KC Star FaithWalk

My first column for FaithWalk was published Saturday.

Here is a scan of the print version (1.0).

Below is version 1.1, which I turned in last week but not in time to make the paper. -h

I had no idea how much land and water is required to sustain my lifestyle. A small apartment, healthy food, recycling, and carpooling when possible; I assumed my life was Earth-friendly.

Then a friend sent me to www.myfootprint.org to take their quiz. After answering questions about what I eat, what I throw away, my driving habits, and my home, I discovered that if everyone lived as I do, we would need five planets. Five! Viewed from that angle, my lifestyle feels like a daily exercise in arrogant self-centeredness.

I hold my survey results in real tension with my idea of Christian stewardship of Creation, expressed in Affirmation 3 of the Phoenix Affirmations. "Christian love of God includes celebrating the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God's Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems..." ( www.crosswalkamerica.org ).

Trying to reconcile this call to stewardship of the earth with my pattern of living is a big struggle. It seems just that I should live within a sustainable lifestyle; but how could I continue to function in Kansas City driving only 50 miles each week? I couldn't go to work and shop at the organic market and visit the recycling center. I'm starting to see just how thoroughly unsustainable practices are entrenched in daily life. Faith and reason are unified in telling me I have to start making changes.

I admit, so far my solutions are small: carpooling and buying gas in the evening (which cut carbon dioxide emissions), eating vegetarian a few days each week (plants take up less land and waste less energy than animals), things like that. I don't know how to live sustainably without dropping out of society, but I'm looking for a way. I'm sure that's what I'm called to search for, as one of more than six billion caretakers of this corner of Creation.