Guild of St Isidore

Caring for God’s Creation - 2023 Challenge

December 2023 - St. Timothy’s Creation

Bountiful God, you call us to labor with you in tending the earth:  Where we lack love, open our hearts to the world; where we waste, give us discipline to conserve; where we neglect, awaken our minds and wills to insight and care. May we with all your creatures honor and serve you in all things, for you live and reign with Christ, Redeemer of all, and with your Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

From the start of creation man lived in a garden, and we continue to find peace and joy in beautiful natural surroundings.  At St. Timothy's, we are blessed with plenty of space for a green campus, and we have always tried to make our grounds as natural and inviting as possible.  

From St. Timothy’s beginnings, the work of the church, including the construction of the Chapel, has been done by volunteers. This is especially true of the grounds. With few exceptions, all the designing, planting, pruning, weeding, and watering has been done by volunteers as a labor of love. From pulling out overgrown shrubs in front of the chapel to removing wisteria from around the parking lots, parishioners with strong backs and the desire to get things done have had workdays and tackled the job. 

Many of the plants we have used over the years were donated from home gardens.  As time has passed, donations have enabled us to purchase shrubs, but volunteers continue to design and plant, prune, and weed. 

Several projects on the grounds have been Eagle Scout projects.  The beds by the North Parking Lot, the planting boxes and benches on the Campbell patio, and the renovation of the Outdoor Chapel were all Scout projects. When the Outdoor Chapel was built, a carpentry class from Forsyth Tech installed the benches. 

A few trees have been donated as memorials including the Ginkgo by the North Parking Lot, a Carolina Silverbell near the memorial garden by the King family in memory of Charlie King, and a Maple by the North Parking Lot in memory of Burton Jones by the Jones family.  The trees planted in memory of Bob and Jean Dietz were removed to access the church roof. 

During the COVID shutdown, our plants continued to grow.  Many had outlived their healthy life span and needed to be removed.  We were faced with a major maintenance rehabilitation. Under the leadership of Jane Bowser, The Guild of St. Isidore has taken on this renovation and major strides have been made.

The Guild would like to thank all the volunteers who have participated in the Parish workdays. At last count over 300 hours of labor have gone into work on the grounds since the formation of the Guild. This fall we started the replanting of shrubs and flowers in the spaces that were cleared over the past two years. The effort that has and will continue to be required to accomplish this work is a good reminder that stewardship is not just financial but can be physical as well. 

Thanks to the generous spirits of our parishioners, St, Timothy’s will continue to have a beautiful campus that shows the wonder of God's creation.  

November 2023 - Food Waste
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and
every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” Genesis 1:29

This month’s challenge from Isidore considers an issue usually termed as ‘food waste.’  In looking at the statistics and the behavior surrounding the millions of tons of nourishment that goes to waste in our country, what if we made a shift in the language and talked about food stewardship?

Everything we have comes from God.  Odds are good that’s not the first thing on your mind when you toss a rotten green thing from the back of your fridge, but it’s still there, in the truth of the moment, and in that act. In these small acts, Americans throw away about 60 million tons of the 2.5 billion tons globally of food that goes to waste, every year.

These numbers are boggling, and guesstimates at best. It might be easier to consider percentages, where Americans show between 30% and 40% in wasted food resources, annually.  Imagine a table outside the grocery store, where instead of Girl Scout cookies, there were people gathering 35% of the food from your bags, on your way to the car. Or worse, passing the same table on the way in, where you are asked to drop a 35% cash value of your upcoming purchase. No one would tolerate this. And yet, every juice box thrown away half full, every box of crackers that goes stale and ends up in the trash, every half head of lettuce ignored in the crisper, these all add up to a similar scale of loss.

