An Ex-Mighty Duck and the Trickiness of Invitation

by Dan Masterton

So, Mighty Ducks: Game Changers? I’m in. I appreciate the half-step away from pure reboot, and if the pilot is telling at all, it’ll be a light romp not unlike the Disney Channel classics of yore. And who couldn’t use a bit of one-dimensional flat characters with predictable stubborn growth arcs and easy humor? I’m delighted.

As my wife and I were chuckling through the pilot — especially almost every time Nick (Maxwell Simkins), the lovable sidekick and host of the second-most popular youth hockey podcast in Minnesota, opened his mouth — I was also struck by how Nick and main character, Evan (Brady Noon), tackle the tall task before them.

Game on. #TheMightyDucksGameChangers, an Original Series, starts streaming March 26 on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/yOVNOzAq5n

— Disney+ (@disneyplus) February 24, 2021

If you’re in the dark, I’ll just say that the Ducks have become so high-powered that their supremacy and obsessive culture has made them the enemy. Evan has been freshly cut, too slow and behind the developmental curve, and he and his mom are starting a new team that will bring back the fun that rec league hockey has lost. In short order, he needs four teammates to join Nick and him so they can register a new team by the league deadline.

As a pastoral minister and as the friend who often feels like I’m doing a lot of initiating and not always receiving quite so many invites in turn, I was struck — and felt seen — by Nick and Evan’s manner of recruiting.

First, Evan invites a few people one on one in conversations. Props to you, Evan! There’s nothing like the retail effect of that face-to-face invitation to mobilize people. Unfortunately for him, he gets shot down each time. Frustrating!

Next, Nick, the savvy preteen podcaster, offers to AirDrop an invite to everyone lunching in their middle school cafeteria. As everyone around them gets the ping on their phones, we see a montage of sneers, as people dismiss the notion. No one bites; the mass appeal strikes out. However, sometimes this sort of low-cost exposure to a new opportunity can help grease the skids toward eventual commitment a bit. Nonetheless, no quick gratification here! Worth a try. Gotta wait and see.

After some more steeling of nerve and a little pep talking, Evan needs to get it done in the eleventh hour. Once more, in the lunchroom, he makes a mass appeal. This time, rather than a passive e-blast, he throws down a lunch tray while standing on a table and delivers a plea from the heart. His appeal to break from the norm and join an oddball crew secures the four yeses he needs. Reinforcement of the initial blast? Effective pathos appeal? A mix of a few things? No matter how, way to go, Evan!

Man is this relatable, in social life and in ministry. Thinking here especially of pastorally connecting people to programs, events, etc. deep temptation is there to rely entirely or mostly on easy, wide-reaching, passive marketing: e-blasts to large existing listservs, posts to social media platforms, printing and hanging flyers, making an announcement over the PA or at a Mass. That stuff is important, helps move the needle, and gives people an easy way to catch on to something. But as much as we’d love for a social post to go viral or get shared repeatedly, it rarely does. We know the retail ministry is what reinforces the passive stuff and personally engages and develops interest. But even then, it just often feels like people are averse, low-commitment apathetics sometimes.

I know among Millennials, my social frustration is frequently that people wait for others to commit first. The frequent response to invitations was “who’s going?” or “who will be there?” And in my snide INFJ-ness, I want to say “you and me”!

Now working with Millennials and Gen-Z’ers, I see a lot of interest in faith and justice, and a lot of desire to come together around common interests and causes. The trouble here is often follow-through, a disconnect between stated interest and the commitment needed to do outreach and then show up for stuff. It’s especially tough, as my job was already part-time and largely remote, even before the pandemic made it almost 100% remote. I don’t have the preexisting relationships or clock time to build and utilize those relationships. Maybe the pandemic has made this extra bad, but I worry that it's become congenital.

There’s always room for outreach, invitation, and inclusion to be more thoughtful, more robust, more thorough. Yet, there’s also a point at which some of the burden falls to recipients. Are you really as interested in community life as you say? Will you take the risk to be a part of something new and unestablished? If you love hockey and love being part of a committed team, would you fall in with a ragtag new group with the right values?

