Published at Grotto Network: Can We Stay ‘Green’ During the Pandemic?

by Dan Masterton

A few weeks into following social distancing and safer-at-home policies, I was doing my usual excessive scrolling of social media one day. Normally, I can pretty easily navigate the waters of polarized opinions and way-too-hot takes up and down my feed. But one tweet and the surrounding commentary set me off a bit.

Talking about the increased dependence we now have on carryout meals and the single-use plastic elements it takes to deliver it, someone had shared "Glad we didn't completely outlaw single-use plastics yet!" The sarcasm and personal annoyance was clear -- here's someone who is tired of laws requiring us to pay for plastic bags or bring our own reusables, someone who isn't interested in transitioning to reusable silicon and metal straws, and who otherwise has no time for laws that nudge us toward greener living.

To some extent, as silly as I feel it is, it's simply partisan differences of opinion. Some folks don't think this stuff should be legislated and compelled by law and costs/fines. Ok, fine. I disagree, but fine.

Where you lose me is when you don't acknowledge the data relating to production-based pollution, facts about related pollution of oceans and waterways, and patterns of lazy overconsumption and excessive consumerist attitudes across big portions of society.

Another layer to this silliness is that some people with these perspectives do not make a distinction between emergency circumstances and everyday life. For example, widespread purchasing and consumption of bottled water is totally justifiable and necessary when a community is hit with a natural disaster like a hurricane or tornado or is facing a crisis of access like with leaded water in Flint. Similarly, people in emergent situations, like those who are homeless, should be provided bottled water to meet the emergent need of their thirst while they do not have stable access to clean drinking water from the tap. Or, take the current situation, where it is not safe for us to dine in on washable plates with washable silverware and napkins, etc., when we depend on plastics and styrofoam for carryout/delivery food. All of these are emergencies that warrant relaxations. But everyday life does not include these situations.

I tried to find some calm and perspective and spell this out in a neater package:

Some of the progress we have been making socially in green living is getting stunted. And in many cases, this is just fine. We need to be prepared to deviate from norms in order to protect ourselves and the common good.

When it comes to plastics, there are certain levels of usage that we just have to accept. It’s not safe right now to dine in and eat off washable plates with washable silverware, so the level of waste in carry-out will have to be weathered while we follow our rightfully imposed restrictions. 

We do not have to write ourselves a blank check for total disregard of the environment, however. And we don’t have to sit back and lower our standards permanently.

Read the full piece here at Grotto Network and check out my author archive here to read more of my work at GN.

Learn about your recycling program; clean and sort your materials for landfill, recycling, or compost; and do your small part -- it may not be huge in quantity but your knowledge, your example, and your subsequent conversations will move the needle in the right direction.

Glimpsing the Kingdom, Even in Lean Times

by Dan Masterton

Being mostly a stay-at-home dad is a definite and fitting call for me. On the upside, I’m around for my kids a lot and get to do a lot with them. On the other hand, sometimes doing things with me isn’t all that special.

Take, for example, my 3-year-old daughter, Lucy, and her bedtime routine. She watches a wind-down show, brushes her teeth, and tucks into bed for two stories. When we ask who she wants to read, she always chooses mom. On the three days when my wife, Katherine, works her 12-hour shifts as an inpatient nurse, she’s not home for bedtime and Lucy’s stuck with me; so on these days when mom is available, she’s a slam dunk choice. What’s more, when we’re at Gramma’s house or she visits us, Gramma leaps me in Lucy’s pecking order, too.

Now, this pandemic has created strange times for everyone. For us, it means being apart indefinitely. Katherine is a hospital nurse, and various nurses are taking shifts on COVID-19 units. She has been and will be working directly with virus-positive patients on some shifts. As a result, we felt we couldn’t risk exposure within our family, especially to our children. We surveyed our options -- nearby family, Airbnb rentals, etc. -- and weighed the logistics. The best all-around option was for me and the girls to relocate from our Chicago-suburban home to my in-laws’ house near Dallas. It is challenging but necessary.

Each of our first four nights here, Lucy chose Gramma for story time. No big surprise. But then, the fifth night, she stopped Gramma after the first book and asked her to get me... Up I sprang! I grabbed the book! I read! I turned off the light! I said our nighttime prayer together! I hid my excitement under a calm demeanor befitting a little kid’s bedtime.

Here’s the best part. Lucy usually sleeps with two or three of her favorite stuffed animals who enjoy the prime real estate under her arm and under the covers. I just settled in beside her, since we lay with her until she falls asleep. But then she reached her little hands past Bow the teddy bear’s head and reached for me. In a wonderfully clumsy and affectionate way, she sort of just grabbed the sides of my head and enveloped me into the bedtime cuddle.

I cried gentle tears. She fell asleep. I stayed a little longer than usual.

I’ve long believed that the fullest way we can know and experience the Kingdom of God is by being ready for the glimpses we catch of it. And it’s when we are definitely and fully doing God’s will, particularly in specific actions, that we get these peeks. We live our earthly lives in faith, hope, and love. In the Kingdom, faith is fulfilled and hope is realized; all that remains is love -- and our life in God’s Kingdom will be absolute and total love.

God’s Kingdom exists above and beyond time, and our state in heaven will be a boundless, timeless love. Meanwhile, in our earthly lives, we accept situations where we must be attentive to time, holding to schedules and respecting appointments. Yet, our spirituality craves moments of timelessness. These are kairos moments, where rather than counting the minutes and hours we are instead present to a reality that is not so constrained -- namely, love.

In moments like this, when my roller-coaster of a 3-year-old daughter is simply making a pure action of love, I glimpse the Kingdom. Three-plus years’ outpourings of love given to her to help her start becoming who God made her to be -- it then comes to me, not in a transaction but in a self-gift from a tiny human. Here, I become the recipient of a kairos moment of love from my daughter. Though the finite length of that moment may have been a few chronological minutes, the essence of that moment can live in me and my heart forever. And my ability to be present to it as it happens, and to hold it within me, is what builds my interior sense of the Kingdom. And it’s what then fuels my love in action to glimpse the Kingdom of God in relationships with others.

Friends, everything does not happen for a reason. God did not send a pandemic to teach a lesson. This virus is not the direct effect of some social or personal sin. However, God does allow bad and evil things to happen. Illness and pain are cruel. Death is a horribly difficult thing to face and process, both when we experience the passing of others as well as when we contemplate our own mortality. Amid so many stories of heavy weight, I feel most melancholy about those who suffer and die with no visitors at their bedside, and I hope most strongly for courageous priests to be present for companionship and sacramental anointing.

The opportunity here is that, even as bad and evil is allowed to unfold, God remains with us and loves us without interruption. And His love moves with palpable velocity when it walks through our feet and is shared through our hands. The world is hurting deeply now, but God and His love dwell in every corner of it, not fleeing from the hurt but living ever present in its midst.

We all have opportunities to glimpse the Kingdom, both in the love we give by our actions and the way we receive others -- whether by the healing and care of health-care providers, by the resilience and steadiness of those who work to keep us fed, or by the solidarity we demonstrate by remaining at home and constraining our outings. When those things you believe and hope for are present, even in small moments, even amid wider hardship, God’s Kingdom breaks into a weary world. If our hearts are open and aware, these glimpses are consolation and fuel that propel God’s love forward through us, out to others, and all around our communities.