Subjects of some of the talks: Saving our farms, eating wisely, setting up guidelines for dealing with the environmental crisis--always remembering that working to restore the natural order in creation is our mission.
There has always been those who have felt a need to confess their offenses against the environment but this is becoming more pronounced with the recent interest in ecological problems. Not only are we concerned today with our relation with God, with others, and with ourselves but with creation, as well.
In the Bishops' guidelines we are told: "We no longer can separate love for God and others from the love we should have for creation... because of my greed and carelessness when I randomly destroy part of God's creation, I should come to the realization that I am sinning. This is something we have not been familiar with in the past but is now one of our social sins."
It is easy to understand our personal offenses but not so easy to understand that even when buying a ten-dollar cup of coffee something is happening in our society that is not good. Here we are in the order of social sin.
Our mass production and consumption on a large scale has brought us global warming, scarcity of food, and the disappearance of many animal species. To begin to reverse this trend we must take steps to live in a simpler and less comfortable way.
The article ends with a number of suggestions on how to do this: use less water, eat a better diet, save energy, avoid throw-away goods, walk or take public transportation whenever possible, cut down on eating out, prefer environmentally friendly farm goods, use cleaning materials made with natural ingredients and whenpossible,recycle everything.
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