It’s easy to regurgitate what the the media deems as green worthy for this day. It’s not easy bringing my authentic self to you, sharing my most heartfelt life changing experiences and synthesizing them so we can learn together. So lets briefly hit on what most green media spent most of their time talking about, then we can get to the lesson.
Jon and Kate Gosselin, the heads of the crowded Pennsylvania household featured on the hugely popular TLC show, have recently made a push to have a more Earth-friendly lifestyle.
Some TV experts have applauded the efforts.
“This woman not only raises a family of eight kids — she also recycles, she buys organic food whenever possible, she buys local food whenever possible and she’s overcome a lot of the obstacles a lot of people are still tripping on,” gushed Sarah Snow, a green-living expert and TV host, during an appearance on the show.
On the converse other green bloggers are sounding off! The only green they see is caused by nausea over Jon and Kate’s attempts.
various quotes from environmental blogs today
“Sure, the family might have installed solar panels and made a fuss over recycling, but with eight little carbon footprints running around on the Earth, America’s most televised family is hardly non-consumptive, charge some greenies.”
“No matter what this family does, it could NEVER go green,” writes one blogger on Treehugger.com. “The most green families are those with one child or none. So this family has absorbed the CARBON FOOTPRINT OF 8 FAMILIES. This is very greedy!!!”
All the rock throwing aside, I’m into providing you content that is filled with lessons and moving your spirit to grow straight up from deeply rooted green values and ethics.
Hence, my real time experience watching the news this morning. Have you ever turned on the news and as you walked by the TV, stopped, and said, “Say what?” Turns out, this very nice guy, at least he seemed very down to earth, came home from work and found his house demolished. When I first looked at the tube I started laughing. Can you imagine this happening to you? How could it happen?
Here’s the short of it.
CARROLLTON, Ga. — Turns out GPS [Global Positioning System] isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
A crew using coordinates from a global positioning system demolished a 60-year-old home in Carrollton earlier this week, but it was the wrong house. The home’s owner, Al Byrd of Atlanta, said he heard about the mistake when a neighbor called him to tell him the house he grew up in — along with his family heirlooms — had been destroyed and thrown into Dumpsters.
Byrd said his father built the house by hand in 1950.
Byrd said he is talking with an attorney but hasn’t made any decisions on what to do. He said he’s gotten an apology from the companies who made the mistake
So, nonetheless, the takeaway for me was how horrible I felt after enjoying a good belly laugh at this guys expense was so NOT green. The moment this epiphany hit me was when he was interviewed by a reporter and the camera showed him finger pointing to the home that was intended to be demolished 100 yards away, and with voice choked up he was clearly holding back some tears.
The reporter was stunned. She even said “way over there!”. And he said, “Yes, waaaaayyyy over there!”
At that moment something rose up in my heart and I just ached for that man and his loss. Then I realized that being green is getting connected to your fellow human beings with compassion and empathy. Green is being nice to yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually and of course all those you love and like around you. Just two days ago I blogged [how pure is your heart of green] on this same symptom of somehow thinking I could be exempt from opening my heart to all the reward and opportunity for me to grow personally by embracing a lifestyle of green awareness. Maybe that’s what I’m saying, being deeply rooted in green means that I have something special and sacred to me personally that will change me deep within and continue to align me with my purpose. Perhaps I’m defining who I am as man, unaware of how under-rated the rewards of green can impact ones life.
I used to believe I could compartmentalize my green consciousness even in my first couple weeks of Hart of Green entering the blogosphere. How quickly I discovered once again, you can’t fake the funk. You can run but you can’t hide. If I’m not willing to be green universally on and off this blog, and own it with conviction, then I should shut this blog down and make room for someone that walks the talk and delivers on his words of green.
Being connected to people, to nature with compassion is the heart, nut and bolts of green. These other things, solar panels, hybrid cars, and recycling garbage are only scratching the surface.
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Kendal
on 12 Jun 2009 at 1:02 am
That story about Al Byrd is so sad! Plus everyone knows GPS is massively flawed, I was trying to use it once to walk three kilometres when I was on a holiday, and it led me into the packing docks of a shopping centre ;_; Not the casino I was looking for!
As for the Jon&Kate debate, I think a lot of gung-ho greenies are, in a lot of situations, quick to accuse someone of not doing “enough” which just deters people from wanting to change at all, and gives environmentalists a bad name! The fact that they have tried to make their life more green is in itself a great thing, and if they are raising eight children with the same care for the environment, then in a couple of decades that’s eight more environmentally aware adults.
Baby steps, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.
I Make Thousands of Dollars a Month Posting Links on Google from Home
on 12 Jun 2009 at 4:14 pm
Hey, great post, very well written. You should post more about this.
I Make Thousands of Dollars a Month Posting Links on Google from Home
on 12 Jun 2009 at 4:57 pm
Hey, great post, very well written. You should post more about this. I’ll certainly be subscribing.
jerry
on 13 Jun 2009 at 2:26 pm
And to see Al Byrd getting all choked up when he was pointing to the house that was supposed to be bulldozed…oh lord, my gut just ached for him.
It has to be sort of like that feeling when you accidently dry one of your favorite peices of clothes and when you open the dryer door, your heart sinks and your spellbound by how much you did shrink that ever so expensive garment you love so much.