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community service
July 2009 
Imagine!
Posted on Sep 16th, 2007
by 
Spiritual Liberation
Spiritual Liberation
Ideas have been popping into my head about how to change the world - at least the slice of it that is the country I reside in for starters.
I read this article and excerpt from the book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14194915&ft=1&f=1 - it's a long excerpt, but well worth the read! It's like reading this flipped a switch in me. I had no idea about the dangers of plastic.
Then I flipped through a magazine from the UK about living an organic life, and it was brutally honest (which is WONDERFUL!) about so many ways we are hurting our planet and ultimately ourselves with our various pollutions. Like, I didn't know that recycling a single tin can saves enough energy to power a car at 60mph for 5 miles (or something like that - I don't know if I remembered that quite right, but the numbers were impressive either way).
First, I'd like to see an organization granted with the rights to begin recycling from dumps. In the old days people went to dumps and found stuff to reuse, but now with people being lawsuit happy, no one is allowed to roam the dumps anymore because they might get a splinter and sue the county.
Imagine all the plastic, paper, aluminum, and other metals in the dumps that could be recycled... That is probably nearly everything! And if the foundations that were formed to go through the dumps to sort the recycling could simply make their money from the recycling, all would be good! This would require the city/county to not lay claim to all the garbage though, and not keep people out. There is a need for the viewpoint that doing good for the planet and to save humanity is more important than the almighty tax dollar. If you want to own the garbage, you should be responsible for the garbage.
In that book excerpt the author states that it is easy to find a 1930's newspaper at the dump that is still easily readable. We think papers decompose quickly, but they don't either. And look at how we are consuming the forests of the world - and for what?! We don't need to keep mining and deforesting for many products. We need to recycle not only what we throw out now, but the zillions of tons of stuff we've already chucked as well!
Another idea I had was to bring all our military home. Our 'armies' should be domestic service agents. Their military aspects should be minimal and only when absolutely necessary, while their community service aspects should be maximized. How can we be change agents in the world when we haven't taken care of our own space on the planet? We need to create a working model of perfect health in our own society.
Imagine the budget of the military force being used to clean up our beaches, to clean up from our natural disasters, to rebuild our communities in need, to plant trees! They could deliver meals to the elderly and read to underpriviledged children and rock at-risk infants who need human contact to survive and thrive. They could assist victims of domestic violence in getting a new start - there is no end to the good we could do right here in our own country. Heck, imagine the good it would do just to get us to stop messing up the rest of the planet! Imagine a mobilized volunteer force with that kind of backing that we provide in our military budget working in peace, for peace, domestically. It is awsome!
Go on to imagine a truly healthy society and how this healthy society would mobilize to reach out to help end suffering in the rest of the world, with love rather than violence, with cultural sensitivity rather than fear. Ahhhh, it makes my heart so joyful!
I'm not saying we should be selfish and abandon efforts to ease suffering in the world, I want to make that clear. But it's like the way we cannot perceive peace in the world outside of ourselves when we have not disovered the peace within. We can only truly make changes when we begin to project and reflect health and vitality. How can we feed the world when we are raping our own soil with chemicals and by over-producing and not rotating crops? How can we stop disease when we inject injurous vaccinations? How can we create health with a McDonalds mentality?
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
~John Lennon, Imagine
I read this article and excerpt from the book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14194915&ft=1&f=1 - it's a long excerpt, but well worth the read! It's like reading this flipped a switch in me. I had no idea about the dangers of plastic.
Then I flipped through a magazine from the UK about living an organic life, and it was brutally honest (which is WONDERFUL!) about so many ways we are hurting our planet and ultimately ourselves with our various pollutions. Like, I didn't know that recycling a single tin can saves enough energy to power a car at 60mph for 5 miles (or something like that - I don't know if I remembered that quite right, but the numbers were impressive either way).
First, I'd like to see an organization granted with the rights to begin recycling from dumps. In the old days people went to dumps and found stuff to reuse, but now with people being lawsuit happy, no one is allowed to roam the dumps anymore because they might get a splinter and sue the county.
