against Smoking in Public—they put up signs, passed out fliers, and lobbied city hall and state government to begin considering the rights of non-smokers. For teens like Janet and me, trying to fit in with the prevailing culture, their passion and commitment were really embarrassing. I would shrink down low in the car whenever they stopped to pick up a new batch of supplies.

Forty years later, the clouds of smoke that once fogged restaurants and church social halls have been banished forever. And the Barhams did this! Their willingness not just to resist but be considered wackos invited others to question and eventually dismantle one huge cultural assumption and replace it with a new one. Now the rights of non-smokers are upheld by a whole system of laws and customs and behaviors that relieve shy people of the need to say, “why yes, I do mind.”

Val Barham died a year ago; Abe Barham died in May. I wonder how many old GASP posters and bumper stickers are turning up this week, as Janet and her sisters clean out the house where they lived for 55 years.

When people feel discouraged about whether we’ll ever stop driving, ever stop polluting, ever stop throwing things away, ever stop doing whatever dismays them and start doing something healthier and fairer, I bring up the Barhams. To me, they’re proof that when individual commitment links to a larger process of advocacy, the fringe becomes the vanguard becomes the status quo.

Keep washing those plastic bags, Mark!

Anne Basye,  Sustaining Simplicity

The following was written by guest blogger, Mark Goetz.

I love ziplock freezer bags. They are handy and durable, seal well, and don’t take up much space in a drawer waiting to be used. In the freezer and refrigerator they don’t take up any more space than their contents do. I’ve used them to hold meat, chili and spaghetti sauce in the freezer. I’ve used them for the same things in the fridge, although the kids have objected (on aesthetic grounds) to a plastic bag full of gravy or mashed potatoes or chocolate pudding. With the “double zipper, fresh shield: tough on the outside, fresh on the inside” quality they are a delight and at only pennies a bag I can afford to throw them away after a single use.

When we lived in the village of Bohong, Central African Republic, there was no garbage. Everything was used – multiple times. Empty cement sacks were used for writing and wrapping paper. Tin cans became water glasses or storage bins, especially if they had a reusable lid. Bottles, plastic or glass, became canteens. We washed and saved almost every empty everything and periodically, nomadic Fulani herders would stop by and ask if we might happen to have any containers they might use.

Most things in the market, including bread, peanuts and meat, didn’t come wrapped and we (and everyone in the village) had our (their) own tote bags of one kind or another. When we did have a plastic bag, we’d wash it and dry it and reuse it in the kitchen or the market until it wasn’t possible to use anymore.

We had to re-adapt to American culture on our return. In many ways that was harder than adapting to village life. After some months back in the US, empty 2-liter pop bottles spilled out of the pantry when I opened the door. We couldn’t throw bottles away.  I imagine we were still expecting visits from wandering nomads that could use new canteens. Saving what for us was garbage, but for someone else was of value, was no longer a sustainable practice.

We’ve continued to use canvas tote bags for grocery shopping but, for some reason, not for other kinds of shopping. Up until a few years ago we were still washing plastic bags, out of habit, I suppose. But lately I noticed that we’ve been throwing away plastic bags, even our tough durable ziplock freezer bags, after a single use. In some way, it doesn’t seem right.

When our children were little, we used cloth diapers. It was a deliberate decision based on the personal financial situation of a graduate student with a family to support. We did not make a conscientious decision to use canvas market bags and to reuse plastic bags. It was just a lasting habit developed from normal life in another culture and it seemed right. I didn’t make a decision to start throwing away used ziplock bags either. It was just another habit I picked up from our own culture in the last few years. I’m not even sure when I started to do it.

Now, I’m not really thinking about ziplock bags, or the amounts of disposable plastics in American landfills, or the inadequacy of landfills in the developing world, or the great garbage patches found in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. I am really thinking about decision making, or more specifically, choices that I didn’t really make.

We’ve been around the global block so to speak, having lived in a number of countries other than the USA.  And that experience has affected the way I see my world and the way we live. (I suspect that friends think we march to the beat of the different drummer and that she plays in syncopated rhythm.) Some “life style” choices were deliberate decisions e.g., the neighborhood we live in, the vehicles we drive, maybe the clothes we wear. These types of decisions are mostly a balancing act of costs, convenience and some sense of social morality/accountability. But I wonder how many decisions I really don’t make; the decisions I don’t recognize, where I just go with the social/cultural flow.

Mark Goetz is a consultant and mediator in Montana. This post first appeared on The Table, a social network for volunteers working with ELCA World Hunger.

So what’s the scoop on twenty-somethings and vegetable gardens? My brother and I were talking this afternoon about all the people we know of, our age, who are beginning to grow their own food. I think that this is very cool, and I too love a good fresh leaf of lettuce or handful of blueberries, but I also wonder…what’s the motivation for our age group? The friends we thought about ranged from Seminary students to general contractors and insurance agents; different people from different walks of life. As my brother and I are both in our twenties, I wonder if all those films we saw in school are finally settling in? We have grown up with the likes of Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me, forming an awareness and interest in more recent documentaries like Food, Inc. and The Cove. Could it be that our generation is finally putting their foot down on all those chemicals disguised as food? Is it that when we mix this media with the growing trend of rooftop and community gardens, then add in our recent independence and the financial crisis that we’re simply reaching critical mass? Or is everyone else just beginning to till up their grass for gardens as well, but they are simply a bit further from my radar?