Surely, programs could always be improved, and ministers could be more gregarious. But I also always hope (perhaps naively) that folks will realize their social capital a bit more. We certainly allow ourselves to be inundated with content across so many platforms and media, to an extent that can get overwhelming. Yet, it's all content that we’ve self-curated and invited into our feeds and inboxes.

It was interesting in this show to watch a pair of 12-year-old protagonists attempt to walk the outreach tightrope, and I was rooting for them to make it across to a positive end. I think we could all do well to acknowledge the power we have as recipients of invitation. Part of it could be filtering down the breadth of our feeds and inboxes a bit; maybe we're each due for a little spring cleaning of unsubscribing to e-blasts or unfollowing a few accounts we don't keep up with. More importantly, though, most all of us could do to be more consistently responsive, especially to non-generic, more personal outreach, and to place higher value on replying to friends, to ministers, and also to the invitations from God.

Zahm House: Our Flawed and Beloved Home

by Dan Masterton

Over the ten years of our relationship, my wife has had cause to poke fun at me for plenty of reasons. Chief among them may be my love for my hometown. Her barbs are well deserved as I irrationally use superlatives for most things -- the best park district, the greatest rec league competition, etc. What she calmly points out is that there is no way I could possibly know this, and it leaves me to admit that making such claims is pretty silly and delusional.

Over time, I’ve softened. While I still sing the praises of Arlington Heights, Illinois, I also see a bigger picture. Plenty of friends and family members grew up in other towns that were great in their own right, places these folks still have affection for and enjoy visiting. I’ve also realized that my hometown is excessively homogenous, extraordinarily privileged (as am I, and its current white inhabitants), and unfortunately, has recently been the site of hateful demonstrations. I think I appreciate my hometown more because I have come to understand its weaknesses as well as its strengths, and can love it for what it is while wanting it to be more and be better.

I am an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, Class of 2011. When Domers find one another out in the world, the first follow-up question could perhaps be grad year or major or extracurriculars, but it is most likely “what dorm did you live in!?” Notre Dame doesn’t have Greek life, so the residence halls straddle a middle area between being cold, utilitarian buildings you just live in and being immersive fraternities and sororities.

As an incoming freshman with a brother about to graduate, I had the chance to try to secure a place in Sorin College through him. I thought briefly about it and declined; I wanted to be tossed into the deep end of the random generator, for better or worse. When my assignment populated to my online portal, the code was ZA… for Zahm Hall.

Notre Dame by choice, Zahm by the grace of God, we (and some of our t-shirts) say. Over the coming weeks and months, anecdotes, online chatter, and even the hallowed RedBook that arrived in the mail built up a mysterious and lofty image.

Frosh-O (Freshmen Orientation) and the early community events were a crash course in learning group chants (house house HOUSE HOUSE), basic history (we are Zahm House, whether others called it that or not), and the ubiquitous importance of trying to pick up girls. The early months in the dorm were a speedy immersion into the norms and low-hanging fruit of college social life, from beers that only came in multiples of 30 to beer bears and case races.

Section 2A from freshman year (2007-08)

I was a bit lost, uninterested in all of that. I had found an anchor point with a Church choir; I had gained a small group of mostly female friends through an old high school connection; but a social life founded on sober fun and conversation felt unfeasible, especially in my own home. Then one Saturday night, I was walking the halls and found a few other freshmen guys sitting on a futon, watching college football, and talking about sports. And with no booze in sight. Somehow, I joined them, and they welcomed me. This became a regular occurrence over our four years, with a rotating cast and a gradual inclusion of a few drinks as we got older.

Back in high school, and then also into college, my choice when in the midst of drinking, drug use, and/or sexual promiscuity was simply to opt out and to discourage it to friends, both before and after it happened -- it was the best and most I could muster at that age. Zahm’s “sixers” (enlarged quads for six guys) had blowouts “on the reg”; beer clouds wafted into stairwells nearly every weekend; and occasionally, you’d see girls stumbling through the hall, either before or after parietals required students to be out of the opposite sex dorms. It’s hard in retrospect, even if I never saw it, to wonder what sort of alcohol or drug abuse or sexual misconduct may have been happening just a few doors down.

