Enjoying a book…

I really, really enjoy “Earth in Mind” by David W. Orr. There are portions of this book where I could not tell if I was reading a book or having my own thoughts laid out before my eyes. Though planning to be an ordained minister, my other passion in life is caring for the land that my family has. I plant trees, lots of them. But I also have been working on keeping young forests on our land for the animals that require such habitat. This requires removing some old forest, but on a rotational (and often only a portion of the old forest) basis. This keeps both the beauty and importance of hold forest and offers the new growth essential to some creatures…such as ruffed grouse.
I really find the land practices I partake in, as well as hunting and fishing, as an important part of myself as a child of God. So, when I read Aldo Leopold’s name the first time in the book, I was extremely excited!
I am also very bothered regarding the loss of wild habitat for the sake of making money… such as universities selling woodland. This reminded me of a conversation a few years ago with a former co-worker. This young man was very vocal in his opinion of habitat management. His opinion: get rid of it all and concrete most of the earth. He could not stand green space, trees, grass, or anything else wild. He has no time for animals either. Needless to say, we had some weird conversations. He could not understand why I would plant a tree… and I could not understand why he wanted a company nearby to get destroy the wonderful wetland habitat that surrounded the business in order to have a huge parking lot.
So, the more I read books like this, I am more inspired to combine my passions of ministry and conservation in the future. I think Leopold’s words are spot on:
“The cultural value of wilderness boils down in the last analysis, to a question of intellectual humility. The shallow minded modern who has lost his rootage in the land assumes that he has already discovered what is important; it is such who prate of empires, political or economic, that will last a thousand years.”
Awesome words from Leopold. As for me, I will put my faith in God who created the beauty of this world and offers us life eternal. I will invest my time in people and care of the earth as it was intended.

A little rambling regarding “Simpler Living, Compassionate Life” by Schut:

I’ve been reflecting on the section “Spending money as if life really mattered.” There are many parts of my life that have evolved and grown because of faith, age, and being a parent. How I view spending is but one aspect. I agree with the book that we have to spend money on necessities and such in life. Yet, I have witnessed first hand how people have put money first in their lives. In my career before seminary, I watched people go from living a simple and loving life to doing anything they could to make another dollar no matter who it hurt. These lives were soon consumed with buying houses, cars, boats, and the like. I am not against these things, for I have a home, land, and nice vehicles under my care at this point in my life as well. But these things are not what make my life complete. Instead, my relationship with God, my faith in the promise, my wife, my kids and people I love are ultimately what makes me happy…even though I struggle with all of the other material things as well—— but it is this shift in focus that has given me a negative feeling toward the secular business world.
I don’t necessarily think that my view of that world is healthy either, but thinking about a simpler life does change how I view big business. I grew up in a rural, dairy farm area. Both of my grandfathers were family farmers. My parents did not farm full time, but I was around it still the same. While I was in high school I watched as both of those farms were sold and family identities suddenly were left to find a new direction, a new title. Many times I have wondered if I am behind the times, for I yearn for the days of my grandparents and small family farms that helped sustain small town America. I know that we will not turn back to this as a nation, but I can’t help but wonder and hope that we can refocus. Perhaps this focus is not so much on our chosen occupations, but rather as we read on page 63 of the book: “The only place for me to turn—the only source left of comfort, solace and meaning for my life—was God.”

Earth Care

Through the combination of the Education II course and my the goals of my family, we have decided to put forth a genuine effort to recycle. Over the last 5 years, my wife and I have had three children and our garbage (both amount and expense) is unbelievable. We started looking at all of the milk jugs, plastic juice cans, and all the tin cans from fruit and veggies and see how much waste we produce. Additionally, we are planning to start composting this spring. The last piece to the recycling equation is that we will be taking all pop cans to cash in on the aluminum. With that money, we will purchase trees to plant on our land as part of our small tree farm business that we have started. All of this seems to fit really well together for us now and for our future goals.