Love sweet love, It is what the world needs now.
Taking in the national news usually leaves me feeling less than hopeful. “They” keep talking about deep divisions in our communities. When I am in our community, I feel love and support and hope. When we gather and share a meal, leave no waste or clean up for our host, as an act of kindness, I feel love and unity.
Sharing a meal with a community member is a bonding experience. The food that is presented by those attending is delicious and you can feel the love that went into providing it for our shared dining table. Each person brings their own place setting and it is always a joy for me to see the diversity our community table is set with. It is art, fluid community art.
Last week, as someone was setting their place at the table, another member told me that was the dish pattern they grew up with. We both smiled. What a nice moment.
Our gatherings are a place of communal love where we study, discuss and take local action. A lot of our action goes towards helping individuals, from taking meals and sharing time with those who are in need to purchasing food from community members working hard to feed us.
We have been organizing zero-waste potlucks for almost 2 years. It is hard to believe. We have focused our actions towards moving our community to a zero-waste community. Initially that focused on diverting food from our landfill.
I recently enjoyed a conversation with Kenn Webb, our local solid waste director and he shared the landfill has gained 6 months of life since their November study. Wow!
We continue our work in this area and will be enhancing a local drop off site at Just Ripe Farm this Thursday. We are also producing a poster and e-book of suggestions from the community on how to divert food from our landfill (thanks Althea and John). How nice.
This Spring, we took on a large project and helped make Rise and Shine’s fundraiser, Motown Memories, a 190 plate dinner, a zero-waste event. The response from that has been amazing. We have had so many requests for place settings for events we have recognized a need in our community and Moving to Conservers has stepped up to engage and satisfy that need. We have embarked on creating a member-owned sharing cooperative in our community.
During our gathering on August 1st, we asked for volunteers to be on the steering committee to make this cooperative a reality. We had 7 volunteers within 2 minutes. Many thanks to Susan, James, Rob, Owen, Kathleen, John and me. Ed Carroll of Brevard SCORE was in attendance and agreed to help us with this loving creation. Thank you Ed.
As some of you know, I was a city councilor in West Virginia for 4 years. It was an interesting experience to say the least. I learned a lot. I learned the power of dedicated citizens to change a community. I learned the power of positive works to unify a community, across so-called divisions. Aren’t these divisions simply differences, diversity? I learned there and here, that bringing citizens together to celebrate love and goodness draws a bigger crowd than events to protest. I have learned that every dollar I spend is a vote and it is one reason John and I focus on supporting local business and buying used items whenever possible.
I learned as a child that it is nice to share. A sharing cooperative seems like a great way to connect with more members of our community and gives us another opportunity to be nice to a neighbor.
The thought of living in a community that doesn’t create waste is almost mind-blowing. We live in a household that is very close to being zero-waste and it is very nice. It is fun too. It challenges our thinking. It is like a game to find new ways to meet our needs and wants while being as nice as we can to those we share a community with.
John and I attend public rallies from time to time. I have a standard sign I take with me, no matter what the event is about. It says CHOOSE LOVE. I read a book many years ago that said there are basically 2 emotions, love and fear. With a little thought it is easy to see the results of choosing one over the other in how we approach a situation.
Choosing love is what led us to help start Moving to Conservers. We believe that becoming deeply connected to those in our local community through love will change our world. By focusing on being nice to our community by not creating waste and honoring the space we share with each other, helps us open our minds to new ideas and ways of life.
Our differences are not divisions. They are differences. We can choose to let them divide us or we can choose to seek to love, understand and honor the diversity they bring to our lives and ways of thinking.
We can choose love.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Martin Luther King Jr.
