Actively updating!

Today's posting:

A few things I will try and remember to let you all know of going on at or around Drew coming up soon.
-one result of the Sustainability committee: if you either buy or bring in a plastic mug to the snack bar and get the Green Mountain coffee, it is only 99 cents. I don't know how much it is normally, but I know this is a discount. They have new Green mountain cups that are available to purchase, fyi.
-there is a FOCUS the Nation event at Chatham Presbyterian church where there will be a screening of the live webcast at 8pm eastern, with actor activitst Edward Norton, a Stanford climate scientist, Van Jones the green jobs pioneer, and Hunter Lovins, a sustainability expert. If we do not go as a group to this event, then I highly recommend that we host our own screening at Drew. You can check out the website for Focus the Nation, it is www.focusthenation.org

You can also check out a little message from Edward Norton talking about Focus the Nation on You Tube.

I heard from Facilities that the Loantaka houses will soon be getting new recycling materials. Perhaps if we call and badger, that will happen sooner.

Recycle Mania 2008 is coming soon, and I want to work with the undergrads to really push this and get the theo school involved even further this year.

I hope those of you who stuck around and took some jan term courses that you enjoyed them and didn't get bogged down too much in the work. I wish I could have spent more time with Dr. Kearns and Dr. Keller's class last week, but I did enjoy the course with Dr. Jay McDaniel on Spiritual Foundations for Ecological and Sustainable Initiatives. well, more than like 45 minutes to watch Renewal with the class last week. Which is GREAT and y'all need to see it, as well as the whole Seminary should. I hope Laura and the others who were in that course would be willing to share some highlights from the course, and some of the resources that Dr. Kearns shared with them that we might not know about yet. I would be willing to post them here. I truly enjoyed getting to know the Dmin students, Green Faith people, and all those in the class. I felt uplifted to be surrounded by so many who care so much about making a difference with how all of us care for our earth. I also felt hopeful to feel connected in some way to those who know more than I and how to get stuff done.

A second thing: I hope your break gave you a time to feel refreshed and renewed to our commitment to help change the ecological environment at Drew and to raise awareness to do anything from small to radical change to help take care of the earth the way God would want us to. I hope that we as a group can come up with things to focus on this next semester and can work together to get stuff done, now that we have a semester under our belts.

With the new year, I thought about challenging us all to three-fold pledge. First, think of one or two things we can think about in our personal lives that we can pledge to reduce or change in our lifestyle that would help us live more simply and reduce our footprint on the earth. I know I'm going to try and buy new clothes only when I truly need them this year. Which means I really have to stay away from the mall and places like Kohl's because I can't resist a sale. I'm trying to be more comfortable with what I have and give away what is still good that I just don't wear. That's just one example. Secondly, in our communities, either Drew, where we live, whatever, and pick one thing to focus on helping with or changing in that community. Lastly, I challenge us all to become more knowledgeable on global warming, creation care, sustainability, etc. I know I feel like as much as we all know stuff, we might be open to learning new things, exploring new websites, reading new books, anything.

That's my challenge to y'all. I hope I can live up to it. I'll report how my struggles are going, and I want to hear how y'all are doing with it too.

oh and I promised Antonia I would put this on the blog, a link to a survey about attempting to
identify the emotional triggers and language that support or hinder ecologically sensitive intitiatives. I hope it still is going.
www.socratesinsights.com/socrates?login=DrewU&pass=Conference

Anyways, I think that's all for now. And a selfish plug: Make sure you are in chapel Feb. 12th, Tuesday, 11:10 for a chapel prepared by me on my summer experiences in Glacier and with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. It will be like a service we would have done in the park with an eco-theology theme (hopefully) and a sermon to follow suit. It's part of a tutorial that I took with Dr. Kearns last semester.

Thanks for reading!!!