Blooming
in Adversity
“The
flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of
all.”
Walt
Disney Co. (Mulan Picture Book)
I
am thinking this morning about the people in Moore, Oklahoma whose
lives are now in the twisted rubble left by an F-5 tornado. It seems
these days that we move from one disaster to another. Photos of
wasted landscapes change locations and environments but look
identical to the eye. Nothing standing.
Every
time another town is wiped out, whether it's New Orleans, Santa
Barbara, Biloxi, Colorado Springs, West, Tuscaloosa, New York, the
Jersey shore, Joplin, or Moore, we begin right away to pick up the
pieces. We call out the troops and begin searching for survivors; we
hear heartbroken people saying “it could have been worse” and
“thank god we're all still alive” and “we'll rebuild.” I'm
sure the people of Japan, China, Bangladesh, Haiti and Indonesia say
the same things when disaster strikes in their countries. Human
beings are enormously resilient even in the face of death and destruction.
Still,
it's time, isn't it, to look at whether or not we can make a
difference in climate change? Is there a way that we, personally, can
assess our lifestyle to make a slight difference in how fast and how
hot our environment becomes? Are there a few small shifts that could
be made? If each of us made a few changes, we might be uncomfortable
for a while, but we would get over it. And small changes add up to
large shifts—we've already done it in gas consumption, and we can
continue. We can recycle, we can plant trees, we can plan our day to
cut down on the number of trips we make, we can use fewer plastic
water bottles and trash bags. It sounds dumb, but these small shifts
matter. If more people used public transportation even one day a
week, or walked instead of driving, it would make a difference. I
think it's time to try. Don't you?
In
the spirit,
Jane
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