I think my complicity comes in the way I embraced the chip-on-the-shoulder culture in Zahm. We relished the ire of other men’s dorms and built up the mystique we presumed from other women’s dorms; we perpetuated insular things like the NFS (“no foreign sausage”) rule barring males from other dorms at our parties; we heard the ignorant pep rally chants from other dorms of “Ole, ole, ole, Zahm’s gay” and joined in. Were other men’s dorms similarly dangerous or toxic? Probably, at least to some extent.. But Zahm as a whole, and even me individually, leaned into the tension and inflated it. And that wedge helped paved the road to closure.

Some freshmen invited to "come get some" during Torquemada 2008.

For many memories that make me chuckle, a cringy element lurks just behind the laughter. Dorm-wide reply-all emails often were uproariously funny, with many even creating burner Gmail accounts (before burners were a thing) to anonymously send their message. Imagine getting an email uplifting the traditional practice of a whole-dorm streak through the student center during finals week… and it’s from Teddy Roosevelt, who signed it “Speak softly, and carry a big stick”. But you realize in retrospect that it was advocating the continuation of a wholly inappropriate tradition. Around 11:50pm on many Sunday nights, a ragtag gang of guys with trash-can drums, kazoos, spare musical instruments, and off-key singing would lead a “parietals parade” to notify the women that it was time to leave. For as funny as verse two was -- “Boy time! Boy time! Preserve the community!” -- it only came after verse one, which when sang nicely was “Parietals parade, get the (ladies) out!”

Yet, there are the more purely good and wholesome things, too.

For a socially unconfident freshman who didn’t want to drink, and wondered if he needed to transfer out, Zahm is where I found my guys. At first, it was watching sports stone cold sober; then, it was a junior friend who saw in me a sophomore who wanted to enjoy a beer now and then without getting hammered, and talk about more than the weather or football; finally, it became a comfortable dynamic of social drinking while just hanging out.

For a Frosh-O schedule chock full of boisterous chants, painfully awkward mingling with girls, and competitive games, we also showed freshmen how to pray. While night one saw us staff members donning war paint, shouting into bullhorns, and leading the charge running in packs, night two had a solemn candle-lit walk to the Holy Cross cemetery. Freshmen set candles at the graves of the CSCs who went before us. We then gathered them at the grave of Fr. Zahm with our priest in residence to reflect on our namesake, a renowned priest and scientist, whose dorm houses the Chapel of St. Albert the Great, patron saint of scientists. Finally, we sat them down under the dome, where each upperclassmen shared a short story of adversity, stress, and anxiety from freshman year, but added the prayerful caveat: remember, she is your mother, and pointed up to the Golden Dome. This was our small way to ground new students in four years of Marian devotion.

On Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night, whenever I got the urge to take a shoeless walk down to the chapel for 10pm daily Mass, I never went alone; there was always a roommate or section mate to go with me or a friend already in the pews happy to slide over and make room for me to join them.

Our cheers to four years on the
steps of the Main Building

And last year, when a dear friend and old roommate of mine got married, I saw the most Zahmbies I’ve seen in one place since graduation. I think of all the weddings where various invited guests are no-shows or have a conflict -- not In this case. Here a group of guys with so many different personalities, spanning six years of classes, who had roomed in different combinations and sections, all came. We all caught up, all introduced our wives and girlfriends, and all got to celebrate our beloved friend. I can’t think of another wedding with such a response except for this particular guy who was a hub of our community life in Zahm.

