Eric’s Sunday Sermon; The Art of the Recycle

Recycle is so cliché’ these days it has lost its meaning. Can our spirit recycle cycle? Some folks believe in re-incarnation, a recycle of the soul. Some say criminals just get recycled in and out of jail. Good family farmers recycle plants and such. I recycle love.

Now that above paragraph is accurate but goofy. You can use that word in so many different ways. And we did not even mention recycling plastics or space shuttles. I also like the concept of re-use. Oops that is really what we are talking about with recycle.

Here is a really cool thing. At least here in the USA we are not very much destroying our forests anymore. We are growing our trees on farms. Can you even imagine all the great oxygen that creates? Not to mention the great recycling of wood.

Check this out, I just copied and pasted here because it is so cool. Ways Christmas Trees Are Reused After the Holidays ...

THEY'RE USED AS LUMBER FOR HOMES. …THEY'RE MADE INTO UNDERWATER ECOSYSTEMS. ...THEY'RE USED TO BUILD SAND DUNES. ...THEY PROVIDE ENRICHMENT TO ZOO ANIMALS. ...THEY HELP RESTORE MARSHLAND. ...THEY'RE USED AS AN ENERGY SOURCE. ...THEY'RE MADE INTO PATHS FOR HIKING TRAILS. ...THEY'RE TRANSFORMED INTO ART. Dec 29, 2016 mentalfloss.com › article › 9-ways-christmas-trees-are-reused-after-holidays So if you have land, grow Christmas trees J

Cardboard recycled is used to make cereal boxes and the like, tissues and printing or writing paper, paperboard, paper towels,. It's also made into more corrugated cardboard. I think toilet paper too. I am going to press LEGO into making their stuff with resin and recycled cardboard --- What do you think on that?

Sorry but recycling as above takes a lot of energy. So it is not a winner on fossil fuel use. And you cannot, to date, recycle the heavy metals in Solar Panels yet. Figure that out, our next billionaire. Big old wind powered generators kill birds. But four on the corners of you house do not. Wind is renewable, but we do not say that.

Get a chuckle here. You should not throw out old cotton underwear. Buy pure cotton ones. And then put them in your compost/mulch deal. Cotton loves to be recycled. The plants that grow cotton give us cleaner air and jobs to millions. I am pretty sure Hemp is the same deal. I also just love Bamboo.

Zero population growth is a problem. It sounds great. It looks great. It stops the notion of having many children. The problem is that it hits intellectuals and not areas where birth rates are astounding and really not good. I do not want to be rude here but some folks should have more than two and some folks should not have one. A child in a slum in India is not worth less than a woman sent to Harvard who develops a vaccine. You decide your conscience here. Tough choices in a world with issues.

And is there anything more beautiful in life than a child born into abject poverty and despair rising up in love and contribution. Basketball players are not heroes. That child is and who I tell my children to emulate. Holes in my shoes. Youngest of 6, without a father present, adopted and mocked as illegitimate. What to heck. A bed, warmth and love abounding. Food to eat, great food! A fantastic school filled with fantastic educators. Friends galore. I have contributed. I wonder if my love will be recycled.

I like my favorite writings, nature places and music and on and on. I recycle. I revisit time and time again. Perhaps I have a disorder without a name. I constantly search for motivation and inspiration. I cry when I get it and it is like an adrenaline rush and I go back and get it again like an addict. If I have motivated and inspired three people then I have recycled that motivation and inspiration and I suffer from pride.

It seems worth contemplating if a “redo” is a recycle. There are these cool places in our brain that do some fun stuff. Practice makes perfect. Do it over and over again and you get better at it. Fail over and over again and you get better at trying. Love often and you get better at it.

In the quiet of the brain we can hear the rain

In the love of trying we must put off dying

In the hope of making we are not faking

In the desire to do better we are not the quitter

In loving over and over we look for no cover

In our everlasting quest we settle only for the best

In our togetherness we find foreverness

Sorry I digressed into a poetry my son is teaching me. I do not know if it is poetry of a style but we like it. We will continue to recycle it until we become experts at it. Again my excitement is recycled.

The sound of silence is something I adore. Holding your child’s hand driving down the highway on a road trip and holding your daughters hand in silence repeats a love everlasting. Is repeating recycling? There is a space where I grow away from great friends. At my age they are chasing money for whatever and travel the world and build really great homes. I do not do so. Maybe I am lazy. But they ask me questions about life and love and our spirit. My home is built on recycled love and inquiry. I cannot grasp the notion of each given gifts and those gifts are different and diversity and geographic demographics and poor and rich. I am marveled at it. But I recycle and recycle my thoughts and recycle the reading of different scriptures and I will 1,000 more times without answer. “The quest must be redone over and over again for the answers are the end of the road.”

Now if there is a beautiful recycle it is love. Take my ex-wife, for me that is. An angel. She began with me as the woman I loved so much it was crazy. By now over 40 years later our love has recycled and recycled to where it looks nothing like those wild days leading to marriage. We just love chatting and gossiping about our 30 something babies. How fun.

I just cannot and will not grasp this concept of doing well. Fine, my life is well in many regards. Good on me and my others. But if I did not recycle my trying to do better then death resides in me. The avoidance of death is a recycling of the need to grow better. Yet death may be the recycling of our soul up to a great recycling place with God. I don’t know about that.

Love takes no real energy to recycle. With a good ‘let go’ life lends itself to a rebirth. I have been reborn and recycled. I can even do it every day, nay every moment. I messed up but I create a new me. Hourly is easy with redos and practice. Over and over again.

Perhaps I do not do well. But so many return to me. Or do I return to them. Love is more often a return than a beginning. We get lost and grab that compass and hang on and it leads us back to love. Let your compass guide you to return on your journey back home here where there is love just for you.