By Tom Church
It’s hard. Sometimes it’s impossible. Doing
unto others as you would have them do unto you. The great Gospel singer Mahalia
Jackson sang “ I'm gonna live the life I sing about in my song , I’m gonna live for
the right and always shun the wrong; you can't go to church and shout on a Sunday, go out and get drunk and raise Hell on
a Monday”.
But we all have trouble doing “the right thing” sometimes. We're not Saints. Sometimes doing the right thing isn't easy. It’s relatively easy to point out what’s wrong but quite another to propose an alternative. One that you and others can buy into.
In my household we’re concerned about the
environment in so many ways. Do we have a hybrid or electric car? Do we have solar
panels on our house for electricity and water heating? Do we even make sure we turn
off lights and unplug power drains when we don't need them on?
Ray, the instructor in a Solar Voltaic course
I took, told a story of a guy who hired him to put in a bank of panels. The next
year the guy called and wanted more. When the installer showed up at the house it
was lit up like a Christmas tree. TV’s were
on with nobody watching. You know the scene. Ray suggested they make some changes
in their habits. They cut back for about six months. Then called back. Let’s install
the extra panels. It was too hard to be so careful. Where’s that at? “Doing the
right thing” was too hard.
Or sometimes we're forced into doing the
right thing.
There’s a lake in the Poconos where the
association of property owners was told that a group of investors were seeking permission,
and probably going to get it, to install a large electrical turbine at the dam to
sell electricity to the power company. What happened? The owners were able to come
up with the money to do it themselves and maintain their control. How many of us
could have done that? Some years later they were selling enough that they were making
money on their investment. They were forced into it, but it paid off for them in
the long run. How many of us have the foresight and resources to do this? Not many.
Speaking of resources, what about the finite
resources available to us on this planet. Charles Eisenstein’s book “Sacred Economics”
is about this common wealth of resources, how they've been stolen, and labeled private
commodities and sold for private gain. These thieves mine and sell this common wealth,
minerals and water and whatever they can think of, until it’s exhausted. Then they
move on to the next higher hanging fruit. Some even advertise that they are doing
good things for the environment. Go figure. Free Enterprise. Yes, it costs them
to exploit us and they provide services, but this killing the tree to get the fruit
is not good for anyone. Except them. Not their grandchildren.
We're on a budget. Like any household. Just because we have it doesn’t mean we should
spend it until it’s gone. And like any other household, we have to renew our resources
to continue. And it’s been proven through the short history of man that we have
the ingenuity to change our focus and solve problems in new ways. To go to resources
that can be renewed. We need a major re-focus to “do the right thing” before we’re
not here to do anything.
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