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I am starting this month’s column with a very depressing quote from author and theologian Brian McLaren.

“Our global civilization as currently structured is unstable and unsustainable. Ecologically, our civilization sucks out too many of the Earth’s resources for the Earth to replenish, and it pumps out too much waste for the Earth to detoxify. Economically, our civilization’s financial systems are complex, interconnected, fragile, and deeply dependent on continual economic growth. Without continual economic growth, financial systems will stumble toward collapse. But with economic growth, we intensify and hasten ecological collapse. In addition, our global economic systems distribute more and more money and power to those who already have it, creating a small network of elites who live in luxury and share great political power while billions live in or near poverty with little political power…. As we face increasing ecological and economic instability, social unrest and conflict will also increase.… Welcome to reality. ”

As people who care about life and the health of our planet, this truth is very depressing. What can we do? Are we helpless? To some extent, the answer to that question is “yes.” In the big picture, maybe we are helpless, but in the small picture, in our little neighborhood, we are not. I know this to be true, and I’ll start with the backstory.

In 1980, my husband Allen’s father died of cancer at the age of 58, most likely caused by Agent Orange when he was serving our country in Vietnam. It was a very sad time, to say the least. There was lots of family time and memory talk, and something that Allen’s younger sister Margaret said stuck in my head. 

She said that this tragedy taught her a lesson: to not let a day go by without telling someone that you love them, or saying a kind word to the man picking up trash along the road, or helping an old person or a child cross the street, because you never know whether that person will be here tomorrow. 

I remember where I was sitting when she told me that. And I remember where I was sitting a year later when I got the telephone call to tell me that Margaret had been killed in a car crash on her way to work that morning. 

I would never have a chance to tell her how much she meant to me, not how much she would be missed. Because of her, I will never let a day go by without saying or doing something nice for someone with love. We will never know whether that person, or animal, or plant will be here tomorrow, so all we can do is treat it with love while we are here.

What does this mean for our dying planet? Maybe nothing, but maybe it’s all that we can give. It means stopping to help the turtle get across the road before it gets run over by a car. Maybe it means cutting the kudzu out of the struggling tree so that it can breathe. Maybe it means planting some little plants in the ditch by the road to stop erosion. Maybe it means using dish towels instead of paper towels or handkerchiefs instead of tissues. Maybe it means using grandma’s old dishes instead of paper plates.

Maybe it simply means treating the world around us with love, knowing that the world that we know today may not be here tomorrow.