This is not fulfillment of our role as stewards. Some statistics suggest that people who buy healthier foods tend to waste more, because fresh foods don’t keep as well.  It is not a given that choosing to buy something perishable means that we are going to have to throw half of it in the trash. It is the easiest thing in the world to get busy and let foods spoil in the fridge, but Christian stewardship is about respecting what is God’s, and what is given into our care through grace and God’s love.

It is hard to remember - often, and in many ways - where we are graced and loved by God.  It is hard to feel grace when you are rushing fast out the door, or coming back in exhausted, with your own hunger and the needs of family members urgent and cranky. There is a lot of pressure around putting food where it needs to be. These are easy places to lose perspective, and it can be very hard to hold or change patterns that reflect and realize good stewardship. 

As with everything we do to step in line with our best choices as Christians, as you stick with better patterns and choices, there is a tipping point where it becomes easier to do the right thing instead of trying to break in a new, difficult activity right where you’re already stressed and paddling hard. As you remind yourself both why and how to realize better stewardship, it becomes the thing you most want to do. There is a learning curve and it’s easy to lose traction when schedules change, but the ideas below will help you find your way to less waste - and better stewardship, which is a much more positive way to hold this in mind.

Buy What You Need: This sounds simple but stores put things on sale to encourage you to buy them, whether or not it’s what you really need. Know when you walk in the door what will get used in your house, in the right timeframe(s), and buy that.

Use What’s in Your Fridge: Again, this sounds super simple. How many times do you have meals planned out and then change plans or go out? When you do that, commit to getting up early or pulling time in the evening to cook the meal(s) you missed or prep food for the freezer before it goes bad.

Get Creative & Don’t be Afraid to Try Something New: Before you throw things away, or go out to buy more, commit to finishing the week with what’s in your fridge.  Most fruits will cook up into oatmeal or muffins or pancakes (or roast with meat, if you’re feeling really adventurous). Most vegetables will combine into soup or casseroles, and with a little cheese on top or reliable seasonings, your family will get the nutrition you all need and you’ll keep your kitchen from adding to those tons of food waste, every day, that add up to the boggling billions. If you keep a few standbys in the pantry to help turn odd ends into meals, these may turn out to be some of your favorite dinner nights.

DIY Fast Foods: A subset of food waste is packaging waste, and for every meal or snack you manage to prepare and track to where it needs to be without a plastic wrapper or trip to the drive thru, you are doing your part to alleviate the huge impact on our planet from the tons of single serve plastics that affect our soil, water and climate. It super easy to grab and go. If you take a little time once a week to package up your own snacks - cheese cubes, nuts, a boiled egg, slices of baked goods or muffins - you will have your own ready-made convenience foods in reusable packaging. And your family members will know they are loved, and cared for in different ways, when their snacks are custom tailored to what they like.

The links below will give you more good ideas, with practical info on how long foods are actually still good, and different ways you can use and prepare foods that may sit idle in your fridge. And finally, a nudge from last month’s reflection - if you really can’t use it, find a way to compost (take it to the farmer’s market, drop off with a friend who gardens, or start your own small composting effort). When we send food to the landfill, it increases methane, so not only are we wasting good food, but there are additional climate impacts as the wasted food breaks down. It is so much better to steward that food to grateful bellies, and at the very least to happy worms and better soil.

Thank you for your time to read this, and your efforts toward more mindful stewardship!

Food Keeper App

Food Waste

Food Packaging

Food Loss and Food Waste - Policy

Putting a Number on Hunger

October 2023 Composting

Ecclesiastes 3:1 & 3, 3:11 There is a time for every matter under heaven…a time to break down, and a time to build up. God… has made everything beautiful in its time [RSV]

Composting is the focus for this month’s reflection.  For the benefit - to yourself, your family and the environment - there are not a lot more straightforward things you can do at home to make a difference.

There are good resources available in the links below that will introduce you to the logistics and possible options for starting a compost operation in your backyard.  I have tried many of them, and I can tell you from experience that the hard part of composting is not in the equipment or the understanding.