So as our Frosh-O signs had joked, even with the building 84 years standing and still erect, the active community of Zahm House ends in a few weeks. Being ten years out from last living there, I have some realism in my perspective. It probably wasn’t the greatest dorm ever; in fact, we never won dorm of the year awards -- though that’s because we never applied either. The building may be further renovated, ultimately renamed, eventually repurposed. And I think a detachment and surrender helps bring peace -- no name, no building, no tradition, no legacy is, or should be, bigger than student welfare, than a culture of welcome and support, than a respect for just policies. None of us can open the ResLife books and audit the case; I don’t appreciate the abrupt and final manner of sharing the decision in the dark of night; yet, I accept the ruling, and suspect it's well deserved and fully warranted by the exceedingly poor judgment and recalcitrant behavior over history and especially these last few years.

Senior day 2010, on the field

I try to keep processing my memories, straining and filtering the details so that I can relish the good and confront and acknowledge the bad. I hope others find similar perspective -- it's not wrong or weak to admit fault. One of Zahm’s last legacies may be one of a cautionary tale: build an identity; cultivate a community life; but don’t push past reasonable, needed boundaries of student welfare and safety. Or else you don’t deserve to continue. And for those of us who lived it, we can admit complicity in its weaknesses yet also extol its strengths.

Maybe this is a moment to reword and offer an old Zahm toast:

We drink one for the Irish;

We drink one for the Zahm;

We drink one for the 84 years
before they shut it down.

*cheers*

Published at Grotto Network: 5 Ways to Find Direction in Your Life

by Dan Masterton

One of the great blessings of staying close to my faith throughout high school, college, and young adult life has been the grace of discernment. This is a time of life when there are tons of major decisions to make. The Catholic spirituality of discernment provides us such a wealth of wisdom and structure through which to make faithful, thoughtful choices.

I found bits and pieces of help through my time as a Mentor-in-Faith with Notre Dame Vision, through my theology classes and thoughtful college friends, through intermittent exposure to Ignition spirituality, and now through my work in Vocation Ministry with the Viatorians, working to support both those discerning religious life as well as discernment of all vocations and states of life, especially among young adults.

My latest article at Grotto Network tries to distill some of the central tenets I've learned and practice into something nicely usable. 

"We like to ask kids, “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” When we become adults, our questions and answers get a little more real. We can still hope and dream, but we have to conquer a certain amount of naivete and adopt more realism. We can still follow our passions but also must find a way to make a decent living, too.

There may be times when we’re moving in a clear direction, and other times when we’re more uncertain. So how do we work our way toward a life-path that’s fulfilling and stabilizing? We could certainly do some trial and error, trying different jobs and living situations and locations to see what feels right. We could have some informal conversations with family and friends. But we may find greater progress and richer answers if we adopt a more intentional — perhaps more spiritual — approach.

Whether you’re looking for a fresh path, or to retool and refine the one you’re already on, consider these ideas for finding direction in life."

Read the whole article at Grotto Network, and follow their social media to stay in the loop. 

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Time to Retire "Pro-Life" -- It's Lost its Meaning.

by Dan Masterton

I’m a big Parks and Rec fan -- relatable, lovable funny characters, true-to-life relationships, the real and the absurd side by side in an earthy yet zany small town. One of the iconic characters and quotables is Pawnee City Manager Chris Traeger, expertly played by Rob Lowe.

Chris is an excessively perky, optimistic person prone to frequent hyperbole. He loves to describe people, things, and moments as “literally” (pronounced “LIH-troll-ee”) his favorite, the best, etc., despite logic suggesting his declarations could not actually be legitimate superlatives without having considered every possible alternative in the universe.

Nonetheless, the peppering of the word “literally” into everyday conversation caught on with a lot of people. While many used it jokingly in an homage to this delightful character, of course some people used it as an augmentative word, an odd misuse meant to bolster the magnitude or emphasis of what these people were saying. And thus, literally -- a word that is “used to emphasize the truth and accuracy of a statement or description” -- came to also have an informal usage: “used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible” (Webster).

Words can become meaningful or meaningless. We can make up words to describe things that are as yet indescribable, and we can also butcher language to invent words that are downright inaccurate, empty, or preposterous (my personal favorite: traveshamockery, used to describe things that are both a travesty, a sham, and a mockery). Sometimes, we use what we’ve got in order to make sense of complex issues; the original intention is usually to increase coherence and clarity, but the result can instead be oversimplification, reduction, or even downright inaccuracy.

