{"id":288,"date":"2010-07-02T08:20:19","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T08:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/what-im-reading-serve-god-save-the-planet.html"},"modified":"2010-07-02T08:20:19","modified_gmt":"2010-07-02T08:20:19","slug":"what-im-reading-serve-god-save-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/what-im-reading-serve-god-save-the-planet.html","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Reading: Serve God, Save the Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n


\n\"Thumbnail<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, as we prepared to move, we were bemoaning
\nour accumulation of stuff (see “Too Much Stuff<\/a>“). I’m repeating one of the
\nphotos of our pile of giveaway stuff here, because Peter remarked, “This is a
\nspiritual statement.” <\/p>\n

He didn’t mean it in a positive sense, as if to say we were
\ntremendously altruistic by relinquishing so many cherished possessions. No, we
\nboth knew that the spiritual statement was an ugly one. We won’t miss anything
\nthat we gave away. Not one thing. In fact, we’ve only unpacked some of the
\nstuff we moved, and we can hardly remember what is in the boxes piled up in the
\nbasement that we haven’t gotten to yet. The spiritual statement our stuff makes
\nis that we, often, are not good stewards of our money, time, and energy. <\/p>\n

In response to all this over-accumulation and the spiritual
\nquestions it provoked, I picked up a book that had been lying around for a
\nwhile now: Serve God Save the Planet<\/a> by J. Matthew Sleeth, M.D. Sleeth was an
\nEmergency Room doctor who downsized his life so significantly that his current
\nhome could fit inside his old garage. His family of four now produces less than
\none grocery-store-sized bag of trash per week. Sleeth weaves together a
\npersonal narrative of conversion (to the Christian faith and, as a result, to a
\nsense of personal stewardship of the earth’s resources) with practical
\nsuggestions for how other Americans can stop accumulating so much and live with
\na greater sense of purpose and freedom.<\/p>\n

Sleeth’s motivation for energy conservation and simple
\nliving is his faith in Jesus Christ, and he connects the two throughout the
\nbook. I was particularly taken by his comments on the Sabbath (a topic that has
\nbeen on my mind–see “No Shopping on Sundays<\/a>“). Just as Sabbath rest can serve
\nother people, so too it can serve the earth by not asking it to “work” for us.
\nPerhaps we could all choose one day a week to wash our dishes by hand, to eat a
\nvegetarian meal, to keep the computer turned off. He challenges us to consider
\nthe fact that we can make specific changes in our behavior that have a big
\nimpact. For instance, “if every household changed its five most used bulbs to
\ncompact fluorescent lightbulbs, the country could take twenty-one coal-fired
\npower plants off-line tomorrow.” <\/p>\n

Sure, Sleeth can come off as a bit shrill or self-righteous
\nat times (most people speaking prophetic words do). Sometimes he tries to
\nconnect his medical stories to his environmental ones and they don’t quite fit
\ntogether. And I wanted to hear more about his personal story and how he came to
\nfaith and what exactly they’ve done in their home to change their energy use. <\/p>\n

With those caveats aside, I recommend this book. It offers a
\nhost of practical advice and defends stewardship of time, relationships, and
\nresources Biblically. So what has changed in me, in response to reading this
\nbook and going through the move? Well, I’m washing our clothes with cold water.
\n“Buy compost bin” is on the top of the “high priority” to do list. I’d like to
\nimplement the Sabbath-keeping ideas I mentioned (some of them from the book)
\nabove. Most of all, I’m trying to be much more careful about how and why I
\npurchase anything, and much more deliberate about giving it away. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, as we prepared to move, we were bemoaning our accumulation of stuff (see “Too Much Stuff“). I’m repeating one of the photos of our pile of giveaway stuff here, because Peter remarked, “This is a spiritual statement.” He didn’t mean it in a positive sense, as if to say we were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-what-im-reading"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat I'm Reading: Serve God, Save the Planet - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/07\/what-im-reading-serve-god-save-the-planet.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What I'm Reading: Serve God, Save the Planet - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few weeks ago, as we prepared to move, we were bemoaning our accumulation of stuff (see “Too Much Stuff“). 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}