Imagine all the plastic, paper, aluminum, and other metals in the dumps that could be recycled... That is probably nearly everything! And if the foundations that were formed to go through the dumps to sort the recycling could simply make their money from the recycling, all would be good! This would require the city/county to not lay claim to all the garbage though, and not keep people out. There is a need for the viewpoint that doing good for the planet and to save humanity is more important than the almighty tax dollar. If you want to own the garbage, you should be responsible for the garbage.
In that book excerpt the author states that it is easy to find a 1930's newspaper at the dump that is still easily readable. We think papers decompose quickly, but they don't either. And look at how we are consuming the forests of the world - and for what?! We don't need to keep mining and deforesting for many products. We need to recycle not only what we throw out now, but the zillions of tons of stuff we've already chucked as well!
Another idea I had was to bring all our military home. Our 'armies' should be domestic service agents. Their military aspects should be minimal and only when absolutely necessary, while their community service aspects should be maximized. How can we be change agents in the world when we haven't taken care of our own space on the planet? We need to create a working model of perfect health in our own society.
Imagine the budget of the military force being used to clean up our beaches, to clean up from our natural disasters, to rebuild our communities in need, to plant trees! They could deliver meals to the elderly and read to underpriviledged children and rock at-risk infants who need human contact to survive and thrive. They could assist victims of domestic violence in getting a new start - there is no end to the good we could do right here in our own country. Heck, imagine the good it would do just to get us to stop messing up the rest of the planet! Imagine a mobilized volunteer force with that kind of backing that we provide in our military budget working in peace, for peace, domestically. It is awsome!
Go on to imagine a truly healthy society and how this healthy society would mobilize to reach out to help end suffering in the rest of the world, with love rather than violence, with cultural sensitivity rather than fear. Ahhhh, it makes my heart so joyful!
I'm not saying we should be selfish and abandon efforts to ease suffering in the world, I want to make that clear. But it's like the way we cannot perceive peace in the world outside of ourselves when we have not disovered the peace within. We can only truly make changes when we begin to project and reflect health and vitality. How can we feed the world when we are raping our own soil with chemicals and by over-producing and not rotating crops? How can we stop disease when we inject injurous vaccinations? How can we create health with a McDonalds mentality?
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
~John Lennon, Imagine
Access: Public
Wow! That's fine. That's my song. But why do you interpret it? Just sing it! One, two, three, foor, imagine all …
Thank You so much for this type of important message to the world. My husband is an environmentalist (he has a double degree in biology and environmental science and teachs both). He is always looking for new ways to help get the point across and loved the tin can example. There are many things we can each do everyday in both little and big ways it requires an awareness of the impact we make and then action toward making the impacts positive not negative.
Imagine no pollution …
zu - No interpretation needed! I use it only as a quote. :) I love the song as well.
BeLynn - I looked up the magazine - it is Organic Life isue 022 Aug 07. It's a UK magazine, and that issue had dozens of shocking factoids about pollution and recycling - Like that a cigarrette butt is made of plastic fibers and one single butt in the ocean soils 3 liters of water.
Here is a link to that issue of the magazine:
http://www.thegmcgroup.com/item–Organic-Life-Issue-022-Aug-07–OL-022-087.html
:)
That's a fine reaction!
Absolutely, sister!!! It is a fact that the military budget could feed every person and shelter every homeless person. People soooo need to get their priorities straight!
No, you're definitely “not the only one”
And I do join you…
So that we could live as One.
;-)
Yay! You go, girl! I'm with you, just ordered some compact florescent lightbulbs. The environmental fairies must be in the air lately. You posted this on the day our pastor gave a sermon challenging the congregation to do more in the way of cleaning our act up!! You should check out the new Real Goods catalog from Gaiam. (www.gaiam.com/realgoods) It's chock full of very innovative stuff for reducing our carbon footprint.