Compost is one of the most natural processes of life.  For that reason, and because it is free, and easy, most of us tend to forget or devalue the huge benefit it provides. There is no way to calculate an accurate number, but at least one website estimates that about a third of the food we buy and produce in this country ends up as food waste.

A lot of that waste is preventable, and even at the end of the chain of usefulness, most Americans are throwing away resources that our plants and ultimately, our bodies, recognize as the organic building blocks of new life. One of the links below clicks you to people who walk the talk of sustainability in ways I will never manage. One of them says that we are compost, and compost is us.

This family gathers the food scraps I often toss into the trash, and they feed those bits (after some processing) to their plants. Then they eat, for example, a tomato sandwich, grown from all that “waste,” and all the organic usefulness that this family stewards so well becomes part of their cells and flesh and bone and brain. From that perspective, it is nuts - and it is poor stewardship - to throw away what we are given to help us live and thrive.

We spend a lot of money on food, and on things to make our gardens grow. Many if not most of the things we buy to encourage and protect growth can be provided with what you can make at home - what your yard will make for you - with little trouble to set up a place for it to happen, and a regular path to deliver the materials. 

You are not hearing this from an experienced composter, or at least not from a faithful one.  I have tried many of the methods outlined in the links below. I set up a pile, I bought a bin that turns, I used to carry my scraps weekly to a gardener friend, and when my son was small and my father had had a stroke, when I could barely manage to find time to chop and peel fresh vegetables, I kept a bucket of scraps in the fridge and boiled them down for “compost tea” to feed my trees and garden. I volunteered to share this reflection because I know how hard it is to manage to get the bits to the bin. 

Those bits are the absolute last thing on the counter when you are cooking (& cleaning). It seems like the important part has already happened. Here is where I’m going to dig in to that reference above from Ecclesiastes, and line up why I think it is so easy to fail, with composting (and where one of my challenges as a Christian crosses the same territory).

There is a season to everything. We all know this, and those words are especially common when there is a loss. Particularly in that context, it is easy to see those seasons as “good” and “bad.” When summer is over and it’s time to go back to school, it’s easy to feel like the “good” season is over. We all like to unwrap something shiny and new. Spring is full of new life, and summer is warm and pleasant. It is hard to love the other half of that cycle.

I had neighbors when I was growing up - a family of neighbors, some of the most authentic, rubber hits the road Christians I have ever met - who basically ran a farm in their yard. They grew the most wonderful raspberries I have ever tasted. One of the best lessons I learned, growing up, was where these raspberries came from. This family fed six people off what was probably less than an acre that included their house and driveway. They grew all of their own food. Part of what made that happen, and possible, was a compost pile in their backyard the size of a small swimming pool.

My dog used go after their compost on a regular basis. It was her go-to, when she got loose. Because I was tasked to retrieve her, it was explained to me in terms a child could understand that the raspberries I loved grew from the good that came from this pile of waste. I knew they were better raspberries than we could buy at the store. Without knowing anything about the right temperatures for decomposition or how much air that process needs, or the right balance of grass clippings and leaves to slimy kitchen waste, I recognized that something magic and miraculous happened in that pile.

It was a circle of fence, operated with a pitchfork. There was not much to it, and no cost required but faithful attention to turn it. This small action kept a patch of land fruitful and productive, to feed a family. What they grew in fresh, organic procedure - with no time or travel to bring it home - would cost in today’s values hundreds of dollars a month (if not weekly), at the grocery store. They worked regular jobs and went to school like most families. With faithfulness, and good stewardship, they found time to care for what they loved and it fed them.

This is the world that God gives us. Those neighbors were the best Christians I knew, and they are still some of the most faithful and able stewards I have ever met. One of the things they taught me was that if you lay out all your mess in the backyard where God and even some of your neighbors can see it, and layer it over with the good you can find, and turn it with patience and faithfulness, it will grow into what you need to feed your life.

