The bottle at the Cross

When you walk outside for weeks, day after day, through farmlands, villages, vineyards, along rivers, over hills and through forests you cannot help but see and feel the beauty of creation.

Such a walk is the Portuguese Camino de Santiago. It is over 600 kilometres when walking from Lisbon to Santiago de Compostela. Sadly, along with the beauty of creation, there is a lot of litter. Much of it appears to be left by pilgrims walking to Santiago. There are things such as granola bar wrappers, empty single use plastic water bottles, used yogurt containers—which are things pilgrims might have.

One morning when walking through a village we noticed someone had left an empty water bottle at the foot of a beautiful old stone cross. It was sad to see a symbol of our wasteful society so deliberately set at the symbol of our salvation. Someone had made the choice to carefully set that bottle there. What were they thinking? Was someone else supposed to clean up after them? Why is it ok to carry a full bottle but not an empty one?

As Christians we know that Creation is a gift from God and that the Creator asked us to take care of it. God gave us the freedom to choose how we do that.

Every day we make decisions that create the lifestyle we live. Today it is easier than ever to make the choices that will allow us to take good care of the environment. Products from reusable storage containers (including water bottles!) to electric cars, heat pumps and renewable energy give us earth friendly choices. Information is everywhere. Labels inform us as to the treatment of the animals on the meat we eat and we can choose to eat less meat. We can find clothing made of organic cotton, hemp, recycled materials and bamboo. As consumers we are contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and as consumers we can all do our part to help our society make the changes we need to fight climate change.

If you would like to see how your lifestyle choices are affecting creation try using an ecofootprint calculator. There are several online to choose from. One can be found at https://climate.calculator.climatehero.me/.  The Green Group’s Creation Care website at https://www.ontario.anglican.ca/creation-care also provides information that will help with making decisions of how to take better care of our planet. One suggested site to visit was given to us by students from an elementary school who used our site for a science project. It is The Money-Saving Guide to Going Green. You can find it under the Climate Change section of the Green Group’s Creation Care.

There are plenty of books to choose from that offer help as well. One is called “Don’t Be Trashy” by Queen’s University author, Tara McKenna. It will help you to gradually move toward a zero-waste lifestyle. And the title is a creation-friendly motto to live by!

We all know, now more than ever, that we need to take better care of the world and all who inhabit it. Let us make lifestyle choices that will show others we do.

If you have questions, suggestions or comments to share please contact us at: [email protected].