A Life of Service

This afternoon I began one of my new Christmas books, entitled Serve God, Save the Planet by Sleeth. Honestly, I am surprised that anyone in any of our families actually paid money for this book since, you know, it is about how serving God and saving the planet are the same thing. I have books in my amazon list about feminism, homosexuality, sex, adoption, etc. None of THOSE books have ever gotten purchased, so I'm pretty surprised that our "the-climate-isn't-changing-the-world-is-going-to-be-burnt-up-anyway-God-told-us-to-control-the-world-cause-we're-the-best" family members paid money for it.

But, I digress way off my point.

Honestly, I wanted this book because I had heard it was helpful as a starting point for talking to other people about these issues. I sort of figured this dude wasn't going to tell me anything new. I recycle. We only have one car, we walk/bike whenever and wherever we can. We try to buy as local of food as possible in Alaska. Comparatively, we don't really have much stuff. I cook from scratch for almost everything. We don't use the dryer, except on rare occasions. Or the dishwasher. Our hot water is set pretty low (except when we were sick because hot showers when you need to get the phlegm out are just a real sort of need when you don't do medication - this reminds me that I need to make sure this got turned back down). We wash our clothes almost exclusively in cold water. We only turn on the necessary lights.

I really thought I was pretty darn holy, thank you very much.

But this guy, he got under my skin - darn him!

Sleeth goes into good and helpful detail about the reasons Christians specifically (he's not speaking to non-Christians in this book) give for not needing to worry about God's creation and why they are wrong. He gives all those examples that we've all heard before and gives good, solid, biblical reasons why these things are wrong. I appreciate the biblical piece very much.

I happen to believe in climate change. I do not believe in global warming - it is a misnomer. I do think the climate is changing. I believe that some of this is probably due to natural cycles of the earth. However, we are using oil and chemicals and other crap at an alarming rate and I believe that this is harming our planet, our bodies, and the lives of future generations. The thing about this book is, though, that even if you don't believe in climate change, Sleeth is still telling the biblical truth about how we are called to serve God by taking good care of the creation that we are surrounded with.

He takes issues with technology, processed food, sheer amounts of stuff, gas guzzlers, big houses, big lawns. He even takes on parenting and places it in the context of care for creation. And he's right.

I'll probably write more about this when the book is finished, but I am convicted.

Sure, I am doing some things really well. But I still covet and want more junk. We still have lots of computers and spend too much time looking at screens and not enough time looking at creation. I know the names of more fabric lines and designers than I do trees. I run places when I have forgot something or at the last minute by myself, in my car, all the time. I fly. A lot, compared to some people.

Really, it is all about loving my neighbor. And my neighbor includes the billions of unborn people who are yet to grace this earth. The children that I will someday have. The children that you will someday have. Don't we owe it to them to leave creation in a better place than when our lives began? Don't we owe it to them to leave them a clean planet so they have a better chance to not get diseases, to see the beauty that we see instead of watching it disappear?

I think we owe it to them. I think that we owe it to the loving God who gave us this place to care for.

This book is changing my life, yet again.