That is all there is to composting. 

Worms help. The links below can answer specifics on temperature and airflow. If you can carry a bucket, the Cobblestone Farmers Market will take your scraps and give you ready made compost for as long as it’s available. Nothing will feed your garden better, and keeping these valuable bits out of the landfill is a spiritual exercise to shape your gratitude and awareness for all we have been given.

The best way to get motivated with composting, and stay that way, is to remember that there are no gross bits or wrong parts that can’t sort out into something useful (as long as you keep animal and pet waste out of your mix!). With faithful tending, what you think is done and useless can turn over into more life than you imagine possible. If you hand your mess to God, it will cycle forward into new life.

Helpful Links

Beginners Guide to Composting

Composting as a Spiritual Discipline

Teaming with Microbes

Community Compost Program

September 2023 Reconciliation in Creation Care

Genesis 2;15 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden
to work it and take care of it.”

The challenge of reconciliation is large. To reconcile our church, our world, and ourselves. All these things are interrelated and yet independent. We were created to protect the world we live in. We must stop, look around us and appreciate all that we have been given. When our daily actions break down rather than build up our planet, there is a disruption of ecological balance. God has instructed us to reconcile our trespasses and to protect the core function of the church.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation.

Reconcillation in Our World
We recognize that all created things belong to God and that we are accountable to Him as stewards of the creation. There are things we can all do to resolve ecological imbalance on this Earth.

•  Choose more energy efficient appliances and automobiles. This conserves energy and reduces pollution.

• Plant butterfly friendly bushes.

• Put out blue bird houses for nesting.

• Create a bee habitat.

• Volunteer for cleanups in your community.

• Conserve water. Reuse and recycle often.

• Use environmentally friendly cleaning products.

• Recycle empty cleaning product containers.

• Use long lasting light bulbs.

• Reduce your use of single-use disposable plastics.

• Use your own re-useable shopping bags instead of the store plastic ones.

• If you have the budget and living situation switch to solar.

We must not destroy the world, instead preserve it for future generations.

Reconciliation in the Church
Romans 12:14 “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”

In church, reconciliation involves everyone. There are things we can all do to resolve this imbalance as well.

• Be open and share any problems, don’t keep them inside.

• Be honest with yourself and others.

• We should pray hard and listen carefully.

• Take the time to hear everyone’s issues.

• Try to stay openminded.

• Be the first to apologize when one is surely needed.

• Join a Guild to be more aware of the church needs and become closer to each other.

Reconciliation in Ourselves
Ephesians 4:32” Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Reconciliation in us goes side by side with ecological imbalance: Forgive those who trespass against you.

Here are personal actions you can take:

• Acknowledge the hurt you feel.

• Consider how the hurt has affected you.

• Accept that you cannot change the past.

• Try to understand why the person did what they did.

• Abandon your resentment.

• Try to find something to learn from the experience.

• Forgive the one who hurt you and pray to the Lord for them.

August 2023 Regenerative Agriculture

Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.” As he said this, he called out,
“Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” Luke 8:5

Around the world, much of the Earth’s soil has been seriously degraded by monocrop farming, pesticides, and deforestation. Restoration of soil fertility is critical for the continued farming for crops to feed the world. Regenerative agriculture, a growing process that increases organic matter, fertility, texture, water retention, and vital organisms in the soil shows promise for improving plant health, nutrition, and productivity.

Fortunately, regenerative practices can be duplicated in backyards and community gardens so we all can participate in the restoration of God’s Earth. Digging in the dirt can be an important place for spiritual practice and connecting with God and his creation. The intentionality and presence needed to successfully grow fruits, vegetables, flowers, and other plants can bring our attention to God’s grace and movement in the world. As we get our hands dirty to help things grow, we can honor God by adopting practices that return health to our soil.

Intentionally cultivating pollinator gardens separately or mixed in with vegetable and fruit plantings provide the additional benefit of supporting the bees, butterflies, and other pollinators we need to help our gardens grow.