I’m not old enough to know the exact origins of the moniker “pro-life,” but as I grew up, I saw the word associated with a social conservatism that sought to uphold the value and dignity of life, chiefly by opposing the legality of and rights to abortion. As political and ideological trends have ebbed and flowed in American politics, and as emphases from Church leaders have tugged back and forth, the emphasis of being “pro-life” has often been mostly, chiefly, or entirely on opposing abortion rights.

Republicans have been the party that consistently and thoroughly sought to limit and push back abortion rights. Simultaneously, they’ve continued to support the death penalty, to support inhumane and draconian immigration policies like family separation and child detention, to oppose reasonable gun control while sustaining excessive gun rights, to put little attention on paid paternity leave, universal health-care, and systemic public educational improvements, and more. To say that this package of positions is pro-life is not only inaccurate; it betrays the definition of the word.

Rather than standing for policies that uphold and advance the value and dignity of life itself, pro-life has come to stand for a narrow, specific agenda, one that aims to elect politicians and sustain the power of a party that will target abortion laws, court appointments, and the overturning of legal precedent. This is neither what the word pro-life literally means nor does it provide any meaningful insight as to the people and policies it modifies.

It is more fitting and accurate to describe the Republican Party, as relates to life and the single issue of abortion, as “anti-abortion-rights,” since it steadily fights to limit or eliminate these rights. Relatedly, while Democrats champion other related issues around women, mothers, and families, their stance on abortion has become primarily about preserving and expanding abortion rights and less about the idea of “choice,” and ought to be described as “pro-abortion-rights”.

If we are to realize a refreshed, renewed approach, a different term with a new chance at really meaning something is in order. Ideally, this would be a word or phrase that would have to be earned by parties, politicians, and policies.

My studies, spirituality, and work and teaching in service and justice with young people has been hugely informed and shaped by Cardinal Bernardin’s consistent ethic of life -- the idea, symbolized by Christ’s seamless garment on the way to the cross (John 19:23-24), that life is completely and inviolably dignified and valuable from conception to natural death. In my teaching and ministry, this has included sharing my personal view and the teaching of the Church that abortion is absolutely morally wrong. Teaching and living this ethic also includes fighting these threats to the unborn as well as issues effecting children, families, adults, and the elderly, including but not limited to education, health-care, gun control, the death penalty (with fresh catechetical explanation), end-of-life care and medical ethics, and sexual ethics.

American politics presents Catholics, and many others of goodwill, who strive to uphold this life ideal with a false political dilemma -- choose either a “pro-life” party that opposes abortion but neglects a broader culture of life or a party that protects and expands abortion but otherwise dedicates itself to many crucial life issues. Third parties like the American Solidarity Party offer an alternative, but the consideration here should broaden beyond just what party to support or which candidate to vote for.

The consistent ethic of life offers the best measuring stick for how a party, politician, or policy reflects much of what is at the core of our Gospel values. Though I will always seek out nuance and deliberate analysis in political and social thought, I also know that succinct monikers can be galvanizing in stirring and growing support.

I think the closest thing we have right now is the “Whole Life Movement,” an alignment of pro-life Democrats, progressives, and feminists who ascribe to the fullness of the consistent ethic of life. I could imagine a healthy slate of Whole Life politicians and leaders -- Democrats who want to contain and reduce abortion rights access to make abortion safe and legal but very rare while still supporting universal health-care, addressing climate change, and constraining second amendment rights responsibly; Republicans who carry their party’s opposition to abortion rights but buck their party with dignified, compassionate immigration stances, a desire to bring health-care to everyone, and sensibility about checking unlimited second amendment rights; and I could imagine third parties that acknowledge the place where the majority of the country is on abortion building out a left-center to right-center coalition on consensus social policies.

Much like the memories of past seasons and retired players,
it's time to send the word "pro-life" up to the rafters,
where we might look at it and remember how it was used
but not speak it and apply it in modern life anymore.

