Advice and Query 10:

Environmental Responsibility

 

from the Advices and Queries of Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative)

 

Note to the reader: Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) maintains a list of twelve advices and queries, one for each month of the year.

Each monthly meeting within the yearly meeting gathers once each month to consider the advice and query for the month. The monthly meeting’s answers are written down and submitted to the yearly meeting, as indicators of the monthly meeting’s current state. Excerpts from these answers are then read aloud to the yearly meeting at its annual session in mid-summer.

Advice and query 10, on environmental responsibility, are considered on the tenth month — that is, October — or as near to the tenth month as the monthly meeting can manage.

 

Advice

 

All of creation is divine and interdependent: air, water, soil, and all that lives and grows. Since human beings are part of this fragile and mysterious web, whenever we pollute or neglect the earth we pollute and neglect our own wellsprings. Developing a keen awareness of our role in the universe is essential if we are to live peacefully within creation.

The way we choose to live each day — as we manufacture, package, purchase and recycle goods, use resources, dispose of water, design homes, plan families and travel — affects the present and future of life on the planet. The thought and effort we give to replenishing what we receive from the earth, to keeping informed and promoting beneficial legislation on issues which affect the earth, to envisioning community with environmental conscience, are ways in which we contribute to the ongoing health of the planet we inhabit.

Preserving the quality of life on Earth calls forth all of our spiritual resources. Listening to and heeding the leadings of the Holy Spirit can help us develop qualities which enable us to become more sensitive to all life.

 

Query

 

• What are we doing about our disproportionate use of the world’s resources?

• Do we see unreasonable exploitation in our relationship with the rest of creation?

• How can we nurture reverence and respect for life? How I can we become more fully aware of our interdependent relationship with the rest of creation?

• To what extent are we aware of all life and the role we play? What can we do in our own lives and communities to address environmental concerns?