For the month of August, look at your yard and garden and think about how you can do your part to restore your little piece of God’s creation and begin to implement your plan in the fall planting season.

 Here are some ideas to get you started.

• Learn to grow patio veggies in a pot or build a raised bed.

• Compost organic waste and use it in your garden.

• Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and/or shop at local farmer’s markets.

• Use organic fertilizers.

• Remove weeds by hand and/or use natural weed killers - Sunday Lawn Care

• Mulch your garden with shredded leaves and avoid tilling your garden.

• Mulch your yard instead of bagging whenever possible.

For additional information, check out the resources below.

• Green America

• Kiss the Ground

• Soil Health Institute

• Book: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. Penguin Books.

• Book: Resilient Agriculture, Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC, 2015. Lengnick, L.

• Book: Scripture, Culture and Agriculture, An Agrarian Reading of the Bible, Cambridge University press, NYC, NY, 2009. Hawken, P. (2017). 

July 2023 Conserving Water

“Psalm 104: 10-13 He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains.  They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst.  The birds of the sky nest by the waters; they sing among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.”

Throughout the stories in scripture, God uses water to liberate, to cleanse, to heal and to give new life. God’s abundance of grace flows like that life-giving water to us all. 

In our daily lives, try these actions to remember the liberating, life-giving gift of God through water for us all:

• Turn off the faucet while you’re brushing teeth – a running tap can waste over 1 ½ gallons per minute.  Consider using that time to say prayers thanking God for those who ensure we have clean drinking water.

• Use a full load in the dishwasher and washing machine.

• Wash fruits and vegetables in a bowl rather than under a running tap. Use leftover water to feed houseplants.

• Take shorter showers instead of baths.  The average bath uses 30 gallons of water. The standard shower head has a water flow of 2.5 gallons per minute, so a 4 minute shower uses 10 gallons of water.

• Fix dripping toilets, pipes and faucets.  A dripping faucet can waste thousands of gallons of water in a year.

• When washing dishes by hand, don’t leave the water running for rinsing.

• Use a watering can or a hose with a trigger nozzle for watering plants around the yard.

• Keep a reusable container of drinking water in the refrigerator.

• Install water efficient low-flow shower heads.

• Recycle grey water for garden use. The average monthly rainfall in August in Winston-Salem is only 4.5 inches and in September only 3.9 inches.

• Position sprinklers so water lands on lawn or garden and not on paved areas. Water in the mornings to reduce evaporation.

• Use a bucket and sponge when washing the car rather than a running hose. Or use a hose with a trigger nozzle.

• Landscape your yard with drought resistant native plants.  See the May Isidore article for Cultivating Creation Friendly Yards.

• Mulch plants and trees in your yard.

• Purchase water-efficient appliances, such as low-flush toilets and front-loading washers.

• Insulate your water pipes with pre-slit pipe insulation. This creates energy savings surrounding hot water use.

• Don’t overwater your lawn; most lawns need only about 1” of water each week. Water your lawn in the morning when winds are calmer so water can soak into the soil and be absorbed by grass roots before it can evaporate.

Prayer for the Conservation of Natural Resources (CBP)
Almighty God, in giving us dominion over things on earth, you made us fellow workers in your creation: Give us wisdom and reverence so to use the resources of nature, that no one may suffer from our abuse of them and that generations yet to come may continue to praise you for you bounty; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Check out these resources to learn more….
To learn about water quality in Forsyth County
To learn about Conservation and Efficiency
To learn about water-efficient products

June 2023 Healthy Air
Psalm 24:1  The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it. 

Buzz Buzz Buzz. Buzz words, buzz of yard tools, bees buzzing in the air. There is lots of buzz, and we have been called to be stewards of God’s creation.

