Earth and Animal Friendly Resolutions for 2014

We all know the joke: New Year's Resolutions are our To-Do List for the first week of January. Like many morning dreams, they disappear from our minds quickly. Nevertheless, resolutions can be great values clarification tools. It's helpful to write them down and look at them now and then and see how we are doing. Resolutions should be flexible enough to change as we better judge our time and ability to commit. If we decide that something is a deeply held belief or value, then we should try to live more accordingly while remembering the words from Max Ehrmann's Desiderata: "Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself."

I'm not going to share my list of resolutions, but they really fall under two bold sub-headings: 

1. Live a more sustainable, earth-and-animal-friendly life in which I make more things myself and greatly reduce my carbon footprint. 
2. Live my Quaker faith of simplicity, community, integrity, peace and equality. (I don't have to say "Quaker", because my faith is my faith. I'm responsible not an organization. But I do belong to a community of people who have historically and continuously tried to bear certain values as personal testimonies while working for justice and peace. That witness gives me context for e-value-ating myself.)

Since elpasonaturally is about sustainable and just living here in the El Paso Southwest, I'll spend more time this year writing about how we can live such lives and enjoy more of the beauty and holiness of the place in which we live. I so often go after the bad guys and poor policies that I often forget what it is that I love so deeply and want to preserve and proclaim. This doesn't mean that I will stop calling out the bad guys - and there are bad guys who need to be encountered and not placated. But the fact is that most people, even poor policy makers, are good people. It's about values and what to value and how to live according to those values and even about how to change. First and foremost I must be the change I wish to see in the world, as Gandhi advised. (HERE is a list of 10 things Gandhi said that might help when thinking about resolutions.)

Also, as you think about your resolutions (and each time that you review them), here are some places with some ideas about resolutions to be more earth and animal friendly and live more sustainably:

Sierra Club's GoGreen 2014
Green Living's Resolutions
Biological Diversity's Resolutions (You'll love the one about Hump Smarter. Be sure to visit endangeredspeciescondoms.com.)
Fair Trade Resolutions 


Expect some big changes with elpasonaturally that I hope will be helpful to all of us as we try to live more sustainably. Look for a new venue in the next few days.

You will notice that I have removed the list of blogs and links on this page. Many will be back. But it is time to re-e-value-ate.

Happy New Year!