Regardless of where we land on what to call this -- and no, I will never accept irregardless as a word -- I am more than ready to retire the word “pro-life.” I don’t want to hear it to describe any party, any politician, or any legislation. I don’t want to hear it to describe any judge, any legal precedent, or any potential court case or side. And I certainly don’t want to use it to describe myself, my faith tradition, or my Church. Its meaning has been distorted to the point of meaninglessness. Pro-life should be retired into the rafters of English language, where it can soon begin collecting dust, instead giving way to a new descriptor and hopefully a new movement.

Published at Grotto Network: Why Not Drinking in College is Totally Normal

Finishing up high school and heading into college, I felt like sort of social oddball. Even my most conservative friends who had steered clear of drinking previously were trying out a night of drinking -- people wanted to learn their tolerance, figure out their levels, and be ready for alcohol-based socializing in college. Not me. I knew I wasn't interested in drinking until 21; my concern was figuring out how to find my anchor points and make friends when I was so uninterested in the main ways people would likely be doing that.

First of all, this process taught me one of the clearest ways to figure out social plans in a way that worked for me, one that I still largely use into my adult life and my 30s:

It wasn’t that people who mainly preferred going to parties would have been bad friends; it’s that the point of going to these parties was mostly or mainly to get drunk. I learned that a good way to test a social situation for me was to ask: What are they really doing? If a group was playing drinking games and calling it a competition, or booming loud bass music and calling it dancing, it just felt like a thinly veiled excuse to get hammered or worse. When my more low-key friends were sitting around, even if someone was sipping a beer or two, we were just hanging out. Maaaaaaybe someone was drinking, but no one was getting drunk. This sort of situation where drinking wasn’t the thing we were doing was my preference. These friends had that approach, and I wanted this kind of friend to be “my people.”

Secondly, I learned how to make friends and then sprinkle in social drinking second. I think other people's approach probably worked fine and yielded plenty of friendships and social opportunities. For me, my sort of backwards approach gave me something that feels more sustainable and positive.

Read the whole article at Grotto Network, where you can check out lots of great articles and videos to help you make an impact, navigate life, and keep the faith.

The archive of my contributions is also housed there at this link.

Published at Grotto Network: Feeling Tedious? Change Your Perspective of Time

by Dan Masterton

Those of us who went through Catholic high schools almost certainly became familiar with Kairos. It the apt name for a retreat offered at many of these schools. Adapted from the Ignitian Spiritual Exercises, the retreat calls for young people to let go of their routines, their calendars, their watches, their schedules, their technology -- and instead be present to one another and to the presence of God, and see the significant impact that can make. For most participants, that context is rare and perhaps intimidating but cultivates vulnerability and trust to help young people build or rebuild stronger relationships and reengage their lives of faith anew.

For adults, especially during a pandemic with safer-at-home orders and cabin fever, and also during a time of major social unrest, the concept of kairos challenges us to find a different relationship to time and the potential stresses and agitations it can bring.

We can get really bogged down in chronological time in our daily lives. It’s often necessary — and indeed healthy — to maintain a schedule and track our commitments carefully. It keeps us organized, respects time as a limited resource, and helps us anticipate and prepare for specific tasks and moments. Yet, we also hopefully know that when our lives are completely scheduled out with no space for spontaneity, we can end up slogging through life robotically. 

The idea of kairos can help us understand the complementary element that must be present within our chronological living. What does having a lot of “clock time” matter if it’s not meaningful? To tap into meaningful moments, we need to be willing to be vulnerable; we need to commit to being present when spending time with others; we need to approach interactions with an attitude of humble mutuality and reciprocal encounter. These underlying attitudes can help foster kairosmoments in our days, and when we experience more spontaneous kairos moments, they help underscore the positive impact of living out such values. While major moments like a milestone birthday party or a marriage proposal may be obvious kairos moments, smaller kairos moments can come in the regular flow of life with the right mindset. Easier said than done, I know.

Read the whole article at Grotto Network, where you can check out lots of great articles and videos to help you make an impact, navigate life, and keep the faith. The archive of my contributions is also housed there at this link.

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.