Stewardship looks like individuals, groups, or local, state, and federal governments, taking action, which shows commitment to the stewardship of God’s creation. For example, in December 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created and the Clean Air Act of 1970 began the regulation of emissions into our air. Currently, the EPA controls the use of 187 hazardous pollutants.There are two primary sources of hazardous pollutants; 

• Individual sources such as cars, and 

• Commercial sources, many of which burn coal and/or natural gas. 

The EPA as well as local governments act as Stewards of God's creation and an example of local government stewardship is the Environmental Assistance and Protection Department of Forsyth County. 

The two biggest air quality problems in North Carolina are ground level Ozone, the main ingredient of Smog, and particle pollution. Both pollutants are caused mainly by emissions from cars and trucks, and from the coal burning power plants that supply a large amount of electricity. According to the North Carolina Environmental Quality website there are certain things we can do to decrease air, pollution, and improve air quality. These include the following:

• Leave your car at home. Take the bus, carpool, vanpool, walk, or ride a bike to your destination.

• Don’t drive to lunch. Take your lunch or walk to a nearby restaurant.

• Drive right. Use cruise control, whenever practical and stay within the speed limit. 

• Avoid sudden stops and starts. Plan ahead and combine short trips to avoid cold starts.

• Factor in omissions in fuel efficiency into vehicle purchasing decisions.

Other doable individual actions include the following:

• Avoid idling in drive through lines. 

• Reduce the number of gas powered lawn tools and equipment.

• Landscape to reduce the amount of grass on your property

• Plant a tree. Preferably native trees to North Carolina.

For more information check out the following:

• North Carolina Cooperative Extension Agency

• North Carolina Environmental Quality Division - Air Quality

• VERA Clean Driving Habits Guide

This month, think about the quality of our air and challenge yourself to make a difference.

May 2023
Cultivating Creation Friendly Yards

But ask …the plants of the earth, and they will teach you…In his hand is the life of every living thing (Job 12:7-10, excerpted)

Maintaining our outdoor spaces in line with our faith and our values has the same level of simplicity - and hidden difficulty - as in any other area. We hold heartfelt commitment to living as Christ intends, and directs, and when it comes down to the small decisions of living, we often get swayed by what the neighbors are doing, what's on sale at Costco, and the automatic patterns and predictable behaviors that we learned in childhood.In our outdoor spaces, whether you are cultivating plants in pots or an expanse of mowable green, there is plenty of room to work the mechanism that reminds us to live by faith and to look always to the guidance that we know will best direct our actions.

This can be particularly hard in a task that we do either for recreation, to relax after a long stretch of work, or in a hurry, to fit in around other demands. We don't want to slow down and think, in these moments. The whole point of getting outside is to get away from all that. I love to push my lawnmower because it yields immediate, visible results, and I enjoy the benefit of knowing that if my yard looks like everyone else's, I must be doing something right.Green is green, or so it can seem. And yet, working outdoors and making the choices that shape our immediate local landscape, we have the opportunity to really exercise the spot that remembers, "Thy will, and not my own." 

The best ways to maintain a yard that supports God's creation will stem from that principle.  Where we are able to ease our will into the right orientation, and work in line with what supports life best, we will grow the most healthy and sustainable outdoor spaces. The following principles will help us to make choices that line up with that guidance:

• Plant what's best for the space - and alternatively, position plants in the places where they will have what they need.  If you really love a particular shade-loving plant, and you set that plant by your front door in the bright sunshine, it will never flourish and you will be constantly frustrated and disappointed. If instead you open yourself up to working with what grows best in the space where you are located, you will learn new things about yourself and find ways to put together an environment that sustains itself and takes less effort to keep healthy and green. That kind of efficiency supports and mirrors God’s creation.

