The Jim Wallis Show has been a favorite of mine, mostly because I have read many of Wallis' books for over 40 years! He ties his Christian faith to understanding modern social justice issues, and this approach makes sense to me in light of the lunacy that calls itself Christianity in this society. Wallis' commitment to Christianity does not always agree with mine, but at least he is a person you can listen to, if you are a person of faith, and feel that he's not just some Bible-thumper with a political axe to grind. Well, he DOES have a political viewpoint, to be honest; but he doesn't have to destroy his faith and his credibility to make his religious/political points. Jesus  would probably recognize himself here, unlike in some other so-called Christian broadcasts!

I hope to start putting a bucket in the bathtub to catch water as its heating and use it to water plants. I already take 3 to 4-minute showers and turn water off when brushing teeth, practices I learned in earlier Ecochallenges! 

I love honeybees, and it is sad to see fewer of them from year to year. It was also alarming to discover that some of the flowers I thought were good for them turn out to be altered genetically so as to not be as good for these little guys as I thought. Turns out all flowers are NOT good for  them, and that is distressing. Without these little folks, there's no real telling where we will end up in terms of our food, flowers, and other plants. How long will artificial pollinating keep food plants producing? And how healthy will that food be for us?

It takes some real thinking ahead to eat a zero-waste meal! Ultimately, I discover that if I am eating a piece of toast, the plastic bread bag can possibly become trash; but if I plan a little bit, I can figure a way to continue to use that bag as food storage; while it may become trash eventually, it will have had a long life before it finally is no longer useful. Does this count as zero-waste, then? For some, it might not, but when you think about the number of plastic bread bags a family goes through in a month, the ability to re-use them a couple of times certainly slows down the quickness with which it hits the landfill, and that DOES count for something.

I have backed off social media quite a lot! After about 5 minutes, it has begun to dawn on me that I don't pay much attention, unless there is an article that interests me or a huge event in the life of a friend. I stay in touch just as well with text messaging and phone calls. The only difference is looking at photos, really, and sometimes those can be pretty meaningless.

I'm sad to say that I was not very creative with meatless dishes. Breakfasts were cereal, banana, walnuts or pecans, and blueberries.  Salads were the other meatless meals. My schedule did not allow for any intricate cooking this month!

People get disconnected from nature. So, they begin to care less for nature. It becomes easier and easier to move toward that science-fiction  future of some movies, where we live in bubbles, where our plants are grown indoors, and where it is dangerous to move outside the bubble without breathing equipment - like jumping into the ocean with air tanks. 

I planted a pesticide, herbicide-free pollinator garden several years ago to help our little pollinator friends find a safe place to thrive in a landscape that has become less friendly every year due to pesticides, herbicides, deforestation, and other trauma directly related to humans. These little guys are so necessary for the flowering of fruit and vegetable plants and our beautiful flower gardens! Without them it would be difficult to raise the crops necessary to feed the world, and we would lose the world’s beautiful flower gardens. So it’s important to provide our pollinators with safe spaces and sources of nourishment and water needed to be healthy enough to go out and accomplish their role in the food chain. My favorites this year were the monarch caterpillars on the milkweed and the cute little fuzzy bumblebees that visited the garden each day. 

I donate food and time to the Hope Station food pantry to help with food insecurity in my community. I also donate food and dollars to church and other local agencies to support both local and global food collection projects. The Lord says to feed the hungry as well as love my neighbors, and Wilson and the larger world are my neighbors. Good insecurity is a struggle in both! If I am to be a faithful disciple of Jesus, my actions must reflect His values.