sustainable living | Melissa Otterbein

Yesterday I wrote about my love for Lent, but not of murder on a cross. I believe these 40 days of spiritual reflection can greatly draw us closer to our Maker.

For the past three years, I’ve especially found meaning in this spiritual season by choosing to take up a practice. Last year, I found myself in tears and laughter commuting by bicycle, taking cold showers, and putting coins in the “Suck it up or Shut up” jar each time I caught myself complaining. I kept up with the cycling, take cooler (but not cold) showers, and occasionally throw some coins in the jar, hoping to build up my wellspring of “sucking it up.” The year before that, I got in the habit of taking Sabbath walks. And in 2011, I went vegetarian for forty days. While I didn’t sustain the practice that particular year, I began doing so in 2014, grateful for the connection I feel to the Earth and creatures living in it.

This year, I hope to experience this same kind of Heaven-on-Earth connection and invite you to join me or take up your own spiritual practice. I chose the theme of sustainable living because, as Jack Kerouac once said,

“The closer you get to real matter, rock, air, fire, and wood, boy, the more spiritual the world is.”

I’m breaking up the next 40 days into sets of ten. The first set are ten things to do just once over the next 40 days:

Do once:
1) Stop credit card offers by going to www.optoutprescreen.com
2) Buy a house plant. Indoor air is commonly 2-5 times more polluted than outside air. Plants help alleviate this by manufacturing fresh oxygen and removing carbon dioxide.*
3) Recycle old plastic cards that I no longer need (used gift cards, expired health insurance cards, etc.)
4) Call facilities when I see a leaky faucet at work. (Being that I work in an old building, it’s bound to happen at least once over the next 40 days).
5) Recycle my old pairs of eye glasses.
6) Compost components of feminine hygiene products when that “time of the month comes.” (Ok, TMI, I know, but it’s interesting to see how much waste can come from this bodily function). Don’t worry; it’s just going in my backyard.
7) Buy a reuseable mesh bag for produce, as to not need to use the produce plastic bags at the store.
8) Get off mailing and telemarketing lists by registering online at www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html and www.donotcall.gov
9) Conduct a free step-by-step personalized Go Green plan.
10) Save foam I come across and take it to recycling at 2840 Sisson St.

The remainder are things to do once per day, three times through, for a total of 30 practices:

Do three times through:
1) Turn off modem at night. Only turn back on when I need it.
2). Go to the farmer’s market to get all my produce for the week instead of buying copious amounts of frozen fruits and veggies, which albeit last a while, causing me to take less trips to the grocery store, but are packaged in materials that will produce waste.
3) Pick up a piece of litter I encounter. BONUS for taking home any recyclable litter.
4) Call a company/non-profit that I don’t patronize and ask to be taken off their mailing list. ESPECIALLY GEICO! I will never fall for your snarky gecko, no matter how much mail you send!
5) Turn my office overhead light off on sunny afternoons. BONUS for going the whole day with natural light from my window.
6) Read a chapter of one of the many books I have on sustainable living, beginning with: The Zero Waste Lifestyle by Amy Korst and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
7) Take a navy shower to use water for 2 minutes or less while bathing.
8) Unplug anything in my room outlets before leaving the house in the morning.
9) Make a list of every chemical I come across in my food as well as hygiene and cleaning products for that particular day. Use this to drive home a conviction to choose natural cleaning and hygiene products as well as eat whole, fresh foods.
10) When I drive, make sure to drive 55 MPH on the highway instead of 65 to improve gas mileage between 10-15% and don’t speed on residential roads.

Looking forward to sharing this Lenten season with you.

COMMENT BELOW:
Do you choose to observe Lent? Why/why not?
How will you observe this Lenten season if you decide to do so?

*Renee Loux, Easy Green Living, pg. 71