• Choose plants that are local and not invasive.  This is a bigger frame for the  principle outlined above.  Plants grow best where they have what they need, and different types of plants in a given area will work together to maintain a balance that encourages the best health of all plants and wildlife local to the site.  Where you choose plants that are part of this overall balance, your yard will contribute to the health of the larger local ecosystem, and you will spend less time and money keeping things green.Likewise, in a space planted with healthy, mutually sustaining native varieties, weeds will find less foothold. It is healthier for your plants and for your family to support the growth of plants that work together. When you take the time to research and choose plants appropriate to the space, and position them where they have what they need, you will help to establish a community of growing things that will curb many invasive and weed-like encroachments, and you will find that your space holds its balance with less effort and better results, without the need for as many chemicals and toxic exposure for pets and people.

• Planting and planning this way can take more work up front but the biggest push is the effort to shift your thinking in a new direction. Once that hurdle is cleared, the logistics to support creation in a sustainable way are manageable. It is not necessarily a lot more work - or expense - to establish a creation-friendly space, and it is usually much less work to maintain.In my garden as in my kitchen, I often know exactly what I want, whether or not it is healthy and sustainable.  When I take the time to look for choices that honor creation and mirror the commitment my heart wants to make, I usually find good options. 

  I have never visited a botanical garden, a well established nursery, or even a farmers market, without discovering plants that are new to me and good for the landscape, and open me to new ways of not only supporting but enjoying God’s creation.To spark your connection with creation, leave your device on the charger and follow some of these links with your feet and with your spirit:

  • Reynolda Gardens

  • Greensboro Arboretum

  • Triad Markets

  • NC Arboretum

February Focus – Moving Towards a Plant Rich Diet

Genesis 1: 11 Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed and it. And it was so.

February is the shortest month, but the challenge this month has a double impact. Moving Towards a Plant Rich Diet is the action that will have the greatest positive impact on the wellbeing of the environment and on your health. If you eat just one plant-based meal a day for a year, you'll save almost 200,000 gallons of water (that's 11,400 showers) and the pollution equivalent to about 3,000 miles driven in your car (roughly LA to NYC). People who eat a plant rich, low or no animal product diet reduce their risks of certain cancers, heart disease, stroke type 2 diabetes and have lower healthcare costs. Use the month of February to give plants a try.

The ideas below will help you get started. Try as many as you like and challenge yourself.

• Make a new plant-based recipe or order a plant-based meal the next time you eat out. Find what you like and integrate into your weekly meal plan.

• Switch from cow’s milk and cheese to a plant-based alternative like oat, soy, cashew or flax. Silk, Kite Hill and Qatly are good brands to try.

• Make one day of the week animal free.

• Eat animal products one meal only making the others animal free.

If this raises your curiosity and you want to know more about the impact on the environment, visit www.humaneamaerica.org or www.agmission.org. To learn more about the impact on your health, check out the movie The Game Changers or visit www.nutritionfacts.org.

In future months we will investigate the benefits of shopping locally and growing some of your own food.

January Focus - Energy Efficiency

Psalm 104:24-25 Lord, you have made many things.With your wisdom you made them all. The earth is full of your riches. Look at the sea, so big and wide. Its creatures large and small cannot be counted.

There are many ways you can save energy in your home including LED Light Bulbs, Programmable Thermostats, Insulation Upgrades, the use of Solar Panels, etc.

Use the month of January to think about how you can better care for God’s creation by becoming more energy efficient. The ideas below will help you get started. Pick one or more and challenge yourself.

• Request a free Energy Savings Analysis from your electric utility. Duke Energy will schedule one for you and give you free stuff as well.

• Turn down your thermostat—aim for 68 during the day and 60 at night.

• Buy and install a programmable thermostat and/or a low-flow shower head. Duke Energy will do this as part of the Home Energy Analysis. The Google Nest is FREE and the installation is $70.00.

• Weatherize your home— insulate hot water heaters, increase attic insulation, etc.

• Switch from incandescent to LED lights and turn off lights when not in use.

• Wash clothes in cold water and run the dishwasher with a full load using the air-dry setting.