Here are my questions:

To my fellow twenty-somethings – Do you grow your own food? If so, why…is it all those documentaries, are you trying to save a buck, is it the rooftop garden scene? Or did you grow up with it, so it just seems natural? Perhaps something else entirely?

To more seasoned adults – When did you find that you started to become interested in growing your own fruits or vegetables? Has it been in recent years; are you also enjoying the organic gardening trends and responding to the economy? Or is this just something that begins in your twenties?

Thanks for your thoughts, and thanks even more for your gardens!

~Lana

They are cardboard, small and round. We all have them, often in multiple rooms of our home, and all too often…they stack up in our garbage bins. What are they? Toilet paper tubes! As silly as it may seem my pet peeve is having nowhere in the restroom to put a used up toilet paper roll’s tube (except the trash) when it’s ready to be switched out and prime for reusing or recycling. Last week I finally put an extra receptacle in my bathroom to collect these tubes in one place. Now they are prime for recycling! Today I also found some great ideas for how to reuse toilet paper tubes from the World Environmental Organization and The Green Parent’s websites.

Here are my favorites:

• Use in place of a peat pot. Fill with potting soil, place in a plastic butter/ice cream tub, plant the seed and water. When the plant sprouts, plant the seedling (tube and all) in the ground. The tube rots away.
• Stuff an extra set of stockings into a tube and keep in your desk drawer at work, your glove compartment, etc. in case of a run.
• Stuff a few plastic bags into the tube and then place the tube in the glove compartment of your car. It will keep them tidy and on-hand for when you need them.
• Use for storing long pieces of ribbon which have been saved from packages. This will keep the ribbon smooth.
• Donate old toilet paper or paper towel tubes to your local school or library to use as craft projects.

So whether you reuse your toilet paper tubes for gardening or ribbons, or you recycle them straight away, thanks for keeping them out of the trash!

My Lenten fast from meat ended on Saturday night with the Easter Vigil (Alleluia!). It is one of the only Lenten disciplines I can remember that ended with a strong sense of relief. Relief because I did not have to think so hard any more about what to eat. Relief because my wife and son and I could now eat the same meals for dinner. Relief because I could finish all my son’s uneaten scraps.

When I began the journey, I hoped to use the fast to be in solidarity with those who never get to eat meat and to learn how I could eat less meat. I think that both of these happened to a certain extent.

In general, I found that I was hungry more often (carbs and greens don’t burn as long) and therefore ate more frequently (even breakfast!). I was pretty intentional to offer prayers for those who are truly hungry when I felt mild tinges of hunger.

As to finding new ways to eat less meat, echoing what Nancy wrote earlier, I was struck by how difficult it is in our culture to avoid meat. It was particularly hard when I was traveling–my usual meal was some form of a salad or pasta with red sauce. I also wasted so much more food–veggies just don’t keep as long as meat.

But I think the biggest lesson for me was how privileged I am. When I was hungry, I would eat more. When I bought the wrong veggie, I could buy a different one. When my veggies went bad in the fridge, I would toss them out and go to the store. Even that I could at the end of forty days (+ Sundays) I could simply choose to eat something else. And I felt relief that I could just move on. In this way, instead of feeling a sense of solidarity with those who are hungry, I realized my great distance from them. I realized that I still have much to learn about walking with people who are poor and vulnerable.

I would love to hear from you about your experiences this Lent. Feel free to comment or email me directly (david.creech@elca.org).

David Creech

Hello from your new blogger: Anne Basye, who wrote the hunger resource Sustaining Simplicity: A Journal.

 I wrote this book in 2005 and 2006, and it came out in 2007. Those of you who have read it or used it in study groups know that it shared one person’s story of living life simply in hopes of prompting more ELCA members to start reflecting on their lifestyles. (And boy, does this blog look at lifestyle! Thank you, Hunger colleagues.)

Since then, Al Gore’s movie has brought global warming into everyday life, and the economy has gone haywire. If global warming and the economy were on everyone’s minds, I started to wonder, why wasn’t everybody moving towards simple living? I got impatient and crabby—at home, in my congregation, and especially at work, where we were taking the first frustrating steps towards figuring out how to be a little greener.

During my crabby phase I realized something that relates to Nancy’s last post about the challenge of selecting the “best” product when your criteria include justice and the environment. Living an intentional life requires systems. I may not have a car, but I don’t wake up every morning wondering how to get to work, because I’ve set up a system of alternative transportation that includes a bike, public transit, car sharing, and friends with cars. Living within that system, I can be confident that I’ll get where I need to go with a pretty small carbon footprint (and no car payment, insurance, or gas!)

But in general, trying to make choices that are easier on the earth, lighter on the pocketbook, and less demeaning of others takes a lot of time, because there’s no system. Every choice is individual. How much easier it would be if we could be reasonably sure that the energy we used, the goods we purchased or made to feed, clothe and shelter one another, and the vehicles we chose to move around the world in all fell within green, just parameters!

Perhaps naively, I’ve always believed that the choices I make widen the path for others seeking lifestyle alternatives. Now, how can we work together to transform the tedious “this product yes, that product no” of individual choice into something that changes the whole system we live in?

That’s what I’ll be blogging about in the weeks to come. See you soon!

Anne Basye

Leading a rich life, one totally worthy of SIMPLE.

Hear author and poet Anne Basye share more about her life and book Sustaining Simplicity: A Journal on a recent segment of 30 Good Minutes.

For more information about Sustaining Simplicity and simple living visit:
www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Responding-to-the-World/ELCA-World-Hunger/Resources/Simple-Living.aspx

Happy reading, happy living!
Christopher