What Do You Care About?
This month,
in the pages ahead, you will read about how to celebrate our Earth, how to be
gentler with her and how to spare and share her resources. You’ll read about
the profound costs of continuing to destroy our natural world. Think about what
this means in your lifetime, in your children’s lifetime and in their
children’s lifetime. Will they have the wonderful parks, the wild places and
the nature spaces that we have access to right now? Will they even have clean
water?
When I was
growing up, a couple of my favorite programs on TV were “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild
Kingdom” and “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.” Yes, I have been around
a while. These two nature-oriented shows made an impact on my life. I wanted to
go there and relish in the wild places I saw on TV—places like the coral reefs
in the Florida waters, the Everglades and the places they went to rescue sea
turtles. These programs and others like them are what sparked my interest at a
young age in ecological and environmental affairs. Plus, all the fishing and
swimming with my family at Moon Lake in Mississippi, where we spend weekends,
solidified in my heart my love of nature.
Natural
resources are among the many things I care about, but it’s a big one. At the
end of our feature article this month, “Why We Need Wild Places,” I found some
very helpful resources to learn more about how important the environment is to
each of us as individuals. One of these is The
Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative, by
Florence Williams. I can’t wait to read this. I always knew that being in
nature made me happier, but it’s a delightful bonus to find that it also makes
me healthier and more creative! And yes, I seem to think better when I sit by
the water or under the trees. I feel connected.
Another
article I found inspirational is “Brian Sauder on Faith-Based Grassroots
Change.” He says, “Everything is connected, and the ecological crisis is a
spiritual crisis. The healing of me and the healing of you and the healing of
Earth are bound together, and this mutuality is core to all our different
spiritualities and traditions.” Truth! No matter what our differences, we are
linked by the underlying need to belong, to be healthy and happy, to aid in the
health of the earth, which in turn can heal us.
In my
heart, it all boils down to this bible verse that I keep close, from Romans
12:10, “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”
What do you
care about? I would love to know. It’s easy to reach me by email or by phone,
my contact info is in the left column of this page. Better yet, visit our
Facebook page, Facebook.com/NaturalAwakeningsMag,
and post your passion! We will always post ours.
God bless you and keep you,
Michelle Smith, Publisher
